[HN Gopher] ADHD, a Lifelong Struggle (2018)
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ADHD, a Lifelong Struggle (2018)
Author : spiffytech
Score : 225 points
Date : 2020-01-23 17:47 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (gekk.info)
(TXT) w3m dump (gekk.info)
| keynesyoudigit wrote:
| Damn this is right on I needed this bad. I just started reaching
| out to coaches and psychiatrists about my ADD
| joshlittle wrote:
| Everything in this article is correct, at least for me.
|
| I got fired for performance at my last job about 2.75 years ago.
| The first two years of working there I had great performance
| reviews, things went well. It was a high performing YC-backed
| success story, and I felt just as successful. I was promoted to
| Lead QA Engineer, and oversaw several projects going at once that
| I was interested in.
|
| About two years in, it started going south when I lost my
| Adderall prescription. Eventually I got fired. It was
| devastating, and the best job I ever had.
|
| I guess after some change at Kaiser Permanente, my primary care
| doctor was no longer able to write me Adderall. He sent me to
| psychiatry, which at Kaiser is less than stellar.
|
| Psychiatrist said that unless I can provide proof from elementary
| school or doctors from my childhood, he's going to have to
| reevaluate me; from the looks of what he said I might not get a
| diagnosis. Offered me Wellbutrin. The entire visit was a slap in
| the face. He thought I was there to get stimulants because I have
| a drug problem.
|
| Indeed! I do have a drug problem in that no longer am being
| prescribed the drugs that make me function. I never abused drugs.
|
| Even after talking to a manager, Kaiser refuses let me switch
| psychiatrists. This was about 2.5 years ago. It took me two
| months even get an appointment with that Dr; only to have him
| tell me get lost.
|
| Meanwhile, I've been doing the best I can given the situation.
| ADHD Affects me greatly and I've lost so much since then.
|
| For one, disorganization resulted in me missing out on exercising
| my stock options. I thought I had three months, it was 90 days.
| Missed it by a day!
|
| This was problematic because the company was purchased by
| Autodesk about a year after I got fired. Would've been a nice
| liquidity event. ($600K)
|
| I'm still falling incredibly short. I have a lot of trauma around
| getting fired and feeling like I am insufficient. I have not even
| applied for a job since leaving. Once unemployment ran out I
| started ridesharing; i'm doing that off and on for about two
| years. It barely pays rent but better than being broke and
| homeless in San Francisco.
|
| Today, it's a struggle to stay relevant. I have pretty much given
| up on finding a psychiatrist in San Francisco as they all appear
| booked for months. I have found success in self medication
| although it's harder to find therapeutic pharmaceuticals then
| street drugs; not a viable alternative for me.
|
| I'm sort of losing interest in tech. I find enjoyment in many
| things technical but cannot seem to get myself together. Thinking
| without finishing my college degree, no relevant work for the
| last 2 1/2 years, and no treatment for my condition; nobody will
| want to hire me. Even if they did I am not sure I'd be able to be
| successful.
|
| Where am I at now? Still ridesharing, trying to make ends meet.
| My resume is almost rewritten, I have looked at some jobs but not
| applied for any yet. My world has gotten a little bit smaller
| than I would like.
|
| Absolutely I need some more structure than what I have.
| Keverw wrote:
| You have to get permission to change doctors or just a limited
| amount in your network? I was under the assumption you could
| just switch doctors whenever you wanted as long as in-network,
| but I hate this whole in-network thing and out of network.
| Seems so stupid insurance companies dictate your care, but I
| guess even with socialized medicine than the government decides
| on your care instead. It just seems like a whole big Ponzi
| scheme and just another number in a database.
|
| Hmm looked it up and their website says you can change your
| doctor unless maybe it depends on the state... That URL is
| coming up for WA, so maybe in CA it's different since insurance
| companies are usually licensed and separate in every state but
| share a common brand name.
|
| https://wa.kaiserpermanente.org/html/public/member-guide/cho...
|
| > You can change your doctor at any time, for any reason. Just
| follow the same steps as above to select a new doctor.
|
| But I guess every company and plan is different anyways. Seems
| like an entire racket. Someone I know who recently moved wasn't
| feeling too great but didn't want to go to the hospital as
| worried about costs, and called to speak to someone at the
| front desk and they said they couldn't tell you over the phone
| if covered or not, would have to see the card in person and
| specific plan and group numbers. Ended up being nothing though,
| but what if they were having a more serious issue.
|
| So stupid you can't just pick the best-rated doctor and go to
| it. Then some cheaper plans probably have crappier doctors who
| are more disparate. Seems like the whole medical system doesn't
| let you take control over your own health. Then some doctors
| end up actually making people sicker too.
