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Association between ADHD medication and depression: A 10-year follow-up

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

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Re: Association between ADHD medication and depression: A 10-year follow-up

#211

Post by swayvil »

jobu wrote: post #43
pflats wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The study also does not claim to show a causal relationship.

As the parent of a child with ADHD that is medicated, it seems completely plausible that it could cause depression. When my kid has had too high a dosage (or accidentally takes a double dose) she's like a zombie, completely flat affect, and very little motivation. It's like it drains her life away. Part of the problem is that it's very difficult to get the right dosage for any given day because diet, metabolism, and…

If a double dose noticably zombifies then a single dose must zombify too, just unnoticably.

Surely any zombie is too much zombie.

Re: Association between ADHD medication and depression: A 10-year follow-up

#213

Post by anotherman554 »

sph wrote: post #179
hombre_fatal wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, a dose doesn’t last forever. It wouldn’t be surprising if it was a net negative. You tend to feel worse on the comedown for example.

My come down is only feeling a little more tired. I suspect you are not talking from experience but hearsay. > Well, a dose doesn’t last forever. It wouldn’t be surprising if it was a net negative. My near-sightedness returns as soon as I put down my prescription glasses. I've had to wear them every single day to be able to function decently. Imagine that.

I'm near-sighted but when I wear glasses my brain doesn't attempt to achieve homeostasis by altering the way I see with glasses on in order to make my sight closer to how it was before I wore glasses.

I'm not saying you shouldn't be on drugs or that you'll find the drugs stop working. I'm just saying the effects on the brain are pretty complex and shouldn't be compared to wearing glasses.

Re: Association between ADHD medication and depression: A 10-year follow-up

#214

Post by sph »

billjings wrote: post #205
tjridesbikes wrote: post #135

Anecdata, but I've been on methylphenidate (Concerta) since age 7, and holy cow has it impacted my life in an insanely positive way. 21 years later, I'm still on Concerta, but excelling in my career, spending meaningful time with friends, family, and hobbies, and generally pretty happy with myself. When I tried dropping the meds in college, my life basically fell apart in a matter of months. My then-girlfriend now-wi…

I did the same thing as you. I wasn't on Concerta for as long; I started on Ritalin in 3rd grade, and switched to Concerta my senior year of high school. I dropped all meds in college. I actually tried TWICE to drop my meds. Each time my life fell apart, as you described. The second time, however, I did not interpret my life falling apart the way you did: instead of interpreting it as validation of the medication's e…

I have said this many times already: the downside of medicating children is that they never have a chance of learning how dysfunctional ADHD is. Then they blame the medication because they find they can't function without it. No shit, that's why you were taking it.

I have been diagnosed in my 30s and when I stop medication, my life returns to the same exact shit it's been for 30 years. It feels like falling apart, because that's how it was for three decades for me.

That said, I'm happy you found a path without needing the medication. One of the positive aspects of ADHD medication is that you actually learn to function without them, because it gives you the mental energy and fortitude to build healthy habits that can help keeping you ticking along even without the boost of increased dopamine.

Re: Association between ADHD medication and depression: A 10-year follow-up

#215

Post by rhinoceraptor »

screye wrote: post #195

Can someone comment on whether ADHD medication leads to 'loss' of the unfiltered imagination that I have come to associate with my perpetually distracted self ? A friend on ADHD meds told me that it feels like trading unbridled creativity for stability. He found it to be an essential drug for functioning, but I got a sense that it involved losing something really central to your sense of self. Almost like being made…

I recently started Vyvanse, and I don't really notice that much of a difference. I have a slight boost in my mood, I still hyperfocus on things, but I also have slightly more ability to do busy work.

I was only given 1/3 the recommended starting dose though, so it'll likely get increased when I see my doctor again.

Re: Association between ADHD medication and depression: A 10-year follow-up

#216

Post by mrtranscendence »

FollowingTheDao wrote: post #202
sph wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My come down is only feeling a little more tired. I suspect you are not talking from experience but hearsay. > Well, a dose doesn’t last forever. It wouldn’t be surprising if it was a net negative. My near-sightedness returns as soon as I put down my prescription glasses. I've had to wear them every single day to be able to function decently. Imagine that.

As someone who’s been institutionalized in a psychiatric hospital four times in a still living with bipolar schizoaffective disorder I can tell you being nearsighted is no comparison to having a mood disorder. If people were not ignorant enough to ignore all the nutritional facts that go around the production of catecholamines there would be no need for medication. Your doctors are probably doing more harm than good…

This is prime kook right here. You don’t see it every day.

