Adults with ADHD show decreased function in brain dopamine reward pathway (2010) • Hacker News Board

Re: Adults with ADHD show decreased function in brain dopamine reward pathway (2010)

#141

Post by robinreekers » Sat, Oct 03, 2020, 6:52 PM UTC

bg4 wrote: post #115

burtonator wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been on Adderall for 5 years ... I'm 43 right now. It really HAS changed my life. What I've found is that over the long term you're able to perform much much better. By the time I was in my 30s I had developed coping skills which worked for the most part but I would find myself getting demotivated and defocused sometimes on long term priorities and sometimes unable to recommit to them. Adderall totally changed t…

I started taking it in my late 30s for ADD and it was life changing. Over time though it was making me super angry so I stopped taking it. I now focus on sleep and exercise but my career really accelerated while I was taking it.

Same here. Super angry about some random guy wearing a blue sweater that I didn’t like for example. It made no sense to me why I was that angry, but it went away after quitting... I was seriously afraid to kill somebody if I would continue taking it.

Re: Adults with ADHD show decreased function in brain dopamine reward pathway (2010)

#142

Post by sam1r » Sat, Oct 03, 2020, 6:54 PM UTC

acituan wrote: post #98

dr_dshiv wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know what's totally nuts? Taking Amphetamine daily for years in reasonable doses essentially has no long term negative effects. In that way, similar to coffee. When I think about that, it's kind of mind blowing. For that matter, it is also crazy that we don't start giving children coffee at younger ages to help focus — since there are no known negative effects. It's just a cultural trope that it stunts growth, et…

> we don't start giving children coffee at younger ages to help focus > we are inhibiting our full potential because of misplaced fears? I'll argue with the assumption that there is zero long term psychobiological consequences to exogenous psychostimulants (I personally don't buy this, but let's assume it was true). Increasing focus and task salience is only one of the many factors constitutive of human potential. Th…

+1 thanks for this

Re: Adults with ADHD show decreased function in brain dopamine reward pathway (2010)

#143

Post by emptysongglass » Sat, Oct 03, 2020, 7:04 PM UTC

Izkata wrote: post #128

_dibly wrote: post #7

This was an interesting read but, as an adult with ADHD, all I get out of this is that medication is even more of a benefit to those with real difficulties coping with their ADHD. I've always been one to 'just deal with it' but after a few years of working through school and seeing my younger brothers go through the same thing with medication, I realized that I was essentially just handicapping myself. Now I take med…

> When I was younger I was perscribed ritalin, and it just made me sleepy so I stopped taking it. Now I take a more modern medication and it works wonders. I don't have ADHD, but I'm curious what the modern one is. Back in middle school, around 2001, I did a report on ADD and ADHD, and 3 of the medications that existed for it: Ritalin, Cylert, and I'm not certain of the third but from the other comments Adderall soun…

The more modern medication for me was modafinil but I had to beg for it. My psychiatrist made me go through the stringer of usual suspects before she allowed me moda: first adderall, then ritalin, then straterra (this one actually gave me acute psychopathy and constantly leak semen). All three caused profound personality shifts.

Moda doesn't touch my affect and it's wonderful.

Re: Adults with ADHD show decreased function in brain dopamine reward pathway (2010)

#144

Post by cgb223 » Sat, Oct 03, 2020, 7:05 PM UTC

_dibly wrote: post #7

This was an interesting read but, as an adult with ADHD, all I get out of this is that medication is even more of a benefit to those with real difficulties coping with their ADHD. I've always been one to 'just deal with it' but after a few years of working through school and seeing my younger brothers go through the same thing with medication, I realized that I was essentially just handicapping myself. Now I take med…

As someone with ADHD I was once prescribed the lowest dose of adderall (5 mg?) and I found it was so much like being high it genuinely scared me

I was working from home and the second it kicked in I started getting literal chills down my spine.

I ended up messaging a bunch of people on Facebook I haven’t talked to in years but felt a sudden affinity and empathy for.

I got distracted by a part of my apartment that I hadn’t cleaned in a while and missed a meeting because I ended up cleaning the whole place, including weird things like dusting the sides of books.

When I finally got to coding, it was like I was in the matrix. Hyper focused (and fwiw getting a lot done) but in a weird euphoric high feeling way.

I guess what I’m asking is is that how everyone feels the first time they take it?

And how long does it take to just feel normal on it, but like able to focus?

I want to try it again, because I need help focusing and know I can do better, but I’m genuinely afraid of the person I was on that stuff.

Re: Adults with ADHD show decreased function in brain dopamine reward pathway (2010)

#145

Post by emptysongglass » Sat, Oct 03, 2020, 7:06 PM UTC

aidenn0 wrote: post #131

topicseed wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not OP, but I believe some people with ADHD seem to be helped with Modafinil (Provigil). It is normally used for severe lethargy and narcolepsy but has been working for ADHD, too.