| eigenvalue wrote:
| It sounds like you need to come up with a plan. But in order
| for any plan to be successful, you should do whatever you can
| to get your hands on Adderall so that you can be organized and
| diligent in following your plan (and even with coming up with a
| reasonable plan in the first place). It's pretty easy to get a
| prescription-- you can literally just describe various symptoms
| of ADHD and talk about how you keep experiencing them. Just
| don't directly mention anything about drugs or ADHD. If the
| doctor/psychiatrist won't prescribe it to you, then just go to
| another. It shouldn't take long to find one who will give it to
| you. If you don't have insurance then try to find one that will
| let you pay out of pocket. Once you are back on meds you should
| probably ease your way back into technical work. You might
| consider taking freelance gigs on Upwork or something, even at
| low rates, just to get back into the swing of things. Often
| these gigs can turn into consistent remote working
| opportunities. Once you are back into the mode of doing
| technical work on a routine basis, start applying to jobs. Look
| at the "who is hiring?" threads here on HN. Also, try going to
| tech meetups for things that you are interested (e.g., Node,
| Python, etc.) as a way to network. You probably shouldn't tell
| your whole story to potential employers. Instead, you can say
| that you felt burned out from overwork and decided to take it
| easy for a while and focus on yourself. Now that you've rested,
| you are ready to work again. If you managed to get hired and
| promoted at a good startup there is absolutely no reason you
| can't again. You are certainly living in the right place for
| it, which gives you a huge leg up versus 98% of the coders in
| the world!
| sooenkill wrote:
| I relate a lot. I'm 28 and I have an ADHD diagnosis. There has
| been a lot of public debate on this topic in Sweden of late. I
| got my diagnosis at age 23 and had already finished a bachelor
| degree. My first psychologist said "I'm sure you dont have ADHD
| if you finished a bachelor" lol although at the time my life was
| a rollercoaster. Today im doing great and love the challenging
| nature of software development. However i eat medicine and
| realise that exercise and routines are extremely important to
| mitigate symptoms.
| alharith wrote:
| Meds didn't work for me, they just made me feel in overdrive,
| and I have a high sense of awareness so I always knew in the
| back of my mind the drugs were just making me high for a short
| amount of time. It never felt like real progress.
|
| However, exercise, diet, and prayer cause my symptoms to almost
| vanish. In particular, keeping sugar content extremely low.
| Also being aware of my cues when I know my leg is going to
| start bouncing up and down and the impulse of doing anything
| _but_ my work is about to kick in (such as viewing this site
| for hours), and using behavioral modification techniques to
| mitigate this. Making good habits is especially important for
| ADHD people. It's not easy, but take comfort knowing it is
| doable. You can make progress today.
| RankingMember wrote:
| > stop letting yourself feel like shit for not being normal
|
| The most important point and deservedly bolded. Looking inward
| with a negative mindset is guaranteed to yield the worst result
| if you're dealing with an adversity like ADHD.
| sys32768 wrote:
| I was diagnosed in my 30s in part by the T.O.V.A. test, which
| gave me surprising insights.
|
| The hardest part of the test for me was to stop pushing the
| button when it told me to. It's hard to describe how difficult
| that was for me. By the end I distinctly recall the familiar
| sense I had in school of feeling dumb, inadequate, and
| frustrated.
|
| In the T.O.V.A. results I was normal range for Inattention and
| Reaction Time. My Inconsistency was 75/100 but the shocker was my
| Impulsivity. My commission errors put me at 52/100, what the
| psychologist said was more or less a mentally retarded range.
|
| On 10mg of Adderall, I retook T.O.V.A. and scored normal ranges
| across the board.
|
| That helped me better understand why I was a class clown
| underachiever who barely graduated.
|
| I cried the first time I studied a tech manual on Adderall. It
| was as if my brain were a radio that tuned into a clear channel
| for the first time. I wondered if that was how "normal" people
| are able to concentrate.
|
| Soon, however, the stimulant honeymoon wore off as my tolerance
| increased and side effects ensued. Today I take nothing. I've
| noticed the symptoms being less disturbing since my mid-40s.
|
| A weird part about being on Adderall is it slowed down my brain
| and reduced my quirky left-field personality to such a degree
| that I didn't feel like myself anymore, though I felt much more
| confident. One of my children also has the diagnosis and says the
| exact same thing. He only takes Adderall as needed for school
| challenges that require extra concentration. An early diagnosis
| for him helped him dodge the co-morbid problems that plagued me
| for years.
|
| I don't tell friends or co-workers about the diagnosis. Even my
| spouse has expressed doubt about it.
| phaedrus wrote:
| When I got diagnosed one of the tests (don't know if it was
| specifically T.O.V.A.) was a very simple impulse control
| exercise: when an "O" appeared on the screen, I was supposed to
| push a button. When an "X" appeared on the screen, I was
| supposed to not push the button.
|
| I did so badly that I felt the need to "apologize" to the test
| giver, explaining that I really did understand the instructions
| I just (physically) couldn't catch myself when the "X"
| appeared. What would happen is I'd start off slow and
| increasingly react faster and faster to the O's until I hit an
| X. Then I'd go oh crap I messed up OK gotta slow down. Next
| thing I knew I was reacting to O's again within 10th's of a
| second and of course unable to stop in time when the X
| appeared.
|
| It was a concrete demonstration of the idea about an ADHD brain
| being like driving a car with a responsive accelerator but the
| brakes barely or don't work.
|
| Edit: almost forgot - after getting prescribed adderall I was
| able to read research papers for the first time in my life.
