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Reverse engineering my ADHD test

nullpt.rs

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Re: Reverse engineering my ADHD test

#91

Post by pstuart »

jaggederest wrote: post #71
pstuart wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a doc that prescribed me amphetamine. It was glorious for work, being in one of those horrendous open table environments with only a screen in front of you to keep from staring at the person directly across. I was able to laser focus and jam through things but the side effects were not worth it and I backed off. I've yet to find a magic pill that does that without the side effects.

PSA: depending on your specific needs, guanfacine can be close. Once you get used to it, it can be just... constant +1 to wisdom.

Thank you! It seems worthy of pursuit -- gonna bring that up with my doc.

Re: Reverse engineering my ADHD test

#92

Post by pstuart »

annzabelle wrote: post #88
pstuart wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand this is your personal medical info, but could you drop any hints as to the nature of the misdiagnosis? I've learned late in life that I am neurospicy and learning from other's experiences in this domain has been quite helpful.

I listen to a lot of psychiatry podcasts, and they generally think that ADHD is being seriously overdiagnosed at this point. Executive dysfunction, especially that which was not impairing as a child, has a lot of potential causes. Anxiety, depression (yes, ADHD can cause these, but these can also cause executive dysfunction in people without ADHD), OCD, Bipolar (manic people in particular often attribute worsening of…

I can roll with that. I do have executive dysfunction and other "fun" facets of a funky neurobiology. I also recognize that every body and mind is different and it's a personal journey to find the right tools.

I recognize that non-medical options should always be front line approaches but there can be a chicken and egg effect as to making that happen.

In my youth I adhered to a "better living through chemistry (wink wink)", I do now too (rip Mitch Hedburg) but the wink wink part is very rare and disciplined and now it's all about pharma and supplements to wring what I can out of what I've got left.

Re: Reverse engineering my ADHD test

#93

Post by wredcoll »

genxy wrote: post #64
timster6442 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From a molecular neuroscience perspective, for both ADHD and ASD (autism) you're unlikely to find any pure biomarkers as clean as a disease like huntingtons disease whose mechanism is clearly understood as extra CAG repeats on the HTT gene (a clean mendelian disorder). ADHD is defined by behavior/cognitive symptoms and most all behavior/cognitive diseases are multifactoral, which ADHD is. WES/WGS and GWAS has been do…

ADHD also evolutionary advantages, so there is unlikely to be a single gene that encodes for it.

Evo-psych is impossible to falsify.

Re: Reverse engineering my ADHD test

#94

Post by steve_adams_86 »

Quarrel wrote: post #81
genxy wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ADHD also evolutionary advantages, so there is unlikely to be a single gene that encodes for it.

What are they? Are there papers on this?

There are only papers which suggest this could be true, none that conclusively prove it. That I’m aware of.

There are some cool studies done where people with a without ADHD are tasked to forage berries. The people with ADHD do better and adhere to foraging patterns which existing theories suggest would be more optimal.

A lot of the studies like that indicate the individual with the condition might benefit more from ADHD than the group they’re in, but I’m not sure that studies have explored group benefits very much.

There’s an often cited paper in which nomadic men who carry a certain ADHD-related allele (DRD4-7R, a dopamine reception variant with ADHD traits and novelty seeking) tend to have better nutritional status. I can’t recall much about it or how high quality it is.

Re: Reverse engineering my ADHD test

#95

Post by akoboldfrying »

genxy wrote: post #64
timster6442 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From a molecular neuroscience perspective, for both ADHD and ASD (autism) you're unlikely to find any pure biomarkers as clean as a disease like huntingtons disease whose mechanism is clearly understood as extra CAG repeats on the HTT gene (a clean mendelian disorder). ADHD is defined by behavior/cognitive symptoms and most all behavior/cognitive diseases are multifactoral, which ADHD is. WES/WGS and GWAS has been do…

ADHD also evolutionary advantages, so there is unlikely to be a single gene that encodes for it.

1. How is it advantageous?

2. Assuming it really is: Why would this make it unlikely to be encoded on a single gene? As a layman, the only condition I'm aware of with this "downside but also upside" quality is sickle cell anaemia (downside is anaemia, upside is increased resistance to malaria), which is decided by a single nucleotide change on chromosome 11.

