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ADHD drug treatment and risk of negative events and outcomes

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Re: ADHD drug treatment and risk of negative events and outcomes

#161

Post by saaaaaam »

baby_souffle wrote: post #144
hinkley wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've heard it argued that ADHD diagnoses should come with a social worker. Every time I realize it's Friday and I'm gonna run out of medication because I forgot to call in the refill I think about that. Three day weekends are the worst. One workaround I've heard is that you order every 30 days even if you forgot to take your pills one or two times. Any surplus pills go into an old bottle you hide in the back of a dra…

> I've heard it argued that ADHD diagnoses should come with a social worker. I know a few people with crippling ADHD that have managed to hire a "life coach" of sorts to help. Takes a bit of screening to find somebody that knows ADHD and how to help with it versus the more generic/useless skills you probably first thought of when you read 'life coach' :). > Every time I realize it's Friday and I'm gonna run out of me…

Can you share a link to that pill dispenser that pushes alerts to your phone please?

Re: ADHD drug treatment and risk of negative events and outcomes

#162

Post by baby_souffle »

2c2c2c wrote: post #31

Curious if anyone has gone through the process of an adult adhd diagnosis at Kaiser SF. Through my attempts, I've been told they don't really do adult adhd diagnoses without documentation of issues as a kid. I was recommended Wellbutrin to deal with symptoms in 2017. Got onto adderall when I moved health insurance in 2021. Back to Kaiser in 2024, I was routed to the same psychiatrist who once again wouldn't budge on…

> Curious if anyone has gone through the process of an adult adhd diagnosis at Kaiser SF.

Yep. It appears to be different by region. When I left the bay area and moved to a different kaiser region, they didn't accept any of the medical history from the bay and I had to start over again. Yes, I did have the prescribing pshyc from the bay area send the detailed clinical notes to kaiser but because I didn't take _their preferred_ computer diagnostic tests, I had to start over. Nevermind that the psych I was seeing in the bay area has been treating ADHD since Reagan was in office, the computer test was worth more than the medical professional's experience and opinion!

Re: ADHD drug treatment and risk of negative events and outcomes

#163

Post by elzbardico »

0cf8612b2e1e wrote: post #153
SubmarineClub wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, it's ridiculous. I've been taking medication for ADHD since the 3rd grade. Why in the good goddamn should I have to go in EVERY month for a refill for a medication I've been taking for over 20 years.

Not to make light of your situation, but women taking birth control have been in this situation forever. It is only recently that over the counter birth control and/or three month allotments have been available.

And the same people who fight against abortion were the same ones who fought tooth and nail to make birth control hard to access. Go figure!

Re: ADHD drug treatment and risk of negative events and outcomes

#164

Post by brikym »

homefree wrote: post #133

My hypothesis about this for a long time has been stimulants help everyone be more productive (with some tradeoffs) and ADHD is kind of a weakly differentiated diagnosis that could apply to most people. Probably something like this was lost when people stopped smoking, obviously beneficial for health - but a huge amount of the public was taking stimulants regularly via nicotine until relatively recently.

It's a performance enhancing drug for a lot of people. So many of my colleagues are on it.

Re: ADHD drug treatment and risk of negative events and outcomes

#165

Post by autoexec »

teamonkey wrote: post #87
autoexec wrote: post #39

Not surprised. ADHD medications save lives, including the lives of others when it comes to things like preventing car accidents. I could even see it being required for driving the way corrective lenses can be.

That reminds me of an article I read which claimed that being diagnosed with ADHD will prevent you from being a commercial pilot. Pilots will avoid getting diagnosed and medicated because it will kill their career, even though medication may make them safer. (I suspect ADHD pilots would handle takeoff and landing very well, as well as emergencies, but oh god the checklists and schedules and that whole middle part of…

What a terrible policy. I sure don't feel any safer knowing that my pilot could have problems going untreated. Just getting licensed seems like it would be difficult without treatment, but it's not like ADHD or other mental conditions are consistent either. You can have good or bad days, or even good/bad months. Those times can be handled with treatment, but I guess we're just supposed to hope our pilot isn't having a bad day when we get on the plane.

