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Me and ADHD

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Re: Me and ADHD

#191

Post by User23 »

madamelic wrote: post #20

Fellow ADHD person: Get diagnosed and get a low-dose of meds. It helps _a lot_. You will likely hate the feeling they give you for the first week (you will genuinely feel high even on 10mg Adderall XR), along with nightmares and night sweats but after a few weeks, you'll suddenly be productive at a very normal level. I don't feel strung out nor is it some addiction. Ignore the people screaming about Adderall being "l…

> Ignore the people screaming about Adderall being "literal meth"

Just a fun fact: Literal meth is called deoxyephedrine when it's prescribed for ADHD. Anyone that was awake for intro Chem will know why.

Re: Me and ADHD

#192

Post by username90 »

ADHDthrow2323 wrote: post #174
bootstrapping wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll echo this; I'm a serial founder who was diagnosed with ADHD in his mid-forties. The stimulant medications do not make me "high", do not provide any kind of buzz. Rather, they have a moderating effect. Explaining this requires correcting the misunderstandings in the public realm of how adult ADHD presents, but in nutshell: * The (largely mental) hyperactivity is controllable, that is, I retain my creative ideas g…

> The (largely mental) hyperactivity is controllable, that is, I retain my creative ideas generation and interest in new things, but I am no longer governed by it, and As a person who is in their 1st week of medication, that is a HUGE relief. Thank you. I have a lot more to comment here but have a quiz (engineering undergrad) to do rn..lol. But I gotta say your description of you experience is the most comprehensive…

I got diagnosed as an adult and it was life changing for me, has been on them for 5 years. Here are some tips:

1. Never take stimulants to have fun, just take them to do tasks to progress your life. ADHD doesn't prevent you from having fun, and having fun with stimulants is what makes them addictive.

2. Take regular breaks from the medication. You wont get much done the first day or two after, so don't plan on doing anything except stay at home and procrastinate those days since your inattentive symptoms will be worse than usual.

3. Sometimes try to do tasks without medication. Having worse focus helps in some way since it means you must master a topic much more before you can complete the task. My guess is that many of the PRO's of ADHD comes from this, since it means instead of just completing a task and moving on you have been forced to master the subject way more than other people with similar grades/achievements. Think of two people with similar grades, one worked hard and did lots of practice problems while the other was lazy and never worked. Who do you think understands things better? What do you think happens if the lazy guy suddenly puts in the effort? That is what happens with ADHD medication.

Re: Me and ADHD

#193

Post by rustybelt »

madamelic wrote: post #69
aidenn0 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Get diagnosed and get a low-dose of meds. It helps _a lot_. You will likely hate the feeling they give you for the first week (you will genuinely feel high even on 10mg Adderall XR), along with nightmares and night sweats but after a few weeks, you'll suddenly be productive at a very normal level. I wonder if I could have persisted long enough with Adderall to find a theraputic effect if it had been during lockdown…

> (swapping meds for a year) Definitely feel you there. It's the worst part about psychiatric drugs and why I've bailed on almost everyone I've ever been on. It's that initial hump and having to struggle through ~two weeks of hell. My partner has run the gamut so he constantly assured me it was normal and that I'd be fine. >The one thing I'd like to add is that diet for me made a huge difference. I might as well not…

Low carb and one-meal-a-day intermittent fasting both make a huge difference for me. There's something about eating, carbs especially, that just dulls my ability to focus. My wife has been pushing me to get tested for food allergies and I plan to this year. Diagnosed ADHD as a child, fwiw.

Re: Me and ADHD

#194

Post by myth2018 »

I'm on a very similar position. I found my ADHD out just about a year ago. After failing in many areas and going through a divorce, I can see some light at the end of the tunnel now.

Here's what is working well for me:

- reducing the amount of decisions to make. The less, the better. Even my meals are now precooked and I just take them out of the freezer at lunch or dinner time

- 30 minutes of cardiopulmonary exercise

- Ritalin doesn't work really well for me. I don't know why, but muscle relaxers operate wonders. They make me feel a bit slow, but, after all, I think that is what I need. To slow down. It doesn't work 100% of the times, but when it does, the effect is really positive. It allows me to focus and think through things without other ideas popping in my mind.