Most psychiatric problems are not due to a nutritional deficiency. My B6 levels aren’t causing my adhd.

Re: Association between ADHD medication and depression: A 10-year follow-up

#217

Post by swayvil »

throwaway420691 wrote: post #59

unless you require acute trauma care, look away from western medicine for solutions to your problems

My friend, an ex head nurse, agrees. She puts it like this.

Unless you are in great pain, or can't walk, stay completely away from doctors and hospitals.

Re: Association between ADHD medication and depression: A 10-year follow-up

#219

Post by ALittleLight »

CodeMage wrote: post #209
ALittleLight wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me you're coming across as defensive when you make these insults and assert that I'm ignorant and don't know what I'm talking about (when, ironically, you have no way of knowing and are therefore ignorant to my level of exposure to the topic). I understand being defensive - you've made a significant decision about your child's health and I hope for your, and his, sake that it's the correct one. Your defensiveness…

If I'm coming across as defensive, then I haven't been clear enough. I'm not defensive, I'm furious but I'm trying to channel it into rational discourse. There's nothing "defensive" about wanting to stop the propagation of this trope. And yes, it's a trope. I said very clearly that this is not about rising rates of ADHD diagnoses and medication. The trope I'm referring to is the tendency to not only jump to a conclus…

Do you think society is currently tilted too far in the direction of undermedicating ADHD? That though we went from 5.5% of children diagnosed with ADHD in 1997 to 9.8% in 2018 we still have more ADHD yet to find? More than a tenth of children are so psychologically flawed they need mind-altering medication to address what's wrong with them?

There is a widespread belief in ADHD and that it should be medicated. That's why millions of children are so medicated. There is institutional belief in that idea as well - that's why so many doctors prescribe these drugs to children. It's not the case that treating ADHD is some minority view that needs to be protected from criticism.

I read your comment as suggesting that I shouldn't share my opinion on the topic because my opinion stigmatizes children who need help. I hope I can highlight the problem with that sentiment by giving an example like if I said you shouldn't share your opinion because the children who are over medicated need help and you are silencing and stigmatizing ideas that would help the over medicated kids.

There is no reason to think my comments are "utterly irresponsible" or "damaging" and you are being hyperbolic by describing them so - any more than your comments are damaging because they encourage over medication. Again, I'd refer you to the "defensive" element of my prior comment. And, since you've mentioned tropes, one trope I'd like to point out is the trope of thinking that "Because I strongly hold belief X I will accuse anyone disagreeing with X of being bad or harmful." You are entitled to your opinions, but not to try and silence people who disagree with you.

Re: Association between ADHD medication and depression: A 10-year follow-up

#220

Post by 331c8c71 »

sph wrote: post #179
hombre_fatal wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, a dose doesn’t last forever. It wouldn’t be surprising if it was a net negative. You tend to feel worse on the comedown for example.

My come down is only feeling a little more tired. I suspect you are not talking from experience but hearsay. > Well, a dose doesn’t last forever. It wouldn’t be surprising if it was a net negative. My near-sightedness returns as soon as I put down my prescription glasses. I've had to wear them every single day to be able to function decently. Imagine that.

I almost didn't have a comedown when I started taking Ritalin. Few years later it became a nightmare. I was becoming extremely annoyed every afternoon and was pretty much useless in the evening as a result.

I also started having very annoying anxiety in the morning after taking meds. And all that with a reduced effectiveness of the drug - clear slowdown in the afternoon after lunch which I didn't have in the beginning of treatment (the dosage was more or less constant from the start after initial titration).

Ritalin clearly affects my sleep patterns. On it I never feel rested and wake up with a feeling I haven't slept at all. There was no change, the effect was present from the start. It takes at least three days without meds for it to be gone.

Finally, Ritalin is definitely bad for my creativity. For instance, I have a habit to play piano or guitar as a way to relax since I was a kid. Composing or improvising at least 50% of the time. This invariably stops when I am on meds - it feels like the activity becomes dull and stops being pleasurable.

All in all, I think it is great that the meds exist and work for a large number of people. That being said I can't stand when someone praises stimulants alluding the consequences of taking them are invariably positive and the side-effects are trivial (if they are acknowledged).

Sadly, most internet discussions on ADHD meds (among people who don't deny it) are infected with overly simplistic toxic positivity: "get diagnosed and treated and your life will be fixed while you'll be happy". The first part I agree with but there is no need to trivialize - the life is more nuanced than that.

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