Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

ADHD drug treatment and risk of negative events and outcomes

bmj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

311–320 of 537 posts

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

#311

Post by wafflemaker »

astrange wrote: post #272
idiotsecant wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Some brains react to some stimulants differently. That's the whole reason ADHD can be treated with Adderall.

This isn't true, it affects everyone the same way. But you could say the optimal dosage is different for different people. I think people just like saying this because they're afraid stimulants will get banned otherwise.

All drugs affect everyone differently. Something that's ok with you can literally kill someone else - simple example - smoking weed with someone that has some lung disease.

That's why just having them illegal makes them 100x more dangerous. Through less knowledge among users, no guidance on packaging and difficult to identify the substance if someone had to be taken to the hospital.

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

#312

Post by cbsmith »

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.…

s/providers/insurers/

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

#314

Post by chris_wot »

bawolff wrote: post #269
lysp wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The DEA put Adderall on its list of the most abused medication, and limits production of it and investigates doctors who prescribe too much of it. The other thing on top of limiting its production, it's not just for the US, it's worldwide. Australia has a shortage of various types of ADHD medication due to this DEA production limit too. https://www.tga.gov.au/safety/shortages/information-about-ma... Also, the Austr…

Is there something stopping other countries from spinning up a factory?

Trump wouldn't like it.

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

#315

Post by graemep »

bawolff wrote: post #269
lysp wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The DEA put Adderall on its list of the most abused medication, and limits production of it and investigates doctors who prescribe too much of it. The other thing on top of limiting its production, it's not just for the US, it's worldwide. Australia has a shortage of various types of ADHD medication due to this DEA production limit too. https://www.tga.gov.au/safety/shortages/information-about-ma... Also, the Austr…

Is there something stopping other countries from spinning up a factory?

They have. It was originally made by a British company but is now out of patent and is made by multiple companies in multiple countries.

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

#316

Post by esseph »

kstrauser wrote: post #159
hombre_fatal wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An untrained dose of amphetamine will hit you hard even if you have ADHD, especially if it’s higher than the entry level dose, so I would say it gives you zero information about whether you have the condition. Funny story though. I have a similar story after my friend walked up to me in a club with a line of coke on his hand. Then I proceeded to charm the girl that became my next girlfriend.

I’m not so sure about that. My very first dose of Adderall was anticlimactic. I was bracing for the rush from an energy drink or something, and instead felt… nothing. I was just able to focus on work better that day. Also, cocaine and amphetamines are very different drugs. They’re both stimulants, but that’s about all they have in common.

> the rush from an energy drink

I must be dead inside.

(I probably need a caffeine tolerance break...)

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

#317

Post by HDMI_Cable »

It's quite sad that ADHD is as stigmatized as it is: even though it is a very well-characterized condition in psychiatric literature, the most common 'pop-science' take one hears about it is that ADHD is completely overdiagnosed and may not even exist as a condition. Also, I know multiple people, even though well-managed ADHD would not negatively affect their careers, are barred from certain professions (like high-security military careers and being pilots) simply due to having ADHD and being medicated for it.

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

#318

Post by cluckindan »

fn-mote wrote: post #230
cluckindan wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The previous poster habitually drinks coffee, and thus already has tolerance to the stimulant effects / increased neurotransmission.

Not all of the stimulants work the same way. When (if?) you build up a tolerance to one, you change to a different med. I expect the same applies to the caffeine -> adderall change.

Coffee is not just caffeine. It contains biologically relevant amounts of monoamine oxidase inhibitors.

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

#319

Post by graemep »

99_00 wrote: post #307
mandevil wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The DEA put Adderall on its list of the most abused medication, and limits production of it and investigates doctors who prescribe too much of it. This is a response to the problems with the abuse of legal opiates a decade ago- the DEA now takes potential abuse of legal drugs much more seriously and adderall (an amphetamine- it's a cousin of meth) is at a high risk of abuse. Your psychiatrist is trying to deal with t…

All abuse is bad. Some abuses are worse than others. What abuse are they seeing with adderall? What I hear in casual conversations is that people are abusing it to learn things. Is that what the DEA was seeing too?

Yes, it is most commonly used a study drug.

It is a strong stimulant (more like cocaine than like coffee) and potentially addictive so potentially dangerous and requires medical supervision.

it is a formulation of amphetamine.

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

#320

Post by will_e »

astrange wrote: post #270
hnthrowaway847 wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn’t be surprised if this study were funded by some pharmaceutical lobbying shell organization. I was on various forms of prescribed amphetimines for years and developed paranoia. It took me a few years to somewhat recover. My family has PTSD about that period of my life. I can’t think or communicate well anymore. Fuck that industry.

It doesn't matter who funds a study if it's properly designed. You see this kind of dismissal on /r/science all the time and it's always just evidence that they're not qualified to actually read the study.

Respectfully disagree.

I knew someone that worked for the tobacco industry where they had labs that constantly were looking for reasons that tobacco was good for you. It meets your qualifications for properly designed studies, but it was purely about trying to convince convinced others that a known addictive substance that caused emphysema and lung cancer was beneficial to your health.

Something similar happened in the weed industry, though it it’s proponents were initially just people that wanted pot to be free for anyone to grow, and then it got taken over by capitalists that didn’t mind using massive amounts of energy to fund vertical gardening, or genetically modify yeast to create THC, or to genetically modify the plant itself to produce an untested derivative of it that would meet the qualifications for hemp products, and then peddle it to teenagers at massive doses without control, pairing it with sugar-free sweeteners and causing serious health problems like uncontrollable vomit coughing, basically inventing a new disease from scratch.

Post reply on HN