ADHD / ADD Discussion

Pharma / TRT
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Hi all who are distracted,

I have a couple questions for those of you who have been diagnosed with ADHD as I was as a child. Despite being diagnosed as a young child 6-7, I still think I have ADHD. My mom took me off of Ritalin after about 6 months, when she read it could stunt my growth. I think I coped well in school as I could pick things up really quickly. I would usually do well on tests and poor on projects. I think this has to do with being able to retain information quickly. I was able to make it through college and get a degree in Mechanical Engineering. I found learning the topic really interesting, but again did well on tests and poor on projects (many times not completing them).

I find now that I have been working as an engineer for about 6 years, that it is almost impossible to motivate myself to start a project, if I do start I lose interest so quickly (under 10 minutes).

I recently switched jobs as my previous job was catching up to me, and I was not doing well with my boss because of mentioned issues (I did generate a lot of IP for the company, and developed most of the mechanisms for the two products that were released in my time there, but couldn’t do routine tasks well at all). I got a really good job now (close to home, window office, and I like the environment), and really want to keep it. I don’t want my ADHD to catch up to me, but I just can’t seem to motivate myself to do what I need to. I haven’t gotten in trouble yet, but I get anxiety about it almost every day, which leads to insomnia. Every night I am thinking about what I will do the next day, then I can’t seem to do it the next day. It is extremely frustrating.

A question I have, is has medication helped long term? I know it will work short term as I learned a semester of linear algebra in a day on Adderall. I worry that in a year I’ll be in the same spot, but hopped up on prescription meth.

Have other treatments worked for you? Counseling?

Any tricks to actually do things you don’t want to do? I am really good at doing stuff I like, but it is very hard to do things I don’t. I think the fact that I found most of Mechanical Engineering interesting was a key to my college success. I didn’t go to class much as it was to boring (and I would not pay attention anyways), but the subject matter on the whole was pretty interesting to me.

If you are on meds, do you get drug screened? What are they screening for? Just making sure that you are not on amphetamines before hand? Making sure your are not selling your prescription? I do use a little MJ from time to time, so it is important to know if they screen for this.

Do you have to have an appointment every 3 months? Seems like a PITA to me, but would be worth it.

Let me know your experiences. Sorry for the ramble format.

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I’m surprised this hasn’t generated more discussion given how widespread this problem is. I do have this issue from time to time. As a lawyer, I have to spend large blocks of time reading through cases and statutes that don’t always make for the most compelling reading, and I find that my mind can wonder. I have found Adderall to be effective for this. My understanding is that it is pretty safe in small doses, and you won’t need a lot to reap some benefit. I didn’t have any trouble getting my doctor to give me a script for it, but yes, they will monitor you to make sure you aren’t misdirecting it. As far as screening, I wouldn’t worry about it; so long as you have prescription, no one will give you grief.

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Also some claim Tyrosine (sp?) works, but I did not find it to be helpful. You might give it a try though.

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Thanks for responding. I had given up on this one. I don’t think it is something that those that don’t suffer from it often understand. I’ll look into Tyrosine.

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I must have missed this one when it first popped up. Sorry about that.

So I have always been pretty ADD. When I was younger it was dismissed as me just being lazy and disinterested. Since I still got decent grades nobody bothered to investigate further. After my academic life was done I worked jobs that didn’t require me to be terribly focused, so I continued to go unmedicated. At age 32 I switched career fields and immediately knew I needed to get treatment or I was going to fail and fast. Saw my shrink, got a second opinion from another specialist, then got on adderall. It’s been all good ever since.

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Reading your post makes me think I have ADHD. I’m a super hard worker as soon as I’m hooked on something but as soon as it is mildly boring I’m distracted in 10 seconds. Always have been the class clown in school while being the best in the class because of my extremely fast information saving brain.

Not bad. Sounds like the stories from the med students are true. Maybe I’ll give it a run before the next deadline haha

There is other options than methylphenidate. Did you ever try Guanfacine?

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Man, I could go in for ages about this topic. You sound a lot like me. ADHD as a kid. Degree in engineering, worked as an engineer for 10 years, etc.

I’ll keep this post short and start with a firm belief that I have; which is diagnoses like ADHD, aspergers, bipolar, borderline personality, etc. are all bullshit labeling of adults and children that are having a very real and normal reaction to either garbage parenting or living in a society and culture that is setting them up for failure, too demanding, or suppressing.

