ADHD drug treatment and risk of negative events and outcomes • Hacker News Board

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

#361

Post by squigz » Sat, Aug 16, 2025, 12:54 PM UTC

alexrp wrote: post #301

thelaxiankey wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the thing about being human is you internalize cultural values as your own. if you lived in a society that valued, i dunno, tracking and hunting down giraffes in small groups, would you have the same struggles? what if just participating in society required ~20 hours of athletic activity a week? i'm not entirely convinced you would have this problem, based on the anthropology i've read. the signal of a maladaptive cu…

My desire to work on said projects is intrinsic; no one around me expects me to do so. In fact, quite a few of my projects add no value to broader society and exist only because I found doing them interesting. I don't imagine the surrounding culture valuing the hunting of giraffes would particularly affect this one way or the other. (Except if said culture doesn't have computers, I guess.) > personally, this has been…

> But if we take a more typical example that many ADHD people struggle with like, say, doing the dishes or cleaning the house... I guess I don't really understand what might be "materially wrong" here, or how doing something else addresses whatever that is or, more to the point, actually gets those chores done...? This sounds a bit hand-wavy to me.

We can go a lot more fundamental than this, too. What about brushing your teeth? Showering? Eating? I can keep going.

There are some things you can handwave away as being society's fault, but there are far, far more things that, no matter how much society changes, will still negatively affect me.

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

#362

Post by kayodelycaon » Sat, Aug 16, 2025, 12:56 PM UTC

hilux wrote: post #292

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.…

There are non-stimulant ADHD meds as well. Most of us don't get a chance to try all of them. In fact, I was surprised to learn that Adderall is highly illegal in many countries, including Japan and South Korea( ), both of which have a higher standard of healthcare, and a much longer life expectancy, than the US does. In other words, they're not anti-health. ( ) In theory, you can bring Adderall into South Korea with…

I’m using Wellbrutin, which is a NDRI (norepinephrine–dopamine reuptake inhibitor) antidepressant.

The main reason for this is because I’m also bipolar. First-line stimulants for ADHD cause manic episodes.

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

#363

Post by kayodelycaon » Sat, Aug 16, 2025, 1:04 PM UTC

mrexroad wrote: post #207

Spooky23 wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s a good point on the nicotine. I found out that i have ADHD through a process of dealing with a hearing issue - I have something called auditory processing disorder (APD), which means while I have excellent hearing, my brain has difficulty processing speech in high noise environments, especially with multiple people or frequencies that correlate to women. ADHD and autism spectrum disorders are highly correlated…

Clinically ADHD and suspected APD here. I also have excellent hearing in both ears (20k+ hz), but I’m shit at understanding conversations in noisy environments… especially if my wife is speaking. Her voice is markedly harder for me to process than other people’s when there’s background noise. She used to assume I was being ADHD and not paying attention, etc, and get frustrated, but after years of me visibly focusing…

Same. Excellent hearing but I can’t follow conversations in noisy places. I only catch every other word. It’s like my brain isn’t filtering out the noise in real time so it just stops hearing.

Annoyingly, this can also affect video calls when people don’t speak clearly.

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

#364

Post by kayodelycaon » Sat, Aug 16, 2025, 1:09 PM UTC

Llamamoe wrote: post #305

homefree wrote: post #133

My hypothesis about this for a long time has been stimulants help everyone be more productive (with some tradeoffs) and ADHD is kind of a weakly differentiated diagnosis that could apply to most people. Probably something like this was lost when people stopped smoking, obviously beneficial for health - but a huge amount of the public was taking stimulants regularly via nicotine until relatively recently.

> and ADHD is kind of a weakly differentiated diagnosis that could apply to most people. It's not, the problem is that it sounds like it because ~everyone faces some (way) lesser version of the struggles ADHD people face literally every day, many of whom probably do have some subclinical degree of executive dysfunction. My personal thumb rule is that somebody is capable of finishing school, autonomously managing thei…

High-functioning doesn’t mean you’re not suffering horribly every single day. It can mean you’re a strong willed and good at masking.

