Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I'm not convinced ADHD is an illness either Do you believe you have ADHD now? I was fortunate to have some FMRI (I believe that's the tech) work done years ago, shortly after I was diagnosed with ADHD. The imagining made it so blatantly obvious that my brain was different than normal brains. Where a normal brain would light up like crazy for a given stimulus, mine looked like a black hole. There are certainly bio/p…
> Where a normal brain would light up like crazy for a given stimulus, mine looked like a black hole. There are certainly bio/physical differences. I'd be careful about this. I've never seen anything to suggest that we could screen every child with FMRI scans to catch blatantly obvious indicators of ADHD or use scans as a definitive test for who should get medications. I honestly wish it really worked that way becaus…
The FDA has officially declared a shortage of Adderall
51–60 of 67 posts
Re: The FDA has officially declared a shortage of Adderall
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is an unfortunate point of view and is damaging to those legitimately suffering with issues related to ADHD and similar diagnoses. As a child I struggled with ADHD, it’s not a state of mind. It’s not a decision. It’s a chemical imbalance that make a child’s innate lack of self control, and poor ability to self regulate something as simple as idle movements, orders of magnitude more difficult. I’m not commenting…
As time has gone on the less sympathetic I've gotten to labels like "ADHD" and the more I've thought we should just make amphetamines not require a dx, although they should probably still require a doctors supervision. The whole concept that a doctor has to say there's something wrong with you to get drugs I find to be very patronising. If somebody has trouble focusing, they can just take some drugs and fill out some…
Would you feel the same way about appendicitis? Like, there's zero reason for a diagnosis or a "label" and if your side hurts you should just be able to get whatever you want cut out of you until you feel better?
Labels are important for a lot of reasons. It's human nature to classify things and it's a whole lot easier when we do. By taking a list of symptoms and assigning one or more labels to it we can differentiate between the various causes of a person's symptoms. Someone might improve their symptoms by popping stimulants all day long, but it's possible that by identifying the cause of their symptoms and finding the right label a doctor could make taking all those pills and dealing with their side effects unnecessary. A diagnosis helps doctors select the most effective treatments without nearly as much trail and error.
The diagnosis is also extremely helpful for the patient! It helps them to explain (to themselves and others) why it is that they are different, it sets expectations for what problems their condition might bring them, and helps them identify others who struggle similarly so that they can commiserate and gain insights and strategies for dealing with those problems.
It's terrible if you were misdiagnosed once and that the experience has soured you to the entire idea of diagnostic medicine but as imperfect as that science is, it's still the best we've managed to come up with, it solves a lot more problems than it causes, and those solutions help with a lot more than just sorting out the billing.
ADHD is absolutely a mental illness. I can't say if you actually have it or not. It is possible that your problems were entirely from your recent abuse and ADHD was total misdiagnosis, or maybe your recent abuse exacerbated your ADHD symptoms to the point that they became unmanageable. Either way the label you were given matters very little compared to how well your executive functioning is working today. If you're functioning to your satisfaction then the label doesn't matter much. If you're still struggling, your doctor can use your label or assign new ones to help guide you towards the best treatments to get you where you want to be. People shouldn't fear a label any more than they should let one become their identity or blind them to other possible causes for their problems.
Re: The FDA has officially declared a shortage of Adderall
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
As time has gone on the less sympathetic I've gotten to labels like "ADHD" and the more I've thought we should just make amphetamines not require a dx, although they should probably still require a doctors supervision. The whole concept that a doctor has to say there's something wrong with you to get drugs I find to be very patronising. If somebody has trouble focusing, they can just take some drugs and fill out some…
> I'm not convinced ADHD is an illness either Do you believe you have ADHD now? I was fortunate to have some FMRI (I believe that's the tech) work done years ago, shortly after I was diagnosed with ADHD. The imagining made it so blatantly obvious that my brain was different than normal brains. Where a normal brain would light up like crazy for a given stimulus, mine looked like a black hole. There are certainly bio/p…
The thing is at this point I've had doctors write down me having about 6 different conditions in the DSM, recurring or continual, no one doctor having given me more than 3 dx at a time. I've been prescribed over a dozen psychiatric meds over the years, all discontinued. So what am I supposed to think, am I just that unique and special and statistically rare? Or am I an edge case which is poorly described by the status quo diagnostic nosology? Is it useful for me to go to a doctor or friend or authority figure and describe myself as having the kitchen sink?
But in practice almost everybody I talk to from friends to doctors to family has a different set of labels they think of me as having, and I change which labels I use to describe myself to accomplish different goals, and deep down I don't think anybody really has a clue what they're talking about.
Re: The FDA has officially declared a shortage of Adderall
#54While this is too bad, maybe it will push people toward effective alternatives. Monoamine oxidase inhibitors help me more than ADHD stimulants ever did, and they aren’t known to be neurotoxic like Adderall.