Re: ADHD drug treatment and risk of negative events and outcomes

#166

Post by [deleted] »

jackdoe wrote: post #112
klipklop wrote: post #77

The irony about getting treatment for ADHD is that medical providers make it very hard to get the proper medication and treatment. People with ADHD are horrible at following through and handle rejection poorly. So the worse the ADHD is, the less likely somebody will be able to actually get treatment for it. A lot of people suffer because doctors fear losing their license like so many did during the pain pill debacle.…

> handle rejection poorly Off-topic but recently I found out about Sensitive Rejection Dysphoria, its not officially recognized as a thing but it is in active study now, and very related to ADHD, and tbh I wish I knew about it sooner

[deleted]

Re: ADHD drug treatment and risk of negative events and outcomes

#167

Post by moojacob »

bluefirebrand wrote: post #13

I was diagnosed with ADHD in my early 30s and prescribed Concerta to help manage it For a few years being medicated for ADHD was a godsend. I was finally able to be more productive and focus on work, my career took off in a huge way, I've literally tripled my income since I started medication Now I'm incredibly burned out, I've been having pretty severe memory problems, I'm on medical leave from my job to try and cou…

This happened to me over a decade ago. Medication was a godsend, and then I burned out. I remember sitting down to do work and not being able to start anything so I would pull up a dumb io game.

So I went off, and for the next 5 years I still couldn't focus. It got worse actually. I did a lot of caffeine. After COVID I started to work out and then suddenly for the first time ever I could focus. As long as I don't do caffeine, workout, and sleep I am sharp. I've done great work in the past couple years but I do feel cheated that Adderall stole time from me. I wonder where I would be with my career if I hadn't burned out.

Re: ADHD drug treatment and risk of negative events and outcomes

#168

Post by Nikolas0 »

My $0.02 as a response to several comments I read in this thread: I was diagnosed with ADHD in my 40s and got Concerta. My belief is that ADHD is not a disease, nor a disability (even though it acts like one very frequently) and in fact there is evidence that ADHD is an important part of our evolution as a species.

The problem(s) mostly relies with the modern way of life and what is expected from the society at large. In that context I try to feel ok when I daydream while I have countless of boring things to take care of as I totally feel ok when I hyperfocus in a creative endeavor.

The meds are just a tool that I use no more than two times per week in order to take better care of myself and others. It is not a therapy and it's not me. I believe that Sensitive Rejection Dysphoria is very real for people like us, but the worst version of it is when you reject yourself because you are different and you try hard to be someone else.

Re: ADHD drug treatment and risk of negative events and outcomes

#169

Post by alaithea »

bluefirebrand wrote: post #13

I was diagnosed with ADHD in my early 30s and prescribed Concerta to help manage it For a few years being medicated for ADHD was a godsend. I was finally able to be more productive and focus on work, my career took off in a huge way, I've literally tripled my income since I started medication Now I'm incredibly burned out, I've been having pretty severe memory problems, I'm on medical leave from my job to try and cou…

I feel this. It's so very hard to manage one's medicated-ADHD productivity in a way that feels useful but doesn't burn like a white-hot flame.

My boss has been supportive and really helped me see the ways in which I was causing myself burnout, encouraging me (as a senior tech IC) to write things down, do more knowledge and skill transfer, and delegate more. That helped me a lot.

What I used to think of as "autonomy," which I valued so highly, following the shiny problems that made my brain happy, was more lone wolf behavior than I like to admit, and not serving me very well career-wise, as it was hard to document or sell what I was doing.

I also had to privately learn how to pace myself, setting realistic, appropriate and prioritized daily goals (nevermind the arm's-long TODO list). Checking myself against those, aiming for better goal-setting each day. Being able to close the laptop when it's done. I never really had a sense of "done" before, I had a lifetime of feeling always-behind. There's this peace, though, that comes with realizing that you _can_ prioritize effectively, do the things, then rest. That peace can become its own reward, which is bananas to me, because my unmedicated brain would never have felt that.

Speaking of which, I might never have had the head-space to work on things like this if I hadn't gotten medicated five years ago. My career has improved and stabilized. For the first time in my life I've stayed at a job for more than three years. Been promoted. Been able to see a future that doesn't just involve running from a job when things get too hard and starting again.

The side effects can be a beast, though. I wonder to myself how many more years I'll be able to manage them.

I wish you the best in finding your way back to a place that works for you.

Re: ADHD drug treatment and risk of negative events and outcomes

#170

Post by aianus »

elzbardico wrote: post #163
0cf8612b2e1e wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to make light of your situation, but women taking birth control have been in this situation forever. It is only recently that over the counter birth control and/or three month allotments have been available.

And the same people who fight against abortion were the same ones who fought tooth and nail to make birth control hard to access. Go figure!

Who, the AMA? Canada is super pro abortion and definitely didn't have OTC BC when I was in college.
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