I was “functional” through a four month long psychotic break in which I was constantly one mistake from people finding out I wasn’t human and killing me. (I’m fine now. No lasting trauma fortunately.)

How someone looks from the outside isn’t a good measure of their mental health. How many people have been depressed and killed themselves without any obvious warnings?

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

#365

Post by notfromhere » Sat, Aug 16, 2025, 1:10 PM UTC

shlant wrote: post #353

adastra22 wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Focus is the same. It's the euphoric high and increased hyperactivity in neurotypicals which is the divergent response.

the euphoric high also happens in those with ADHD but only when they first start taking it. I would assume if you took it recreationally and not consistently you would have the same effect

Eh. When you take it the first time the euphoria is more that you can focus and the mind becomes quieter. It’s not like a party drug

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

#366

Post by notfromhere » Sat, Aug 16, 2025, 1:13 PM UTC

graemep wrote: post #319

99_00 wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You aren’t really going to get addicted to therapeutic doses. Recreational doses are like 5-10x what a doctor would prescribe, with restrictive laws in the U.S. you can only get a months supply at a time.

Would be pretty dumb to use your months dosage for 3 days of partying

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

#367

Post by notfromhere » Sat, Aug 16, 2025, 1:14 PM UTC

nerdsniper wrote: post #222

1659447091 wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I just moved back to the US and had to find a new local doctor who gives me 30 day scripts You may have difficultly getting a 90 day, both the doc and pharmacist have to agree to do it - 3x30 day with 'fill on dates' is more likely. When I had a long out of town trip I was able to get a 60 day script. When I came back the doc sent 60 day script again but the pharmacist wouldn't fill it and only allowed it because w…

ExpressScripts pharmacy basically mandates 90-day Rx and will mail them to your home. Excellent for people who suffer from ADHD.

I don’t understand how this works when legally in many states they can only dispense a 30 day supply

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

#368

Post by vovavili » Sat, Aug 16, 2025, 1:21 PM UTC

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.…

This is actually less of an issue for technically inclined folks, since we can get our initial fix from the darknet using cryptocurrency, and then getting more consistent at planning and sticking to routine becomes cognitively easier. This also has the advantage of the fact that researching darknet is actually quite fun and stimulating, sort of like a difficult video game with lots of little tricks and secrets.

That's how I started my treatment, at least.

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

#369

Post by idiotsecant » Sat, Aug 16, 2025, 1:23 PM UTC

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.

That's wildly inaccurate. A brain is a complex system with emergent properties that result in us. The basic effect is an increase in Norepinephrine interactions but the effect that has on people with ADHD is obviously very different.

It's like saying that engines with fuel and engines with no fuel respond the same way to adding fuel: it increases the length of time they will run.

Stop adding fuel and the resulting system behaviour will be quite different.

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

#370

Post by homefree » Sat, Aug 16, 2025, 1:29 PM UTC

jakkos wrote: post #345

mrlongroots wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have diagnosed ADHD and I agree largely with the person you are responding to. The claim is not that ADHD is not a set of people with real psychiatric disorders, but it is a loose umbrella for what are actually disparate problems. I recently learned that my symptoms, to a large extent, can be explained more accurately as POTS or something adjacent, and the meds I guided my psychiatrist towards were far more helpful…

> a loose umbrella for what are actually disparate problems For me, the DSM-V & DIVA criteria are eerily accurate. I was diagnosed as an adult and it felt like a cruel cosmic joke reading through the psychiatrist report and realizing that most of my past and present issues were repeatedly-documented commonalities of a single condition. It was as if my life had just been playing out from a predetermined script. I full…

My criticism is not that the criteria don’t apply or that people don’t think they do - but that most people reading it seem to describe what you’re saying.

It seems more like a horoscope to me - everyone can find themselves in the criteria. It’s an observable thing, I’m just not sure I buy its special distinction.

People also used to make the claim that the stimulant drugs had special effects (or even opposite effects) on those with ADHD vs. the non ADHD population which always seemed like bullshit to me, but I don’t see that claim being made here anymore.

Edit: after writing this comments others in the thread started making this claim