| Prior to that I couldn't concentrate well enough to actually
| read them. This despite having participated in a Research
| Experiences for Undergraduates program. I was able to "fake it"
| for two years and never admit I couldn't actually read or
| buckle down to write research papers. I had always felt some
| shame about that but after ADHD medication I realize it was a
| disability and not just laziness. I no longer take medicine for
| ADHD but just having had the experience of being able to focus
| changed my outlook on things.
| kalium-xyz wrote:
| Check out this read:
| https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/12/28/adderall-risks-much-mo...
| Philadelphia wrote:
| Try other medication. It took me a few years, after being
| diagnosed in my 30's as well, to find something that helped
| without side effects.
| kls wrote:
| Can second this, I started on Adderall but it has severe side
| effects for me. I read up on it and due to the Left handed
| amphetamines in the formula it causes more parasympathetic
| nervousness system stimulation as opposed to central
| nervousness system stimulation which is what the dextro-
| amphetamine target. You may want to try Dexedrin which is
| only dextro-amphetamine or Desoxyn which is methamphetamine.
| In my case after reading I asked the Doc if I could try
| Desoxyn and given Adderall was night and day for me, Desoxyn
| was like a superpower. Methamphetamine more easily crosses
| the blood brain barrier so there is less left in the body for
| the PNS. So you can take lower doses, get less physical
| effect, while getting more pronounced mental effect. Desoxyn
| should be the front line medicine for ADD/ADHD but it's old,
| cheap and not under patent.
| sys32768 wrote:
| Almost embarrassed to admit that I've never heard of
| Desoxyn but am very intrigued. It was never mentioned to me
| when I was getting meds, nor when my son was.
|
| I live in "meth country" unfortunately so getting a
| prescription may be a challenge, but at least I have the
| paperwork.
| jimkri wrote:
| Ive been diagnosed with ADHD since I was in 2nd/3rd grade and
| have been on Ritalin and now Adderall pretty much the whole time.
| That article sounds exactly like my experience. This morning I
| have been avoiding working on a project, and I caught myself
| staring at my computer with my hands ready but I just couldn't
| start. I do feel that it is my ADHD, but I also feel that there
| are other emotions involved. It kind of relates to this post
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22124489.
|
| My main piece of advice that I write on every post about ADHD is
| the following: Get plenty of sleep, exercise, and look into
| meditating. Using the Waking Up app by Sam Harris has really
| taught me so much more than I was expecting. For the first time
| last year I went 3 months without medicine. I wanted to gauge how
| strong my attention/focus muscle was without medicine. At the end
| of 3 months I was able to start noticing when I was distracted or
| in my head and that was such a be improvement for me, because it
| allowed me to start paying attention again. I also noticed how I
| was communicating with myself. I went from being negative towards
| myself because I knew i should be paying attention. To
| understanding where my mind is at that day and knowing that today
| might be a harder day than yesterday, but that is okay. Just take
| it one step at a time.
|
| TLDR: Exercise & Meditation. Mindfulness will help keep you
| present and away from the endless mind games you can experience
| with ADHD
| 19f191ty wrote:
| "If I don't want to wash a fence, I can't think about how to wash
| the fence. I go into complete lockup. I ask the question, "how do
| I wash the fence?" and the answer will not come to me.
|
| I can't get to "first I need a bucket and water." "
|
| This is so true! I'm ADHD, diagnosed and tried medications for a
| while, they helped, but had other issues so I stopped. What
| really helped was the realization that there are tasks where I
| can't even begin. I then gradually trained myself to think about
| the first thing and just focus on that. Don't feel like getting
| up from bed? Thing about moving my hand, then make it move the
| covers off, then move my legs and so on. Soon the momentum
| develops and I find it easier to do whatever I didn't feel like
| doing. Now my default is to just think about the very first thing
| and take it from there. It took me a while but has worked wonders
| for me.
| rubyn00bie wrote:
| I was somewhat recently diagnosed with ADD and the diagnosis has
| truly changed my life. I, for the first time, in roughly 12 years
| of writing software professionally, am able finish a project
| enough to open source it-- and I am days away from being able to
| do so. It feels insanely good. Like something I've only dreamed
| of as silly as that is, and I don't even care if folks use it
| (it's not that good), but it's the fact I have even been able to
| do so...
|
| For years when I would sit down to work I would go into an
| endless loop consisting of roughly three-four websites, almost
| back to back, where it was driven by muscle memory anytime
| something distracted me. I would almost like "wake up" finding
| myself in this endless loop.
|
| On good days, I would look like an insanely talented and driven
| engineer, on bad days, I would look like the laziest piece of
| shit folks could know. It wasn't by choice, it wasn't because I
| was trying to "cowboy" or "rockstar" a single fucking thing, it's
| because that's how my attention span worked (or didn't rather).
|
| "Smart and lazy" is almost an insult to me now, because its a
| moniker put on folks who are probably having trouble with
| something and "lazy" is rarely positive (even when its supposed
| to be). It kept me from believing I might have ADD for years
| despite tons of signs.
