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Adderall Risks: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

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Re: Adderall Risks: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#111

Post by ryanianian »

emodendroket wrote: post #104

It seems to me like the biggest problem, if I'm to accept that Adderall is as frequently abused as described here, is the same one you have in sports with PEDs: if a bunch of people are on Adderall and establish the "baseline" level of attention you're supposed to have, then "just" being diligent gets you left in the dust.

The article doesn't really describe it being "abused," just perhaps too "easy" of an option for some who really could "just try harder". (By "easy" I mean prescribed or requested with the "sure why not" attitude without reviewing the side-effects which the author lays out pretty plainly.)

I don't find the sports analogy very compelling. We watch sports for the competition and the idea that the results are a combination of genetics+work. Hence taking PEDs is cheating in a sports context.

But if there's a medication that helps you live your life better (i.e. in a way that's more fulfilling to you) and if taking the medication doesn't impact anyone else negatively, why would you not want it taken as widely as possible?

The important thing is to let would-be medication-takers know with full honesty what the side-effects are - this is what the article focuses on most.

Re: Adderall Risks: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#112

Post by jglauche »

akvadrako wrote: post #24
jglauche wrote: post #14

"We could still have a principled definition of ADHD. It would be something like “People below the 5th percentile in ability to concentrate, as measured by this test.” Instead, we use the DSM, which advises us to diagnose people with ADHD if they say they have at least five symptoms from a list. " I'm in Germany and I've been diagnosed with ADHD-PI lately (I am in my 30s) after seeing a private specialist about this…

That seems like an odd test. Of course everybody will score better on a concentration test while on medication for concentration.

They compared the error rates of working+short time memory to values that non-adhd people score. My score was significantly lower than average at my first test and on my second test above average on medication.

Re: Adderall Risks: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#113

Post by ankushnarula »

zschuessler wrote: post #64
jasonlotito wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you actually have ADHD? > I've used it to get ahead in software for the past ~8 years No, you don't. At least not from how you are describing your use. You don't take this medication to get ahead. You take this medication to get to an even playing field. To get some control over your life. So yes, if you are abusing drugs, don't. That's generally good advice. Don't abuse drugs.

I apologize my wording made it appear I was abusing drugs, I don't condone that. In fact I'm the opposite: I microdosed Adderall. 5mg a day for the longest time, then bumped up to 10mg. My doctors over the years pushed me to take more but I always said no. Instead I would take breaks and let tolerance die down before resuming. I first got a prescription when I found I would rather spend 2-3 hours of my work day stari…

I was convinced that I had ADHD by the time I was 21 after a lot of struggling in high school and college. I went to a psychiatrist and he asked me the basic DSM IV questions and he said it was a 90% match. So he put me on Ritalin and then eventually Adderall. I also had severe insomnia so this exacerbated my abuse potential in order to make it thru multiple days with higher performance without sleep. Within a year or two, I got off all the stimulants because I was falling apart.

Almost 13 years later (and a lot more serious work struggle) I started talk therapy and began to realize that confidence, self-esteem, chronic anxiety and depression were my real underlying problems. It's hard to focus when you feel anxious all of the time. It's very hard to think deep - which reinforces the confidence and focus problem in high performance work situations. A vicious circle. So we tried the usual SSRIs, sleep meds, and benzodiazepines - which all have their own problems.

Another 12 years later after being on these meds, I stopped early in 2016. Life was slowly getting worse - and my physical health as well. In the start of this year I to realized that SSRI/SNRI are not fully effective if you don't change your lifestyle. So I cut out sugar, juice, sweet fruits, simple carbs, alcohol, and limited my caffeine to the morning - all of which makes a world of difference. Now I'm struggling to form the daily habits of cardio in the morning and mindfulness meditation a couple times a day. I feel 100% more focused and stable.

Only wish I had figured this shit out when I was a younger man.

Re: Adderall Risks: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#114

Post by emodendroket »

ryanianian wrote: post #111
emodendroket wrote: post #104

It seems to me like the biggest problem, if I'm to accept that Adderall is as frequently abused as described here, is the same one you have in sports with PEDs: if a bunch of people are on Adderall and establish the "baseline" level of attention you're supposed to have, then "just" being diligent gets you left in the dust.

The article doesn't really describe it being "abused," just perhaps too "easy" of an option for some who really could "just try harder". (By "easy" I mean prescribed or requested with the "sure why not" attitude without reviewing the side-effects which the author lays out pretty plainly.) I don't find the sports analogy very compelling. We watch sports for the competition and the idea that the results are a combinati…

The article talks about people's careers being stymied, or people losing promotions to, colleagues whose attention span is longer because they're abusing Adderall. That's the intro.

> The human brain wasn’t built for accounting or software engineering. A few lucky people can do these things ten hours a day, every day, with a smile. The rest of us start fidgeting and checking our cell phone somewhere around the thirty minute mark. I work near the financial district of a big city, so every day a new Senior Regional Manipulator Of Tiny Numbers comes in and tells me that his brain must be broken because he can’t sit still and manipulate tiny numbers as much as he wants. How come this is so hard for him, when all of his colleagues can work so diligently?

> (it’s because his colleagues are all on Adderall already – but telling him that will just make things worse)

> He goes on to give me his story about how he’s at risk of getting fired from his Senior Regional Manipulator Of Tiny Numbers position, and at this rate he’s never going to get the promotion to Vice President Of Staring At Giant Spreadsheets, so do I think I can give him some Adderall to help him through?

I don't see the problem with the analogy.

