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Association between ADHD medication and depression: A 10-year follow-up

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

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Re: Association between ADHD medication and depression: A 10-year follow-up

#291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would absolutely be willing to bet that a small dose of Benadryl won't make someone hallucinate "a small amount". Put it another way if makes you feel better -- a little bit of D3 via direct sunlight and D3 rich foods will improve your mood and health outcomes in a variety of ways. An excessive amount of D3 will give you kidney stones and harm your bones.

Would you notice it if you became slowly, progressively, stupider over several years? Maybe, maybe not.

This is mostly just scaremongering, but even if I had a noticeable drop in intelligence from taking medication over multiple years, gaining the ability to actually schedule appointments in a calendar, to do focused research on topics that I'm interested in, and to build productive habits like eating regularly, exercising daily, and daily practicing skills I wanted to improve at -- would more than offset the downside.

It's one thing to be worried about subtle effects from medication, but I already know what the long term health and brain effects are from constant insomnia and regularly forgetting to eat. Neither of those are good for brain function.

So yeah, seems like a pretty reasonable risk to take, particularly given the fact that I have a psychiatrist, therapist, and multiple friends and family monitoring me.

Let me flip the question back to you. Would you notice if D3 or iron or protein intake was subtly harming you over the course of multiple years? Is that something that terrifies you?

Re: Association between ADHD medication and depression: A 10-year follow-up

#292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you notice it if you became slowly, progressively, stupider over several years? Maybe, maybe not.

This is mostly just scaremongering, but even if I had a noticeable drop in intelligence from taking medication over multiple years, gaining the ability to actually schedule appointments in a calendar, to do focused research on topics that I'm interested in, and to build productive habits like eating regularly, exercising daily, and daily practicing skills I wanted to improve at -- would more than offset the downside.…

You're taking a hammer to the seat of your soul. So I gotta raise my eyebrow.

But you tell me it feels good. And you are more productive etc. And all the experts agree. So who am I to argue?

Re: Association between ADHD medication and depression: A 10-year follow-up

#293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is mostly just scaremongering, but even if I had a noticeable drop in intelligence from taking medication over multiple years, gaining the ability to actually schedule appointments in a calendar, to do focused research on topics that I'm interested in, and to build productive habits like eating regularly, exercising daily, and daily practicing skills I wanted to improve at -- would more than offset the downside.…

You're taking a hammer to the seat of your soul. So I gotta raise my eyebrow. But you tell me it feels good. And you are more productive etc. And all the experts agree. So who am I to argue?

Still wondering if you have the same concerns about the long-term effects of iron intake as you do about medications, or if you're somewhat selective about which long-term effects of chemicals in the body terrify you.

But yes, I do think the benefits for my mental health very clearly outweigh the theoretical risks you posit. So even if I agreed with what you're saying (which I don't), a subtle hammer tap to the soul is still very clearly and obviously better than the sledgehammer to the soul that is sleep deprivation (something that I concretely know would impact my brain function as I age and that I concretely know makes me less of myself). If that causes you to raise your eyebrows, then I'm not sure what to say other than that you're bad at risk analysis.

Re: Association between ADHD medication and depression: A 10-year follow-up

#294
post #37

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Maybe don't take it personally, I think they're saying that much of society is doing it wrong. EDIT: But yes, they’re also saying that many parents are doing it wrong, and they’re assigning much of the blame to parenting. My point was that when a huge percentage of parents are “doing it wrong”, maybe there’s some wider systemic thing at play. Like economic forces that make people work harder than they should if they…

To be clear, I'm actually blaming therapists and "mental health experts". Parents are clearly doing their best and looking for support. The "experts" are paid (in many cases) through recurring attendance and kick-backs from pharma... why would we assume they'd want to resolve the issue any other way? Even the research is often funded by pharma... Note the NIH even receives revenue (and individual scientists) from cre…

The experts you are blaming are psychiatrist, so they would have on average ten years of university study. Please explain what your credentials are so we can weigh our opinions regarding your statements.

