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FDA approves new ADHD drug for children

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Re: FDA approves new ADHD drug for children

#191

Post by Jarwain »

ZephyrBlu wrote: post #104
Jarwain wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of the listed symptoms are characteristic of an executive function disorder, of which adhd is the most well known. Very few people have "perfect" executive function without drugs. In other words, it's pretty normal for most people to experience some form of executive dysfunction and it's usually something one learns to manage. Executive functioning is skill just like anything else. From what I understand, ADHD a…

Your response perfectly sums up why ADHD confuses me. It seems to be very poorly defined, and from what I understand being diagnosed is practically still self-diagnosis because the doctor will ask you questions about your behaviour and judge whether you have ADHD or not based on that. Looking at the CDC website on ADHD [0] and without trying to force things to fit, I easily meet the criteria for inattention. Yet a lo…

Like the other commenter said, unfortunately psychology and psychiatry is in a state where it's hard to get good objective criteria for diagnosing any mental illness; it's mainly reliant on self-reported data/surveys or observations of behavior. I think this is a big driver of the replication crisis in psychology.

I don't know you well enough to give a decent hypothesis, so I'm just going to guess and babble a bit: Generalizing adhd/executive function as being composed of attention, self-regulation, and motivation. My first thought is that rejection sensitivity could be emotional regulation thing, which might have some interplay with general self-regulation. My followup thought is something along the lines of rejection sensitivity involving paying too much attention to the negative and not enough to the positive. Re: maintaining friendships, I don't have enough information. Personally sometimes I struggle with motivating myself to reach out, make plans, etc. Other times I feel bad because I feel like I have trouble focusing on what my friend is saying or asking them to repeat themselves or otherwise being a bad listener in the moment.

Self-regulation is something improvable without medication, I think meditation is pretty effective. And Self-regulation can play a big part in helping manage attention and motivation issues.

Some of this might resonate, some of it might not. If you'd like support tackling your struggles, you can contact me at me @ my website name (but a good therapist might do a better job xP)

Re: FDA approves new ADHD drug for children

#192

Post by spiralx »

nerdbaggy wrote: post #17

Seems that lots of people only think ADHD people have a hard time paying attention. If it was that simple I would be so happy. Here are just a few of the things I struggle with. - Will power. People with ADHD struggle sooooo much with will power. It’s a constant struggle with everything in life and really wears you down. - Constantly putting on a fake front pretending you don’t have ADHD. - Rejection sensitivity - Fe…

> - Emotions swinging from happy to angry in a flash

For me this falls under a general "lack of proprioception" in which I'm bad at recognising both bodily and emotional feelings until they hit a certain threshold, at which point they surprise me at full force. It does have some advantages as an adult - I'm very emotionally steady due to not being influenced by every emotion - but on the other hand it means I miss emotional cues that are often better dealt with before they get too serious, makes relationships hard for the same reason and leads to the risk of substance use as a way of compensating for all of this.

Honestly, for me the attention-related symptoms are the easiest to understand and learn to manage, it's this disconnect from body and feelings that causes the most challenging problems to even notice, let alone manage.

Re: FDA approves new ADHD drug for children

#193

Post by runawaybottle »

Ancapistani wrote: post #91
runawaybottle wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This happens after alcohol abuse too. If you abuse alcohol enough, you cannot enjoy stuff without alcohol. It fries your dopamine receptors, this is drugs 101. Your are not going to take speed every day for years and function normally, and you will literally need confirmation bias to make sense of that reality. Also, here is another weird tidbit from life. You might not like the stuff you used to like anymore but you…

> It fries your dopamine receptors, this is drugs 101. Funny you should say that, as there is much research to say that ADHD is primarily a resistance to dopamine and serotonin. See: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/evolutionary-psychia... This is how Ritalin works, by slowing down the reputable of dopamine. So, imagine the state of anhedonia you’re familiar with from long-term drug abuse - then imagine that i…

It’s a Dopamine (mostly) and slight Serotonin re-uptake inhibitor. In the most basic explanation, more of those two things makes you feel good about whatever it is you are doing. It’s euphoric in it’s onset.

If you play games with this daily you will need to believe that all hard work should be primed with a natural feeling of euphoria.

Re: FDA approves new ADHD drug for children

#194

Post by runawaybottle »

iovrthoughtthis wrote: post #159
runawaybottle wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This happens after alcohol abuse too. If you abuse alcohol enough, you cannot enjoy stuff without alcohol. It fries your dopamine receptors, this is drugs 101. Your are not going to take speed every day for years and function normally, and you will literally need confirmation bias to make sense of that reality. Also, here is another weird tidbit from life. You might not like the stuff you used to like anymore but you…

it’s super clear you’ve struggled through a lot. i hope one day you get the help you need.

Oh I got my help. I bottomed out, often the only way. Took years of bullshitting, but the dosage just ramps up and up and up.

If you start the kids on it that young, up the pressure, and put them in the same room where everyone else is doped up on it, I can promise you will cook an entire generation of knowledge workers by the time they are 30.

Re: FDA approves new ADHD drug for children

#195

Post by rswskg »

zaarn wrote: post #136
jasonkester wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you reconcile this with the observation that seemingly every single child in the United States is diagnosed with this condition and prescribed drugs to treat it? Watching from Europe, where roughly nobody is diagnosed with it nor prescribed drugs to treat it, I’m always baffled, fascinated and horrified watching Americans talk about it.