|
| The downsides are of course that people don't believe you, or
| judge you for it (I switched pharmacies because they were
| treating my like shit when I would go to pickup my ADD meds)...
| but the upside, as the author said, is you have a life back you
| didn't know you were missing. You can choose to read a book,
| watch a movie, program, etc. you're not longer just forced into a
| vapid reflexivity of the world around you.
| wahern wrote:
| Warning: there can be a honeymoon phase where after diagnosis
| and beginning medication you enter this ecstatic period of
| normalcy on the one hand and insane productivity on the other.
| Don't get lulled into complacency. Use this period to improve
| lifestyle routines and get to a place where you can cruise at a
| better pace than you otherwise might once the acceleration
| stops.
|
| By lifestyle I don't mean some of the things enthusiasts like
| to advocate--weight training, etc, although by all means if
| you're so inclined. But just small stuff--kick caffeine,
| habituate yourself to completing boring tasks as quickly as
| possible, exercise (if only a few pushups in the morning), etc.
| Maybe you were already doing those things, but if you were
| doing them cyclically (weeks, months, etc), now you can do them
| consistently.
| zepto wrote:
| May I ask what treatment is working for you?
| tartoran wrote:
| Probably stimulants. I'd be curious to know because I'd
| rather not take stimulants...
| stared wrote:
| I recommend "Driven to Distraction: Recognizing and Coping with
| Attention Deficit Disorder" by Edward Hallowell and John Ratey
| (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18712223-driven-to-
| distr...). I discovered this book thanks to HN and a post about
| dyslexia. The book shows quite a few stories of adults with
| AD(H)D and how do they cope with work and relationships. The
| stories are diverse (it is certainly not all ill-behaved boys),
| and give a point of reference.
|
| I wished I had known that book before. I got diagnosed only the
| last year, being 33 years old. Before turning 30 I hadn't
| suspected having ADHD, as I had quite a few misconceptions both
| about the condition, and what is "typical" in humans.
| worldstarPanda wrote:
| What the docs wont tell you: Phenethylamine Look it up.
| VonBraunsGhost wrote:
| ADD - Attention Deficit Disorder ADHD - Attention Deficit
| 'Hyperactivity' Disorder
|
| Two different things. One is a lack of interest and ability to
| retain information, the other is an overactive, overly busy brain
| that doesn't allow you to focus. Your 'executive function' is
| shot.
|
| Personally, as someone diagnosed with it as an adult, I feel it's
| legitimate. The treatment however is questionable. Amphetamine
| addiction/abuse is a hard thing to come back from. It floods your
| brain with Dopamine (just look at how long that article is...
| lmao) and when you attempt to remove it, it's welcome to Hell.
|
| There's just too much for us to process nowadays. Most of us have
| an endless list of responsibilities and all we really want is to
| be human. Long story short, I think it's a legitimate thing, but
| a side effect of the modern environment we're forced to live in.
| [deleted]
| samatman wrote:
| Somehow a search for 'modafinil' doesn't turn anything up, in a
| thread full of ADHD-diagnosed software developers complaining
| about the side effects of their conventional stimulant
| medications.
|
| So I'll be that guy: Consider giving it a shot. I took
| d-amphetamine sulfate by prescription for a few years, couldn't
| tolerate the side effects, and modafinil helps a lot.
| wayoutthere wrote:
| Be careful with the stimulants -- I say this not as a value
| judgment but because they can have cognitive side effects that
| impair your ability to understand you're having those side
| effects.
|
| _Even when they work well_ there will be some collateral damage
| with stimulants. I was a great employee on them, but I was a
| shitty, narcissistic friend. The focus many people get from
| stimulants is an inward focus, which makes it easy to get things
| done but hard to empathize with other people. As a result I didn
| 't have many friends, and once I started wanting more out of life
| I realized the stimulants were holding me back from personal
| growth. The inward focus clouded my ability to understand why
| people didn't like me -- I couldn't make enough space for another
| person to even see why people didn't want to be around me.
|
| I'm not saying that stimulants don't help (they totally do) but
| you should understand what you want out of your life and how that
| aligns what you get out of the drugs.
| rtikulit wrote:
| I have the opposite experience. I am formally diagnosed with
| ADHD, none of my friends would dispute the diagnosis. When I am
| on stimulants (Vyvanse and Dex) I have a ton more patience and
| emotional equilibrium. I pay attention to other people longer
| and more deeply... aka empathy. I can sustain an outward focus
| without distraction. When I am off meds I am distracted by my
| own free-running cognitive and emotional processes, and I have
| to spend effort looking inward to manage them.
|
| I have had no temptation to abuse the stimulants. I don't
| really enjoy them, on the balance, but they make an incredible
| difference that meditation, high quality diet and physical
| activity can't even begin to approach. They really calm me
| down.
|
| My wife prefers me medicated. I'm apparently nicer, more
| patient, more even-tempered and easier to get along with.
| gnicholas wrote:
| For anyone with ADHD who finds this long article difficult to
| read, I'd suggest reading it with the BeeLine Reader browser
| extension (I'm the founder, and anyone who wants a free 1-month
| pass can email me via my profile). It makes walls of text and
| long articles in general easier to stick with, and is fairly
| popular in the ADHD community.