I'm diagnosed ADHD and Modafinil has been saving my life (defined as my ability to hold a high paying professional job in tech and provide for my family) for a decade and a half.
Re: The FDA has officially declared a shortage of Adderall
#55I’m kind of surprised by this. I thought a lot of folks switched over to Vyvanse over the past decade.
Vyvanse is definitely better than Adderall, but it can be annoying to get insurance on board. Also, is there an instant release Vyvanse? I thought it was just extended release.
Re: The FDA has officially declared a shortage of Adderall
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
A disorder is a type of illness, in the same way scotch or bourbon are types of whiskey.
Sure, but we don’t go around calling people with ADHD mentally ill, cough . The same way we don’t go around calling guns “mass drivers”, even though that’s exactly what they are.
Re: The FDA has officially declared a shortage of Adderall
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
As time has gone on the less sympathetic I've gotten to labels like "ADHD" and the more I've thought we should just make amphetamines not require a dx, although they should probably still require a doctors supervision. The whole concept that a doctor has to say there's something wrong with you to get drugs I find to be very patronising. If somebody has trouble focusing, they can just take some drugs and fill out some…
> there's no reason you actually need this specific label. Would you feel the same way about appendicitis? Like, there's zero reason for a diagnosis or a "label" and if your side hurts you should just be able to get whatever you want cut out of you until you feel better? Labels are important for a lot of reasons. It's human nature to classify things and it's a whole lot easier when we do. By taking a list of symptoms…
I didn't want to be diagnosed, I didn't want the treatment (And it never did end up helping), and none of this actually got to the root of my problems. I ran an experiment soon after diagnosis. I gummed my medication one week, and told the teacher I took it, and asked them how I thought I was doing. They thought I was doing great! I then took it, and said I stopped taking it due to side effects. They said I was really struggling. I stopped taking the drug after that, and got an angry response in return, as now that I was diagnosed, I had a moral obligation to treat myself. Do recall I was a recent victim of severe abuse when I say all this.
I got another label later, I took one psychiatric medication, I reacted to it badly right away and called the doctor to report this in 2 days, something I virtually never do. He just told me to tough it out for a month to see if it worked. It was a month of hell I felt I was morally obliged to go through to "Get better" because as my doctor says, the evidence says I have to give it time.
My issue isn't being misdiagnosed, it's being correctly diagnosed and the prescribed approaches not working. I've grown to see these labels as just packages of prejudices and I've had quite a bit of distaste for. I wish I could just be misdiagnosed, but it was only two years ago a coworker approached me and confided in how they had ADHD and thought I did too, so I don't have any ability to truly convince people I don't have these labels anyways. So long as this system is useful for other peoples purposes, my opinion and my experiences don't matter.
You know what my username is a reference too? It's a reference to folklore about stolen children. At first children would appear normal, but when the faeries "stole" the child in early childhood, they would start exhibiting bizarre traits like obsessively counting seeds, jumping and dancing about, and unusual intelligence for their age. The people of the time figured these children must not really be human, but changelings, replaced by faeries. Martin Luther of protestant fame figured they were children replaced by satan who could only be cured through murder. So that's what my username is, a reference to a label for children who acted differently which justified their murder.
Re: The FDA has officially declared a shortage of Adderall
#58While this is too bad, maybe it will push people toward effective alternatives. Monoamine oxidase inhibitors help me more than ADHD stimulants ever did, and they aren’t known to be neurotoxic like Adderall.
Ah yes, just don't eat blue cheese, drink grapefruit juice, or ingest one the thousands of otherwise innocuous drugs with MAOI contraindications unless you want to die a horrible death.
Re: The FDA has officially declared a shortage of Adderall
#59While this is too bad, maybe it will push people toward effective alternatives. Monoamine oxidase inhibitors help me more than ADHD stimulants ever did, and they aren’t known to be neurotoxic like Adderall.
> MAOI Ah yes, just don't eat blue cheese, drink grapefruit juice, or ingest one the thousands of otherwise innocuous drugs with MAOI contraindications unless you want to die a horrible death.
Re: The FDA has officially declared a shortage of Adderall
#60While this is too bad, maybe it will push people toward effective alternatives. Monoamine oxidase inhibitors help me more than ADHD stimulants ever did, and they aren’t known to be neurotoxic like Adderall.
I was going to say the same thing but for Modafinil. It has been demonstrated to be not only non-neurotoxic but neuroprotective, you don't need to sleep sixteen hours when you cycle off, and it doesn't change your personality. I'm diagnosed ADHD and Modafinil has been saving my life (defined as my ability to hold a high paying professional job in tech and provide for my family) for a decade and a half.