Re: Adderall Risks: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#115

Post by astrange »

png_hero wrote: post #75
astrange wrote: post #8

> There are occasional claims that magnesium or some other substance can help reverse Adderall tolerance. I went to a particularly expensive Silicon Valley psychiatrist who did of course immediately put me on Adderall, but also put me on NAC supplements to "avoid tolerance". It's been okay, they're cheap, never bothered not taking them to experiment. I can confirm feeling better after eating foods with magnesium, mos…

Hmmm, never heard of adding NAC. And do you supplement magnesium too? Your talking about things I’ve never heard of before, this does sound advanced. Any other things on your stack?

Guanfacine (Tenex/Intinuv) is just a prescription you can get for ADHD hyperactivity. It complements stimulants really well but is hard to live with - you feel sedated, have no alcohol tolerance, and ramping off it takes a week or two.

> Any other things on your stack?

Like nootropics? Popular internet topic but a little goes a long way. Here's what I know:

- Vitamin D 1k-5k IU, fish oil, theanine: These all work great and everyone should try them.

- Magnesium: Too many different supplement formulations to trust one, and I read they give you copper deficiency - just eat spinach and you're good. Actually zinc is better to supplement, especially for men.

- Nootropic stacks like Qualia: Tried some, but pretty sure they're expensive caffeine pills.

- Every other nootropic: Bacopa helps long-term but makes ADHD worse short-term(!). No effect from anything else.

Re: Adderall Risks: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#116

Post by stryk »

ma2rten wrote: post #101
stryk wrote: post #99

Adderall is amphetamine salts. It's f*king SPEED. Laboratory-grade SPEED. (yea, yea methamphetmine is delivered in higher concentrations when being abused, but I don't care Adderall is still goddamn SPEED -- and people give this shit to their kids!) It's not that far off from "meth minus the battery acid." Why on Earth anyone would want to give that shit to their own kids is beyond me, especially since it's often off…

In addition to lower doses like you said, effects of stimulates like amphetamines are completely different if taken orally than if they are sniffed or injected. ADHD is one of the most well researched mental conditions. It is real and will cause significant impairment if untreated. Stimulants are the most effective medication in many but not all cases. Comments like that are harmful. However, I agree with you that an…

I wasn't implying ADHD wasn't real. It very much is real, but unfortunately it seems to have become a sort of "catch-all" diagnosis. It's now more of a common label than it is a medical diagnosis. Isn't it equally as dangerous to not treat the underlying issues or root causes? And when the common 'treatment' for a hyper-active disorder diagnosis is a prescription for Adderall/Vivanse (again, this is speed with a fancy brand name. call it what it is) it's incredibly dangerous -- these are KIDS we're talking about, there's no way we've had enough time to tell what giving this shit to a brain that's still under development actually does in the long term. Then there's the very real potential for abuse -- we're already in an opioid epidemic in the USA do we really need a bunch of tweaked out kids running around?

Re: Adderall Risks: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#117

Post by Jhsto »

d2kx wrote: post #78

I started taking Modafinil about 4-5 years ago and my only regret is that I didn't start earlier. I live in Europe so you can forget about amphetamines/adderall basically, only thing you'll get here is Ritalin and even that not as easy as you might think. Modafinil is easy to get on the internet though. If I lived in the US, I would likely be on Adderall I'd guess. It helped me so much that I wouldn't have completed…

I feel like comments like yours are one reason doctors don't like prescribing it.

I'm glad you are able to be happy on modafinil, but think about what you just commented: (1) alternatives are hard to get, (2) you have to get your substitution from the Internet without a prescription, (3) once you are on the gear you are able to notice the same deficiency in others, (4) you attribute your success to it and (5) "fuck everyone" trying to speak people into drug-free alternatives.

I haven't been to med school, but I can imagine this being a slide they would put into an example profile to stray people from prescribing Adderall et al.

Re: Adderall Risks: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#118

Post by ianai »

eternauta3k wrote: post #102
garmaine wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s missing the point. ADHD meds make everybody concentrate better, regardless of whether the person actually has ADHD.

I think his point was that the test saturates at a normal person's level of concentration. So medicating normal people does not improve their score.

For ceteris paribus you need data on all variables for all observations. The more variety the better, too.

Re: Adderall Risks: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#119

Post by walshemj »

PoachedSausage wrote: post #43
walshemj wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I understand it ADHA is one of those spectrum conditions like Dyslexia so a single diagnostic test may not be enough. For example I have a stellar reading ability but my written work and spelling is awful.

I've often wondered if Dyslexia and attention deficit disorders are connected and/or occur together. I was diagnosed with Dyslexia when I was quite young but it was before the greater awareness of AD-disorders. I've not tried Adderall but have tried Modafinil which worked as advertised.

Me too as I am not the best at short term memory etc I once ended up on a train to Wembley when I was supposed to be in Wimbeldon :-)

Re: Adderall Risks: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#120

Post by ma2rten »

stryk wrote: post #116
ma2rten wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In addition to lower doses like you said, effects of stimulates like amphetamines are completely different if taken orally than if they are sniffed or injected. ADHD is one of the most well researched mental conditions. It is real and will cause significant impairment if untreated. Stimulants are the most effective medication in many but not all cases. Comments like that are harmful. However, I agree with you that an…

I wasn't implying ADHD wasn't real. It very much is real, but unfortunately it seems to have become a sort of "catch-all" diagnosis. It's now more of a common label than it is a medical diagnosis. Isn't it equally as dangerous to not treat the underlying issues or root causes? And when the common 'treatment' for a hyper-active disorder diagnosis is a prescription for Adderall/Vivanse (again, this is speed with a fanc…

If there is another root cause then it isn't ADHD. As I already said I agree with you that one should be careful in diagnosing ADHD.
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