|
| This article works best in Clean Mode, which also reformats the
| text into a column.
|
| Sorry if this is too off-topic/self-promotion-y, but hopefully it
| helps some folks.
|
| 1: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/beeline-
| reader/ifj...
| [deleted]
| pgt wrote:
| Thanks! I struggled to read this and kept skipping ahead. Will
| give Beeline a try :)
| whalesalad wrote:
| For those on macOS/Safari - cmd + shift + R will transform an
| article into reader mode: https://i.imgur.com/4uLyDQA.png
| [deleted]
| finaliteration wrote:
| I find myself almost in tears reading certain parts of the
| article. Growing up I was also the, "Smart, but lazy" kid, and my
| parents just told me I was a bad kid who needed more discipline.
| I always felt like my brain just worked differently and spent
| decades feeling fundamentally "broken" because I was just too
| "unmotivated" and didn't have enough "will-power". To this day I
| struggle with feeling inadequate because of the message I heard.
|
| That being said, I'm fortunate in that I've worked with a
| therapist who saw the ADHD (along with PTSD) symptoms and put a
| name to them. They pointed out that I'd basically been self-
| medicating with caffeine since I was a young kid. Even just
| having the acknowledgment and having words put to it has made a
| huge difference for me. Now I know it's not some moral failing
| and laziness. My brain is just different and I have to figure out
| ways to make it work (currently those ways are medication,
| writing, therapy, and some incorporation of Buddhist teachings in
| my life).
| remote_phone wrote:
| ADHD is not a disease. It's a collection of symptoms that have
| been arbitrarily grouped together. My son's psychiatrist who was
| diagnosing my son for ADHD said that it's psychiatry's dirty
| little secret.
|
| Back in the 60s or 70s ( I can't remember what he said) people
| were starting to notice that kids were having behavioral
| problems, trouble focusing etc.
|
| So what they did was collect a group of symptoms, and then
| arbitrarily said "if the child has 6 out of 11 of these symptoms
| then they have ADHD."
|
| The reason why they chose 6 was because if they chose 5 then too
| little number of children would get diagnosed, and if they chose
| 7, then too many children would get diagnosed. Having 6 would
| mean that 7-10% of kids would get diagnosed which "looked right"
| so they chose 7.
|
| It's not a real disease like other diseases, it's a collection of
| symptoms. Which is why kids get misdiagnosed all the time.
| Anxiety can produce ADHD-like symptoms. Other things like
| giftedness and boredom can also fry diagnosed as ADHD.
|
| There really are children with focus issues where medication like
| adderall will absolutely help. It will make kids with anxiety
| worse though so a misdiagnosis will ruin lives. But the origins
| of where ADHD came from explains why there is so many issues with
| ADHD disgnoses.
| Maxion wrote:
| You're showing shocking ignorance of psychiatry and the
| classification of mental disorders, not to mention any of the
| latest research into ADHD.
|
| In the US there is a larger percentage of the population who
| are diagnosed than in other countries, but even there, adult
| ADHD is under diagnosed.
| kalium-xyz wrote:
| You diagnose a disease by the symptoms, this goes for any
| disease or disorder. Problem is that there are not actual
| diseases here but rather groupings of symptoms (as you say, its
| not just for ADHD though) and that its a checklist which is
| filled out often based solely on verbal questions answered by a
| child.
|
| Another interesting thing to consider is that a lot of
| psychological disorders are culture bound (and therefor in my
| humble opinion irrelevant as groupings even for psychiatric
| purposes).
| monadgonad wrote:
| > It's not a real disease like other diseases, it's a
| collection of symptoms.
|
| Any disease with "syndrome" in its name is just a collection of
| symptoms. That's literally what syndrome means. Your
| information about ADHD is offensively wrong, and its
| underdiagnosis and undertreatment due to misinformation ruins
| far more lives than than there are people with anxiety being
| mistakenly prescribed stimulants.
| callesgg wrote:
| ADHD has no known causal model. It is not a singular thing.
|
| Downs syndrome as a counter example has a known messurabe
| causal model.
|
| It is truth, regardless if it is offensive or not. Regardless
| of your interpretation.
| wahern wrote:
| It's not a useful truth, at least not in the way you've
| characterized it. The way you characterize it says more
| about a misunderstanding of scientific knowledge in
| general, but especially medical science.
|
| Age 10 is roughly when children begin to realize that their
| parents, and adults in general, can be as fallible and
| ignorant as children. It can be a shocking revelation, but
| eventually you move past it. But some people's response is
| to develop a deep cynicism about what maturity means, which
| can stunt their own maturity. (Notably, we all tend to feel
| like it's a deeply personal revelation that gives us unique
| insight--like we're more mature than others for having the
| revelation. But it's a whole different revelation to
| realize and _appreciate_ that everybody goes through this
| phase.)