From childhood we are set up and programmed by our parents and teachers to live a life revolving around making someone else more money, just so we can put food on the table. This someone else (your boss) is literally that, your boss. Who tells you what to do, when to do it, how to do it, disciplines you, and maybe rewards you with a pat on the back or a few extra bucks, but doesn’t really give a damn about you because the money he is making from you is 10x more money than he will ever pay you.

Everyone gets this to some degree, some worse than others. But we are trained to believe we are less than the person that is in charge of us. Subconsciously we all know this. And our response to it is these shit diagnoses. And the solution? Pop some pills, because there is something wrong with you, you are unable to conform to society. Starting as a child that has one too many emotional outbreaks, that child goes straight to the psychologist, and the parents will say, right in front of you: “ do you have any idea how difficult it is to raise a child with ADHD. He never does what I ask him. Can we fix him? he is a broken human being, his behavior is wrong, he is not normal.” And you walk the rest of your life believing that.

I will tell you what make a big difference for me. I quit my job sitting in a tiny cubical, doing meaningless engineering work to make stupid parts for robots, satellites, self driving cars, and all this garbage that is turning out planet into lazy, over-controlling society that is stripping all the joy and meaning out of everyone’s lives, so that the people on top can stay on top and have more puppets and pawns to play with, and they can brag about their money and shoot their goddamn Teslas into space creating more garbage orbiting our already garbage can planet. And who are these people? They are literally gods in our society, idolized. They get on stage at their sold out conventions to demonstrate their new software, their new smart homes, and their new cars, and show you just how they can control your life a little bit more. And at what cost? More money. So you have to work harder, keeping up with the neighbors, the friends, and the social media addicts. And all that money goes right back to these assholes controlling us, so they can dictate our lives, and then throw us out on the street when they replace our jobs with software, self checkouts at the grocery store, and robots. Now Amazon drivers are going to be on video their whole shift. Robots will sense when they’re yawning. They are timing you, watching you, you can’t take bathroom breaks so you have to piss in a water bottle. You have to wait until the lunch alarm goes off so you can get herded into a break room where you have 30 minutes to try to get a grip with reality, before you’re shoved off again onto the assembly line.

Serious, this culture is not natural man. I know this rant is pretty negative, but just take some time to think about how unnatural our way of living is. Think about what is really important, and go do that. Because that’s he only cure to all these diagnoses.

Read some shelf help books. I don’t know your exact situation, your upbringing, or anything about your career. I can recommend some, but it’s always good to find some on your own that you are drawn to.

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I have a close friend who is 31 and has ADD. On my suggestion, he started taking modafinil instead of adderall and it has helped him tremendously. He had a lot of the same issues you had @mnben87 and I can definitely tell a difference (we’re coworkers), as can he.

Modafinil for ADD is considered off-label use as far as I know, so a doctor might need some persuading.

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Wow galgenstrick, I can’t imagine what we would have learned if your post was long, haha J/K I loved every word. I don’t know your age but you are in tune with how our world has turned out. I am a retired Aerospace engineer with 38 years as an ME.

I grewup in the 60’s so there was no ADHD/ADD. The teacher says you are out of control set your ass down and be quiet, if that did not work and it never did, they beat your ass with a wooden paddle. After about 3 of those you were sent to the principals office who had a bigger paddle. Still made of wood but with holes drilled in it.
After two of those they called your Dad and when you got home you had the belt to look forward to. Back then there was no drugs no compassion you fucking complied.

@mnben87 Anyway where am I going with this? Be glad there are drugs and professionals out there that can help you. Go see them and the next time you see your Dad just know the shit he probably had to endure.

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Disagreed. These diagnoses are very real conditions, rather perhaps they’re labels that are handed down haphazardly

Have you ever seen rain man? You think his eccentricities are a simply reactions to environmental variables? No, there are studies with neuroimaging providing evidence of structural abnormalities within the brains of those with asperhers, ADHD etc.

BPD isn’t a BS diagnosis either, suicide rates amongst those with BPD are very, very high.

That being said, affixing a label can be problematic as society now may deem those with a given condition to be irredeemable, set up for failure. I never let people know I’m neurodivergent as it tends to push people away. “Autistic” certainly has a negative connotation to it within my societal paradigm.

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Rain man is based on a real person. In the movie he was diagnose with autism, which is a diagnosable genetic disorder, completely different. The real guy the movie was based on didn’t even have autism.