Re: Reverse engineering my ADHD test

#96

Post by annzabelle »

pstuart wrote: post #92
annzabelle wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I listen to a lot of psychiatry podcasts, and they generally think that ADHD is being seriously overdiagnosed at this point. Executive dysfunction, especially that which was not impairing as a child, has a lot of potential causes. Anxiety, depression (yes, ADHD can cause these, but these can also cause executive dysfunction in people without ADHD), OCD, Bipolar (manic people in particular often attribute worsening of…

I can roll with that. I do have executive dysfunction and other "fun" facets of a funky neurobiology. I also recognize that every body and mind is different and it's a personal journey to find the right tools. I recognize that non-medical options should always be front line approaches but there can be a chicken and egg effect as to making that happen. In my youth I adhered to a "better living through chemistry (wink…

On the non-medical options front, I will note that my lifelong hyperactive and neurotic tendencies dramatically improve with a 3-4 day a week distance running training regimen. I enjoy running enough, even though it is very difficult, that I've kept up with it for several years. I'm not as consistent about this, but I also found yoga classes to be a way to make mindfulness fun and easier.

That's not to say I'm not on the medication train (despite moaning about medications a lot). I do personally avoid taking any controlled substances. This is easy because I hate how stimulants make me feel, but in general I worry about the effects of having a direct reward signal from taking a pill.

Re: Reverse engineering my ADHD test

#97

Post by Brybry »

usernametaken29 wrote: post #33

I spent a decent amount working on ADHD diagnostics and unfortunately it sucks. To my knowledge, to this day, there isn’t a single reliable biomarker that identifies autism spectrum disorders. It’s usually correlation studies paired with questionnaires which for lack of better words can be described as “incidental” at best. Most z scored tests I know are also developed with small samples, a hundred participants with…

Isn't this true of nearly all mental disorders in DSM-5 and ICD-11?

We don't really know what mental disorders are and so we don't have objective diagnostic tests for them. [1]

We just have treatments that sometimes work for some people (and with the replication crisis[2] that sometimes is probably a lower value than expected).

[1] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6732705/

[2] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5835722/

Re: Reverse engineering my ADHD test

#99

Post by tacticus »

jaggederest wrote: post #74
johnwalkr wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think I get your point. It's cruel to require Kafkaesque testing and that just makes it not worth it try. But too simple of a test can also misdiagnose. The chance to be diagnosed with an appropriate gate varies greatly based on where you live and which doctor you can see and more. It can be anything from a 5 minute conversation, to 6 months of inconvenience, to no chance of even existing in your lifetime, to suck…

Right let me be very explicit: TOVA or equivalent are basically "play video games for 10 minutes as a part of your diagnosis" like the OP, the kafkaesque part is getting the appointment, and getting them administered, getting the diagnosis confirmed, going through the records and getting the prescriptions, everything around it :) they're actually pretty sophisticated tests, despite their palatability - I think if the…

"Sorry the psych is no longer available today. your appointment has been moved to the next available booking in 9 months time"

Re: Reverse engineering my ADHD test

#100

Post by tacticus »

NortySpock wrote: post #89
johnwalkr wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want to add that the comment is also funny to me because it and the blog post are very relatable to me. I don't mean to dismiss it at all. It's really important to get a good diagnosis for anything like this and not dismiss it or lock into the wrong diagnosis because of your own tunnel vision. You wrote "the test is quick, easy, and painless" but I also want to note that it's not always. Depending on your country,…

" diagnosis during childhood so if you're 30 or 40 you might have no chance " Huh? You don't have to be tested as-a-child, you don't have to call up your fourth grade teacher. You can self report your subjective experience. "Did you have these problems as a child? Have you always had trouble doing your homework? Did stressing out about homework enable you to do the homework?" They ask the question a few different way…

Only recently in aus did an adult diagnosis get support from the government PBS scheme. And even then it's because they're letting retroactive childhood diagnoses be considered for the subsidised medication options.
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