|
| It can also be a shocking revelation when you learn that in
| science in general, but especially in medical science, the
| things we don't know are unfathomably more numerous than
| the things we [believe we] know with certainty. But just
| because we don't fully comprehend a phenomenon doesn't mean
| we can't develop useful knowledge about the phenomenon, and
| to develop reliable treatments (medicine) or processes
| (chemistry, engineering). Were it otherwise progress would
| be impossible. Science is a _process_ , not a product.
|
| Of course, just like adults who became cynical at age 10,
| there are professionals in all domains who harbor cynicism
| stemming from their educational revelations. It's not
| healthy. The extreme ones may say things like, "it's all a
| lie", but the lie is on them.
|
| When people go to a medical professional for help, they
| don't need to know the messy details. Some people might
| benefit, but others might react poorly. What they expect
| (knowingly or not) is to be given medical advice that
| already _incorporates_ the unknowns; that already takes
| into account the fact that something is not well
| understood. The same is true for every other profession.
|
| FWIW, the term Downs Syndrome comes from before the cause
| was known. Today people often use the term trisomy 21,
| perhaps because of the cultural baggage related to the
| older term, but also because strictly speaking it's no
| longer a syndrome. There are other trisomies, like trisomy
| 18.
| callesgg wrote:
| It's not a useful truth, at least not in the way you've
| characterized it.
|
| It think it is much more useful to think of things as
| they are rather than as what they are not. In this
| example:
|
| I think it is more useful to think "what is causing my
| ADHD behaviour?" Rather than using the explanatory model
| "I am behaving like this because of ADHD."
|
| The former can lead to finding models that allows one to
| mitigate ADHD behaviour. The later leads to the same
| thing over and over.
|
| Are you hinting that I stoped developing as a ten year
| old?
|
| I get that people expect that. Don't see why it matters
| in this context.
|
| I guessed that was the case when I wrote about downs
| syndrome. Lets hope we find good causal models for ADHD
| to.
| 40acres wrote:
| This is wrong, studies have shown that ADHD brains are
| fundamentally different from non-ADHD brains in the sense that
| they have reduced frontal lobe (read: executive functioning,
| ie. cognitive inhibition, working memory, decision making)
| matter.
| hopia wrote:
| Yeah it may be very hard to discover the actual biological
| mechanisms in neurological disorders particularly.
|
| But not diagnosing anything would also not resolve the problem
| for the patient, if there really are specific symptoms.
| firethief wrote:
| https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/12/04/symptom-condition-caus...
| RankingMember wrote:
| Quibbling with the classification is missing the forest for the
| trees here, I think. It's a chronic condition that requires
| some kind of treatment to be dealt with. People have the same
| kind of quarrels with defining alcoholism or drug addiction as
| a disease, but we have limited time on this planet and we can
| argue about labels or we can spend that time instead trying to
| address the actual concerns.
| hopia wrote:
| Agreed.
|
| I guess where it becomes a problem is when we try to find the
| most suitable treatment for it. I know from experience that
| these labels can dictate the whole treatment plan in public
| hospitals/clinics without much further investigation whether
| that label's approved standard treatment plan really is
| suitable for your particular case or not.
| ashildr wrote:
| Now could you explain away major depression using the same
| logic?
| Keverw wrote:
| I think a lot of stuff related to depression and ADHD is
| environmental too. Instead of fixing or helping just drug
| everyone is the plan. If you're sick of the cold winter, hate
| your job, etc don't think pills is the answer, should try to
| move somewhere warmer with a better job.
|
| Then kids not paying attention in school, maybe it's boring
| or they feel it's useless to them so forcing them to do what
| they don't want, instead of tailoring their education instead
| it's one size fit's all. Plus teachers recommend getting kids
| checked, because then you are labeled as disabled and the
| school gets extra funding to go into the teachers pension
| program.
|
| There's someone I know who was told their kid didn't have
| ADHD, so shopped around and went to another doctor, and then
| eventually went to another doctor. Kinda like the whole
| antibiotics resistance thing, people expect if they have a
| cold that the doctor will give them pills even if it isn't
| going to really help. Seems like doctors in general just love
| drugging people, instead of fixing a symptom at the root of
| the cause drug them and then drug them more for the side
| effects to cover them up. It'd be like taking your car to the
| mechanic for a check engine light, and instead of checking
| the OBD codes and stuff they just unplug the check engine
| light.
|
| I think a lot of psychiatry is just a form of massive
| insurance fraud, there's a nonprofit organization that makes
| documentaries called CCHR. However CCHR is founded by the
| church of scientology which I know many not a fan of but I
| think they have some good information. I really wish CCHR
| would disconnect it self from scientology so it could stand
| on it's own as I really like their message, but I feel a bit
| of a conflict since it's related to scientology which is an
| entire topic on it's own, I guess you have to pay thousands
| just to level up and all these other horror stories about
| scientology.