Re: Association between ADHD medication and depression: A 10-year follow-up

#295

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Methylphenidate and cocaine are very very similar, but the nuance is different. It' like a bank account at -1¢ or +1¢, very similar accounts, how will they differ as time passes? In particular because cocaine is addictive whereas methylphenidate is not. Cocaine is euphoric while methylphenidate is much less, cocaine is arrogant while methylphenidate is just in-the-zone, just makes you want to work. Makes drudgery fee…

It certainly can be addictive. "Warnings Ritalin may be habit-forming. Tell your doctor if you have a history of drug or alcohol addiction. Keep the medication where others cannot get to it. Misuse of Ritalin can cause addiction, overdose, or death. Tell your doctor if you have had problems with drug or alcohol abuse." https://www.drugs.com/ritalin.html

Right, so that's the recent warning documentation, that's roughly what appears in the packet given with a dose recently, I've seen those packets. Maybe I got them myself, or similar, or others's packets. I read extensively.

It used to say roughly: don't crush it and snort it or you will surely get addicted.

Meaning, sticking to the doctor's instructions would be fine.

That warning is recent.

Re: Association between ADHD medication and depression: A 10-year follow-up

#296
post #61

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It's the condition that causes it. One of the diagnostic criteria for ADHD is anxiety over not being able to get things done. Your comment sounds dismissive of the real adverse impact of ADHD on one's inherent executive function; rather it's just someone being too "in their head" after they're giving a diagnosis. > it becomes a medical condition you've been stuck with 90-ish% of people with ADHD respond well to stimu…

"One of the diagnostic criteria for ADHD is anxiety over not being able to get things done." No, it is not. https://www.aafp.org/dam/AAFP/documents/patient_care/adhd_to... If you have to keep taking amphetamines you are stuck with it. It is clear that something dopamergenic is going on with these kids, but no one is trying to find out why they do not have enough dopamine. You know we have biological pathways that pro…

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Re: Association between ADHD medication and depression: A 10-year follow-up

#297
post #270

When I was on ADHD medication and developed depression, they gave me ADHD meds + anti-depressants. When those didn't work they added anti-psychotics. I was 12 years old, getting my blood checked regularly to try to detect the liver or kidney failure (I don't remember which) they knew was a side-effect. Turned out I just didn't like living in Florida.

Maybe you could have got worse without the meds.

But also, maybe he could have gotten better without the meds

Re: Association between ADHD medication and depression: A 10-year follow-up

#298
post #195

Can someone comment on whether ADHD medication leads to 'loss' of the unfiltered imagination that I have come to associate with my perpetually distracted self ? A friend on ADHD meds told me that it feels like trading unbridled creativity for stability. He found it to be an essential drug for functioning, but I got a sense that it involved losing something really central to your sense of self. Almost like being made…

The lightning storm of thoughts disappears with proper ADHD treatment, but I think the focus/attention allows me to be more creative/productive, not less.

Re: Association between ADHD medication and depression: A 10-year follow-up

#299
post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same. I've had a low-grade depression for all my adult life, which has worsened in the past 5 years. I got diagnosed with ADHD 5 months ago, started medication 2 months ago, and last week I told my therapist I'm pretty sure my life-long depression is in remission. There's a definite feeling that my life is now in a slight upwards trajectory, even on the worst of days. Life tends to become pretty sad when you have no…

Why is it so strange that an amphetamine would get rid of depression?

Weirdest thing to me is that it helped me with my sleep issues. 8 hours at regular times, all of a sudden.

Re: Association between ADHD medication and depression: A 10-year follow-up

#300
Does this study really account for the fact that depression is a common co-morbidity for ADHD? And that ADHD leads itself to people getting depressed?

Sounds like they just did a meta-analysis and saw a link between ADHD and depression and blamed the med.

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