I've heard this so often, even from family. "It sounds like things everybody has to deal with". It's infinitely more difficult with ADHD. I use phone apps to remind myself of everyday things and track my shopping lists. This may sound normal but it's a coping strategy and when it's gone I am unable to function as a normal human being. I cannot go shopping without a shopping list because I will grab things I think I n…

yep, same. Adult diagnosis of adhd and I'm on medication.

Re: FDA approves new ADHD drug for children

#196

Post by antihero »

nerdbaggy wrote: post #17

Seems that lots of people only think ADHD people have a hard time paying attention. If it was that simple I would be so happy. Here are just a few of the things I struggle with. - Will power. People with ADHD struggle sooooo much with will power. It’s a constant struggle with everything in life and really wears you down. - Constantly putting on a fake front pretending you don’t have ADHD. - Rejection sensitivity - Fe…

- Life being an eternal struggle due to slipping into drug/alcohol use and doing those very intensely

- Being unable to maintain good habits (e.g. gym) because it feels like you're nearly a completely different person at different points because your desires/wants change from day to day to hour to hour to minute to minute

- Forgetting literally everything due to getting distracted

- Not remembering important stuff someone was telling you as your brain went off on a tangent while they were speaking

- Absolutely zero ability to act based on deferred gratification for any extended period of time (do I want this banana outfit now or maybe a holiday later if I stop buying banana outfits etc)

- Difficulty in monogamous relationships (being distracted by other people very easily because they are stimulating/exciting)

- People getting frustated as they don't keep up with how you dance between things

- Self discipline is basically on nightmare mode

- Ooh yes one more Sunday pint. Oh wait, what's that, I fucked up Monday yet again and now I am fired again??

- Working at 1000% speed but only 10% of the time

- Having to constantly remind self to calm down and be more careful with code/changes/deployment

Re: FDA approves new ADHD drug for children

#197

Post by toomanybeersies »

rgifford wrote: post #80
falcolas wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because we finally have a working medicinal solution that isn’t “whip their ass with a belt until they behave”? There’s an estimated 5% of the population who have debilitating ADHD. The current diagnosis rates of 4% for children, and 2% for adults, says we haven’t gotten everyone yet.

I think most of these kids just need a lot more personalized attention. I think medicating them is a convenient short term solution that will cost society more over the long term in alcohol dependency, heart issues, and other medical conditions related to the use of stimulants.

Generally stimulant medication lowers rates of substance abuse for people with ADHD.

Re: FDA approves new ADHD drug for children

#198

Post by spiralx »

h0l0cube wrote: post #58
eyelidlessness wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a great start. I’ll add some more: - Other common mental health issues like anxiety and depression. I experience both chronically, treating my ADHD is currently the only management I need, nothing else has ever worked. - Sensory sensitivity including overload, confusion, neurological disorders. Hyperacusis and auditory processing disorder are my main issues. I just learned this past weekend that tinnitus may…

Do lower reading comprehension, stunted long and short term memory, and a constantly wandering mind also factor in there? I was a precocious talker and reader, and in many ways a 'gifted' child, but I always struggled to comprehend reading material, or remain engaged with what a teacher was saying. These learning difficulties pretty much negated the value of any 'gift' I may have had. That said, anything related to c…

Yes, but there's another potential compounding effect that I've realised didn't help matters for me:

https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/06/the-s-...

Re: FDA approves new ADHD drug for children

#199

Post by spiralx »

vbsteven wrote: post #181
zaarn wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've heard this so often, even from family. "It sounds like things everybody has to deal with". It's infinitely more difficult with ADHD. I use phone apps to remind myself of everyday things and track my shopping lists. This may sound normal but it's a coping strategy and when it's gone I am unable to function as a normal human being. I cannot go shopping without a shopping list because I will grab things I think I n…

As a 33yo in Europe who got diagnosed and prescribed medication 2 months ago I can attest that it is possible to get a prescription as an adult. I just started working again (on medication) after a 6month work break and it is so refreshing to be able to focus on work for the full 8 hours in a work day. Like you said, the medication doesn't really help with all the "other" stuff that comes with ADHD. (forgetting to br…

I'm in the UK and was diagnosed at age 31 - ADHD was barely recognised as a thing for kids when I was at school and if I hadn't met two adults with it during my 20s I'm not sure I'd have ever sought out my diagnosis - and that process wasn't particularly simple.

There were definitely years spent afterwards unrolling maladaptive coping strategies I'd developed, and I've just had six teeth out leaving me with less than half of what I should have, so definitely use reminders to brush, it's super-easy to forget.

PS. I've been on Ritalin (the Concerta XXL slow-release) for a decade now and it's a life-changer. The first time I woke up in the morning and remembered what it was I'd been thinking I needed to do before I went to bed was amazing.

Re: FDA approves new ADHD drug for children

#200

Post by forkerenok »

I'm doing some research into low carb diets and I keep encountering a lot of positive anecdata related to cognitive performance and other things. E.g. this with relation to ADHD:

https://www.dietdoctor.com/low-carb/adhd-autism

tl;dr: the low carb diets are not cure, but improve the symptoms.

Has anyone here tried to approach it from a dietary angle?

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