- I used to feel all the guilt related to unfinished projects, and to punish myself really hard because of them before finally letting them go. My ex-wife was very detrimental on this aspect, making me feel real bad for my "lack of willpower" and stuff like that. Now I have a completely different attitude about unfinished projects. I just keep a file for every project, and register every idea when it pops up (during a walk, or when I'm having trouble getting asleep, for instance). The lack of sense of guilt by itself has been producing a very positive effect. I don't mind anymore if I don't finish even 1% of them. Life is more than that. And now I'm getting benefits from my "divergent" thinking, turning it into creativity. This last week I finished a challenging personal project thanks to an idea I had during some nights of insomnia I endured those days. And I'm feeling great.

- caffeine helps up to a certain point. I don't drink more than 400ml of coffee per day anymore. If I drink too much, I have some 30 minutes of high productivity and creativity and, then, my day gets ruined with lack of focus, anxiety, regrets for not having followed some great career paths when I had the chance, and so on.

- I still watch Netflix, but now during scheduled times. However, I try to be disciplined but not too hard on myself.

- Background white noise help a lot, especially working place noises now that I work from home. There are some nice ones on youtube. And, when I sleep, I always use a big and noisy fan (but I live on a warm region of my country).

Re: Me and ADHD

#195

Post by opiate_addict »

username90 wrote: post #178
driverdan wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Adderall is 100% addictive and is like meth but with less bio-availability and neurotoxicity. All stimulants are addictive and you will have physical side effects from discontinuing use.

> All stimulants are addictive and you will have physical side effects from discontinuing use. I love those side effects though. It is so nice to stop taking them and feel cozy and rest for a few days. The best description I have for it is that it feels like when you get home from a hard days work and are tired and go sit down in your sofa and just relax. Just that the feeling lasts for days! Awesome, right? I hate b…

It's a much more difficult withdrawal for many/heavy stimulants users. brain fog, zaps, depression lasting months, messed up dopamine/glutamate and other brain crap.

It sucks there aren't any good meds for addiction treatment for stimulants yet (naltrexone/bupe etc).

Quitting meth, cocaine, prescription stims is really really hard.

Re: Me and ADHD

#196

Post by TeMPOraL »

O_H_E wrote: post #52

Anybody else here thinks their ADHD influences some hoarding tendencies or fear-of-missing-out? I am basically a tab-opening machine. Whenever I come across any link that I feel might be helpful in some point in the future, I open it in the background knowing full well that I don't have time to look at it soon. Thank god for TheGreatSuspender, and SessionBuddy extentions.

Not diagnosed, but strongly suspecting. I have a tab hoarding tendency; it took me a decade to notice the problem, and years of fighting it, but I've recently managed to make by brain accept that the burden of lingering tabs is greater than any value I can expect to get from them - so every couple days, I have a "screw this, let's clean the slate" moment, where I just close the browser window and reopen it fresh.

I've also stopped saving links to stuff I found on-line, because I never revisit them anyway. I once thought my "to read" list was my most prized possession. Now I realize it was just a way of making my procrastination seem productive.

Re: Me and ADHD

#197

Post by PragmaticPulp »

rustybelt wrote: post #188
xyzzy_plugh wrote: post #93

A lot of comments here are warning about the addictive properties of stimulant medications. For folks without ADHD, you should know that stimulants, like Ritalin and Adderall, do not usually cause the same response as in non-ADHD people. I've spoken with many people on stimulants, and none of them enjoy taking the medication, beyond what it has done to improve their lives. Furthermore, most ADHD people develop tolera…

Are you sure this isn't just due to habituation? I was diagnosed ADHD in gradeschool and definitely experienced some euphoric side effects when starting on both Ritalin and Adderall. They quickly subsided after a few days/weeks on the medications but my ADHD brain still reacted that way at first. I tried taking Adderall again as an adult for a few months (after a decade being off the drug) and had a similar experienc…

Habituation is definitely part of it.