My psychiatrist was disinclined to try that one with me seeing that both Methylphenidate (Ritalin) and Adderal caused sleep issues for me.

You just have to get over the curve of about a week of regular dosage then you can sleep at a normal hour. But it should be the first thing you do in the morning.

Modafinil was The Answer for me after trying everything else. I don't know why psychiatrists always insist on a battery of other drugs first, which can cause everything from aggression to obvious personality shifts to mania to damage to the dopaminergic axons of the brain.

Re: Adults with ADHD show decreased function in brain dopamine reward pathway (2010)

#146

Post by Hamlet42 » Sat, Oct 03, 2020, 7:07 PM UTC

Techbrunch wrote: post #138

scns wrote: post #70

I recommend this book to anyone suffering from ADD. The author did over 80.000 brainscans. not affiliated https://www.amazon.com/Healing-ADD-Revised-Breakthrough-Prog... A 80 minute video about ADD by the author: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWnJ4wjVu9k

FYI before you watch an 80 minute video (which I did): "Amen has built a profitable business around the use of SPECT (single photon emission computed tomography) imaging for purported diagnostic purposes.[6] His marketing of SPECT scans and much of what he says about the brain and health in his books, media appearances, and marketing of his clinics has been condemned by scientists and doctors as lacking scientific va…

Thanks for saving my time.

Re: Adults with ADHD show decreased function in brain dopamine reward pathway (2010)

#147

Post by WarOnPrivacy » Sat, Oct 03, 2020, 7:09 PM UTC

My working theory is that abuse damages (and neglect stunts) the reward system and we interpret that as ADHD (as good a moniker as any).

Whereas people typically experience micro-rewards during the learning process, for people with ADHD, the reward response is too insufficient to reinforce learning. Without a proper reward system, a healthy learning system can't develop properly.

Some people firehose Will at the problem which may overcome an occasional challenge. That bandaid isn't sustainable, however.

Re: Adults with ADHD show decreased function in brain dopamine reward pathway (2010)

#148

Post by sergiomattei » Sat, Oct 03, 2020, 7:09 PM UTC

Zenbit_UX wrote: post #88

sergiomattei wrote: post #62

I recently started atomoxetine for my ADHD and had to completely stop it. Side effects were killing me. After I stopped, I was more hyperactive and less focused... Yet the hyperactivity compensated for the "less focused" part, and I finished a week's work in a day. That's my experience with meds so far. They completely eliminate my anxiety and make me feel in control of my emotions. Yet they make me less productive t…

I said this somewhere else in the thread already but it sound like it could help you, get a genetic compatibility test for adhd meds, my doctor gave me a referral for one and it gave clear recommendations on which medications would likely be fine and which would have chances of negative side effects. Even without the referral I'm sure you can get a test like this privately for reasonable price. These medications are…

I'll definitely take a look. I had no idea those compatibility tests are a thing.

Re: Adults with ADHD show decreased function in brain dopamine reward pathway (2010)

#149

Post by ditonal » Sat, Oct 03, 2020, 7:10 PM UTC

acituan wrote: post #98

dr_dshiv wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know what's totally nuts? Taking Amphetamine daily for years in reasonable doses essentially has no long term negative effects. In that way, similar to coffee. When I think about that, it's kind of mind blowing. For that matter, it is also crazy that we don't start giving children coffee at younger ages to help focus — since there are no known negative effects. It's just a cultural trope that it stunts growth, et…

> we don't start giving children coffee at younger ages to help focus > we are inhibiting our full potential because of misplaced fears? I'll argue with the assumption that there is zero long term psychobiological consequences to exogenous psychostimulants (I personally don't buy this, but let's assume it was true). Increasing focus and task salience is only one of the many factors constitutive of human potential. Th…

Feels like every week someone here is touting the idea of ADHD meds being this solution, all these people are just undiagnosed, there’s an unfair stigma against, and I feel compelled to bring up that I bought into that thinking, got a legit diagnosis and took meds as prescribed, they triggered mania in me and nearly ruined my life.

I tick all the ADHD boxes but I managed to make it through college without meds so never should have started.

Psychiatry is broken and handing out prescription amphetamines to everyone who can’t focus is as bad as an idea as it initially sounds.

Re: Adults with ADHD show decreased function in brain dopamine reward pathway (2010)

#150

Post by didibus » Sat, Oct 03, 2020, 7:10 PM UTC

monkpit wrote: post #132

didibus wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some children are given coke, pepsi, mountain due or other soda drinks with high caffeine content.

> Most Ok

Fair point, I have no idea of the real numbers, so I edited to say "some". My point was more to say that there are other beverages and foods with high caffeine contents, so when you take them all into account, there's probably more children being given caffeine then we think.