|
| I think it's also child abuse, and destroying childhood
| creativity. Probably if they pushed this stuff when Albert
| Einstein, Steve Jobs or other successful startup founders
| were children, who knows if they'd be as successful as they
| ended up being. One of the pills pushed ended up making males
| grow large breasts too. Then there's reports another drug can
| cause brain damage too along with heart conditions(which
| usually you think it happens in older people but young people
| can have heart attacks too on this crap). They even want to
| drug 3 and 5 year olds too. If I was in power, I'd have these
| drug makers and so called doctors imprisoned for life. Also
| diet and exercise some believe also helps, add these GMOs and
| other chemicals in the food, artificial sweeteners can mess
| with dopamine receptors, etc. So I think I see the larger
| picture, but many just want a pill and then go back to
| watching TV or smoking instead of trying to improve their
| families healthy lifestyle. Kinda like how parents don't even
| try to teach their children, they just send them to school.
| Lazy parenting is also part of the problem.
|
| But I guess not a one solution fits all, some people say the
| pills and stuff helped them. I think counselors could be
| valuable too, maybe even help you see things from another
| prospective but some insurance companies won't pay for a
| counselor unless you also are on drugs. Some people don't
| even feel like anyone cares about them either, so I think
| having someone to listen and who seems on your side with
| issues is also a positive, but I know some counselors want to
| record your sessions so I find that kinda creepy also as
| feels less private so you could be less open about things.
| saaaaaam wrote:
| You can yes - in fact, I was listening to "D for Diagnosis"
| on BBC Radio 4 last night. The show title was "Ever Changing
| Labels" and a psychiatrist made the point (3'20" into the
| programme) that what we call "depression" in DSM-V has 9
| symptoms and if you have 5 out of those 9 symptoms you are
| diagnosed as having "depression". But in reality 5 out of 9
| gives a huge number - 15,000+ - variations. So there is no
| one form of "depression" and yet people are diagnosed with
| depression all the time.
| monadgonad wrote:
| > But I'm reality 5 out of 9 gives a huge number - 15,000+
| - variations. So there is no one form of "depression"
|
| And? Do you know how many different kinds of cancer there
| are? We're talking about psychogical disorders that affect
| people's minds and personalities, of course their
| presentations are going to be very different. That doesn't
| make them not real or mean it's not useful to group them
| together. Diagnosis guides treatment, and most depression
| responds to the same treatments. You're fallaciously
| assuming that because there's not a single biological
| marker for named psychiatric conditions that they don't
| exist. That's not how any psychiatrist sees it.
| jakoblorz wrote:
| He wrote an example argument to how one could argue
| depression away in the same way. He does not seem to
| encourage that kind of arguing, just showing how stupid
| the "5 out of x symptoms does not equal an illness"
| argument is.
| saaaaaam wrote:
| I always think that when people start a comment so
| aggressively it's not really worth responding. However,
| that aside: I'm not "fallaciously" anything!
|
| I responded to a question that was posed "could you
| explain away depression with a similar argument" with a
| relevant piece of information.
|
| You seem to think I'm arguing depression doesn't exist. I
| am not. Forgive me if that was how it appeared, but
| please, for everyone's sake, try to keep things civil.
| Rooster61 wrote:
| > Now could you explain away major depression using the
| same logic?
|
| > You can yes
|
| > You seem to think I'm arguing depression doesn't exist.
| I am not.
|
| That is precisely what you were trying to do. And the
| response to your comment was in fact civil. Claiming that
| your argument is fallacious attacks your argument, not
| you, and is perfectly appropriate for civil discourse.
| saaaaaam wrote:
| > That is precisely what you were trying to do
|
| What a load of crap. You're projecting something here I'm
| afraid.
| jhayward wrote:
| It is really unfortunate that the top comment as of this time,
| above, is "there is no such thing as ADHD".
|
| Stop it.
| bordercases wrote:
| It highlights common misconceptions with psychiatric methods
| as well as small critiques of those methods.
|
| If you're on the flipside and benefit from the drug
| prescriptions: good for you. I think if it were more
| generally acknowledged that there can be sub-clinical or
| contextual forms of ADHD my life would benefit.
| rhombocombus wrote:
| As someone who spent a good chunk of their childhood and young
| adulthood just thinking I was garbage and morally weak this
| article really spoke to me. Going on medication meant the
| difference between being an effective human, partner, and worker,
| and being a depressed ball of goo stuck in a retail job.
| firecall wrote:
| Right off the bat, this paragraph totally connected:
|
| "If I'm not interested in doing something, I can't process any
| thoughts about how to do it. No, I don't mean it's not fun, I
| mean my brain will not do it. If I don't want to wash a fence, I
| can't think about how to wash the fence. I go into complete
| lockup. I ask the question, "how do I wash the fence?" and the
| answer will not come to me."
|
| I am officially diagnosed with ADHD and am in my 40s - and its
| not great :-)
| the_watcher wrote:
| Plug for Dani Donovan, who draws comics about ADHD that I've
| found to be some of the best ways to illustrate what it's like:
| https://twitter.com/i/events/808796572716765185
| honkycat wrote:
| I am also a person with ADHD and the author really nails it.
|
| Everything: Smart, but lazy every since I was a kid. Having to
| have a list when I am shopping, the endless and heartbreaking
| failed projects I desperately want to do and achieve but have
| been unable to do so. The reminders not working. I have to be
| going somewhere or doing something. 90% of the time I am just
| staring off into space and telling stories to myself, it has been
| this way ever since I was a kid. I slept through pretty much
| every single one of my classes. We would do reading around the
| classroom and I would always read ahead.