Many prescribers will also start patients on very low doses and titration up to minimize the distraction of the euphoric effects.

Unfortunately, many mew ADHD patients mistake the initial euphoric effects for the medication “working” and get frustrated when the effects go away. They start chasing bigger prescriptions, shopping around for prescribers willing to give higher doses, doubling up doses and so on.

Everyone going into stimulant treatment should know that excessive stimulant dosing can worsen focus. If you’ve ever seen someone abusing stimulants, you’ll know exactly what this means. People on too high of a dose tend to be overly energetic, or overly focused on the wrong things.

Ideally, you want to be on the lowest dose you can get away with. Contrary to what is often repeated online, it’s best to take the medication continuously rather than skipping days. The medication should blend into the background while you work on improving ADHD. Don’t fall into the trap of leaning on the stimulant to solve everything for you.

Re: Me and ADHD

#198

Post by 99_00 »

chewxy wrote: post #119

Getting chemically treated for ADHD is one of the life-changing moments for me. I spent most of my teen years learning "good habits" thru counseling and all that jazz. It wasn't until I started Vyvanse that all those "good habits" that was taught to me actually made sense. All the meditation practice actually got put to good use when it comes to controlling anger. I do wish I hadn't waited 15+ years between diagnosis…

For me, medication and counseling compliment each other. Have you considered going back to counseling now that you are medicated to get even more "good habits" that you can apply to your life as it is in 2020?

Re: Me and ADHD

#199

Post by rustybelt »

moftz wrote: post #53
RankingMember wrote: post #35

> Last one -- I have no idea if this is a placebo effect. But caffeine seems to really help. Yep. As has been mentioned, in this context you're basically using it like Adderall. Unfortunately, the body will build up a tolerance quickly, so I find myself needing to use them sparingly, Adderall especially, otherwise end up feeling the withdrawal symptoms (excessive irritability, more trouble focusing than before medica…

I'll only drink coffee if I know I have a busy morning and want to power through it. I miss taking Adderall daily but the effect from coffee is almost the same. I don't drink it that often mostly because I don't want a tolerance. Drinking coffee on my less busy mornings just leads me to getting dragged into some low priority task and spending all morning on it when I could be working other things. Sometimes I'll just…

I've had good luck limiting my caffeine intake to three non-consecutive days a week. Avoids increasing my tolerance too much and allows for plenty of caffeine-free nights of sleep. Seems to work particularly well when paired with fasting.

Re: Me and ADHD

#200

Post by vector_spaces »

incomplete wrote: post #156

full blown ADHDer here... diagnosed and on meds from 2-6th grade, and then started again in my early 40s and on them now. some comments about this article: 1) i fsking HATE when people self-diagnose and then trumpet to the world that they're almost certain they have ADHD. if you think you've got it, go find a clinical psychologist and get tested. 2) he's done a great job of regimenting his life. this is really, reall…

I live in Northern New Mexico. There is virtually zero mental healthcare out here. As in, I've been on waiting lists for dozens and dozens of clinics/clinicians for more than a year, following up with all of them every few weeks. Money isn't even an issue here -- I'm willing to pay the $450/30 minutes out of pocket or whatever it costs to see someone. There just literally is not enough mental healthcare to go around. Virtually zero clinics are seeing new patients.

I've been lucky enough to be able to get treatment from my GP (who is actually a PA) for mental health conditions I've been diagnosed with previously in other states, and prescriptions for (admittedly lower stakes) meds that have worked reliably for me in the past. But she's not able to evaluate me for ADHD -- only refer me to clinics where I've already been on the waitlist for a year.

Anyway, some of us self-diagnose because it's literally the only fsking option. Not everywhere is the SF Bay Area where there are excellent free and low cost clinics on every other street corner and world class treatment options for those able to pay more.

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