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

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

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

#61

Post by treeman79 »

burtonator wrote: post #54
treeman79 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Took adderal for year. Completely life changing. My focus and energy level were on par with a normal persons. Unfortunately it was far too hard on the body. Started stroking out on it. Plus it interacted with almost every Medicane I’ve been prescribed. Tried vyvanse. Only one side effect. The deepest most profound sadness imaginable. Would sit for hours just “sad”. Nothing was bothering me. Worked fine aside from tha…

They're your kids so it's your decision but might I suggest trying a low dose of Adderall or other medication and ramp up over time? ADD was REALLY hard on me when I was a kid. I had a difficulty making friends. I got really bad grades in school. Got in fights. Made me depressed and I thought something was broken with me. You can start with 5mg and then ramp up from there. I'm on 15mg. I can't really feel 5m and 20mg…

Proper dosage for me can be 10-100 times less then a normal person. Varies greatly.

One kid gets really bad headaches from less then 2mg pill. It’s a hard decision. Constantly monitoring them to see if they can manage without it. I think one is going to be okay with out.

Other one is probably going to have to go on. Still very young though

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

#62

Post by sergiomattei »

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 than when I'm in a hyperactive rush (even if my focus is reduced).

So for now I'm just going to embrace my inconsistency (in terms of emotions, energy, and focus) because I think I'm way worse without it. Establishing a routine helps me cope much better - I feel waking up early and having a good morning dictates how productive my day will be.

On meds, I finally felt in control of my life and energy. But it also felt bland, boring. I didn't feel anything. I had no anxiety to push me to go the extra mile. My personality & cheeriness were nonexistent. And I was, overall, simply less productive.

Not doing that again.

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

#63

Post by justin66 »

andybak wrote: post #29
treeman79 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Took adderal for year. Completely life changing. My focus and energy level were on par with a normal persons. Unfortunately it was far too hard on the body. Started stroking out on it. Plus it interacted with almost every Medicane I’ve been prescribed. Tried vyvanse. Only one side effect. The deepest most profound sadness imaginable. Would sit for hours just “sad”. Nothing was bothering me. Worked fine aside from tha…

> Started stroking out on it I've never heard this particular phrase before and I can only guess it's meaning vaguely from the context. What does it mean?

It sounds like the OP was talking about stroke. The way it was written ("started") it's a little unclear whether the OP was in fear of experiencing a stroke because of other side effects (elevated BP or something), or actually experienced a stroke, which is an extremely rare side effect.

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

#64

Post by iamdbtoo »

logicOnly wrote: post #16

Wondering if this is why marijuana makes me insanely productive. Both impact dopamine. It just sucks that I get addicted to weed because I'm super productive. I just need a way to prevent myself from having marijuana before anything social or public.

As someone who has ADHD and is also a heavy marijuana user, I've found the marijuana mostly helps me with the frustration of the ADHD experience. It makes it difficult for the frustration to reach a boiling point and that's what actually makes me productive. Adderall has been WAY more effective at this, though.

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

#65

Post by [deleted] »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #35
cbluth wrote: post #3

i have severe ADD, and i dont have the patience with myself to read enough of this article to benefit my understanding of it.

The good news is that you don’t need to. In fact, these articles tend to give people a false feeling of understanding, and an impression that ADHD is purely a chemical situation in the brain that can only be treated with drugs. That’s not really true. Medication can absolutely help for severe cases, but falling into the trap of thinking that ADHD is a purely chemical problem that can only be addressed with chemical s…

[deleted]

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

#66

Post by andai »

treeman79 wrote: post #61
burtonator wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're your kids so it's your decision but might I suggest trying a low dose of Adderall or other medication and ramp up over time? ADD was REALLY hard on me when I was a kid. I had a difficulty making friends. I got really bad grades in school. Got in fights. Made me depressed and I thought something was broken with me. You can start with 5mg and then ramp up from there. I'm on 15mg. I can't really feel 5m and 20mg…

Proper dosage for me can be 10-100 times less then a normal person. Varies greatly. One kid gets really bad headaches from less then 2mg pill. It’s a hard decision. Constantly monitoring them to see if they can manage without it. I think one is going to be okay with out. Other one is probably going to have to go on. Still very young though

Do they make them at such low doses or do you need to split it yourself?

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

#67

Post by andai »

kayodelycaon wrote: post #36
cpuguy83 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having gone through this with my fam, given that you seem to have reactions to every med, have you considered it may be autism or aspurgers? ADHD and autism are often seen together, and reactions to other meds also seems to be fairly common. I just wanted to throw that out there because this realization that it's not just ADHD, not just anxiety, etc has changed our life dramatically... and there are meds that can hel…

Bipolar, schizophrenia, and depression can also cause attention deficient. It is extremely common for children with Bipolar to be misdiagnosed as ADHD. Depression is usually easier to diagnose accurately. Schizophrenia can be hit or miss, depending on severity. In my case (I'm bipolar), psychosis was so much a part of my normal life that I was completely blind to it and my external symptoms weren't severe enough to b…

I'm curious if you're willing to share, how psychosis can be a part of a normal life, how you can have it for any length of time without it being recognizable? Did I understand correctly? Is it like, having a very unusual perception of reality, but not so unusual as to interfere with normal functioning?

In people I know who have experienced it, it was very debilitating, so I hadn't even considered the possibility of having it for a long time and still being able to function.

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

#68

Post by jakkyboi »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #50
oriolid wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you share some of your assumedly true understanding?

It's a massive topic to cover in the scope of HN comments. ADHD also tends to be a touchy subject on HN. For a less heated parallel, consider reading up on how the "chemical imbalance" narrative has been harmful for public perception of psychiatry: https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/debunking-two-chemical... . People consume a lot of medication ads (in the US) and bite-sized, reductionist narratives about neurotra…

Thanks for writing this out. My only comment is this: it's a touchy subject because while you are describing one end of the spectrum, the opposite end is almost always applied for those struggling with ADHD - "Just work harder! You'll get over it"

There's definitely a healthy balance of smart lifestyle choices, coupled with medication for those who truly struggle and need to just get from zero to 1.

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

#69

Post by dr_dshiv »

burtonator wrote: post #52
_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…

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…

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, etc. It took ages before people recognized that there weren't really health downsides to coffee. We are so trained to expect that "every up has a down" — but what if that's just a relic of Calvinism and we are inhibiting our full potential because of misplaced fears?

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

#70

Post by scns »

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

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