I’m not sure what your argument is here. Bipolar people have a high suicide rate, thus bipolar is a real diagnosis? I would argue that the children labeled with the disorders and programmed from childhood would fall into the higher suicide rate category as well.

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Not everyone unreal,
Although we both have very different mental illnesses I found a friendship a connection with you. In what we have shared here and privately.

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Asperger’s is considered a form autism.

There are very distinct features present within bipolar disorders, borderline personality disorder. There are different variations of bipolar disorder, but generally the characteristics of a manic individual do not encompass that of reactive symptomatology.

Have you ever been around a bipolar individual having a manic episode with psychotic features? Anecdotally speaking, I have; and it’s unsettling…

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Bipolar disorder is an uncommon diagnosis for a child to receive as a recurrent pattern of behaviour must generally be observed.

My argument is… I don’t think you are correct here, people with bipolar disorder, autism etc have structural differences regarding brain matter morphology detectable on neuroimaging.

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Are you saying bipolar can be diagnosed purely from a brain scan?

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We need more data.

Neuroimaging may offer new way to diagnose bipolar disorder -- ScienceDaily.

In the future it may be an important tool as to make/solidify a diagnosis

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Or maybe instead of inventing robots to diagnose mental disorders we can take a look at what is actually causing suicide.

Ancient cultures with previously no suicide rates are now among the highest as they are forced to conform to modern culture. Maybe a piece of the puzzle these scientist are ignoring because they are so ingrained is this illusion we are living in.

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Hmmm. Makes you wonder.

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Our “experts” aren’t sure why. Shit, I don’t know, let’s just call it bipolar or some other mental illness to explain it away. Definitely something wrong with them, and not us or the way we live.

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I’ve tried adderall which helped with focus and motivation and gathering my thoughts a lot but caused more problems than it fixed and when the dose was lowered to not cause those problem it didn’t help anymore. It amped up anxiety and made me a bit of a monster.

Clonidine only helped with restlessness which wasn’t the main problem and caused sedation and weight gain and depression. Guanfacine was like clonidine but it did help with organizing my thoughts more but still worse off with it than without it overall.

After this, my doc decided to put me on Zoloft, an antidepressant since she thought that since those ADHD meds didn’t help that maybe that would fix the issue. I tried it 2 months and all that ended up happening was that I was in a state of constant despair and it destroyed my ability to concentrate and focus to the point I didn’t even feel safe driving a car. It turned me into a total invalid and when I reported this to my doc her answer was to stay the course and increase the dose.
I had tried 2 other AD’s of the same class for depression while taking adderall which caused similar issues but the adderall was able to cut through the concentration/focus issues when I took those. It was so awful w/ just the SSRI alone.

I’ve had poor results with other doctors in the past b/c all they know is SSRI + stimulant for depression and adhd and don’t wanna try meds of different classes that are still 1st or 2nd line. I don’t have health insurance so it takes a few months to get a first appointment and then I get a less competent doc w/ a crazy caseload so if you have a case that doesn’t respond to the basic first line medicines your fucked if you stick w/ those docs.

So I didn’t stick w/ those docs. Getting insurance wasn’t an option either. So I ordered a medicine from India no script known to help with executive function issues and dyskinesia in people with Parkinson’s that’s also been shown in many studies to help with executive function in many disorders like autism and yes adhd.

It’s called amantadine. It’s been around since the 60’s and it has very very few interactions. That’s one of the reason’s it can be helpful with Parkinson’s since they’re taking lots of medication for the disorder and are frequently taking other medicines for other issues since they’re frequently older.

It’s activating and it’s know to be dopaminergic. My experience is that helps with all the issues like motivation, focus, concentration but it does very little to help with the restlessness aspect of adhd.

For depression, I take an AD that’s not FDA approved (the company never sought approval since they didn’t wanna spend the money to jump through the hoops) that’s one of the 1st line options available in Russia, Europe, and South America. It’s known to often work for people w/ depression who don’t respond to SSRI’s. I’ve found it to actually be effective and have almost no side effects.

There’s so many classes other than SSRIs and SNRI’s that available overseas in developed nations like France or Germany that are considered 1st line and they never end up here because they don’t wanna spend the time and money getting through the FDA and it’s a damned shame.

If you go this route, make sure your you’ve done your homework. There’s some deadly interactions with certain psych meds, foods, and supplements. I was in kind of a desperate situation so I did what I had to.

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I take dextroamphetamine for add. A little bit goes a long way