|
| It causes a lot of friction with my SO. I can't go shopping with
| her because I HATE standing around waiting for her to select
| fruit and shop how she likes. I struggle to motivate myself to do
| the dishes and other household chores.
|
| I have tried to organize my days but in the end the time falls
| away like water through my fingers. I have things I want to do,
| the time to do them, but I just... can't. I have piles of goals,
| plans, schedules, all of it falls to the wayside in day to day
| life. I read books on mindfulness and try to meditate, with some
| success.
|
| I have been to many many therapists to try and MKULTRA myself
| into being more productive. I tell them all the same thing: I'm
| not depressed, I just want to achieve more of what I want out of
| life. It doesn't help. I am still just treading water.
|
| I've been on ADHD medication before, and it is truly a miracle. I
| am a like a different person. I do extremely well as a programmer
| when I am on medication. Unfortunately, it is difficult to get,
| and I have to visit a doctor's office once a month to keep my
| prescription filled... honestly typing all this out makes me
| think I should go back on it though.
|
| It is like my mind is screaming. My thoughts rush through me like
| a river and the things I actually want to do get swept along with
| everything else.
|
| I crave dopamine. I work myself into a frenzy thinking about
| conflicts at work and between friends. I used to smoke cigarettes
| like a chimney. I smoke weed, I (used to) cut myself, I drink
| heavily. I hyper focus on comic books and video games and
| animation and novels.
|
| I feel so much shame for all of these things I have never
| accomplished. I am ashamed I am not the person I should be.
| mason55 wrote:
| > _I struggle to motivate myself to do the dishes and other
| household chores._
|
| One thing I have found is that truly mindless chores like
| dishes are great because I can let my mind wander and do
| whatever it wants. The chores that I struggle with are ones
| that require focus/attention/thinking. Stuff like organization,
| where I have to sit and think about where each thing goes, and
| arrange and rearrange, those are a nightmare.
|
| > _Unfortunately, it is difficult to get, and I have to visit a
| doctor 's office once a month to keep my prescription filled_
|
| Not sure where you are but my psych used to make me come every
| month for a refill. I moved and before I found a new psych I
| had to make an appointment with a regular family doctor. She
| was more than willing to write my script and only asked me to
| come every three months. I think the key was that I had been on
| the same dose for years and was organized with all my medical
| history. But don't take it as a given that monthly appointments
| are required.
| l31g wrote:
| Thank you to the article's author and to the poster.
| rednerrus wrote:
| I've been thinking about this a lot recently and I've come to
| realize that ADHD symptoms seem to be a lack of skills in certain
| areas. Each of the symptoms are skills that you can train and
| become better at.
| grahamburger wrote:
| Any advice for parents of kids who seem to exhibit some of these
| traits? My oldest son is in 3rd grade and is probably not exactly
| neurotypical. He really excels at some things (reading) and
| really struggles with others (handwriting, behavior/following
| directions.) I've heard horror stories from folks who feel like
| they were diagnosed and treated too early as well as too late.
| For folks here with those experiences - anything you wish your
| parents would have considered that they didn't? Questions they
| should have asked?
|
| Overall he seems pretty happy in life and has some friends and
| things he likes to do, so I'm not feeling like it's _really_
| urgent to get him help, but also don 't want it to escalate to
| the point where it's harder for him to get help later or starts
| self medicating as a teen.
| Philadelphia wrote:
| I wasn't diagnosed until my 30's, and I wish I had been when I
| was young. So many things that were impossible for me as a kid
| are manageable now, and I missed out on a lot.
| adhd_pm wrote:
| - Be supportive and help him realize his strengths over time. -
| Keep an eye out for falling behind in schoolwork - Talk to his
| teachers about it
|
| My mom really pushed for me to get extra support and I was
| diagnosed with a Learning Disability (auditory processing
| sucked, spatial cognition was low too) back in the 1980's, but
| when I was in my early 30's something"snapped" and I went in
| and got diagnosed as having ADHD which explained a lot to me.
|
| I always felt that my parents supported me and have told me
| they "always thought I would turn out great" despite my school
| issues (Basically like the guy who wrote the original post - I
| wouldn't finish anything). They just did what they could to
| help me along, extra support from techers, tutors (although
| they didn't help much), hobbies, etc.
|
| I think the hardest hing for my parents and teachers was seeing
| that I loved computers, but couldn't do anything with computers
| without math, which I detested. Product Managers weren't very
| well known positions back then :) In the end, I have had a 12+
| year career as a PM, and my ADHD is a pain everyday. But, I was
| able to do it because I always felt like my parents believed in
| me, even when they know I can't do my laundry.
| marsrover wrote:
| I was diagnosed with ADHD at 19 after being a C student my entire
| life. I was prescribed Adderall and immediately became an A
| student overnight. It's actually weird how well it worked.
| Unfortunately, like others have said, it isn't a cure-all. It
| felt like a crutch and as my tolerance went up the less effective
| it was.
|
| Long story short, I ended up discovering marijuana and quit
| taking my Adderall. Marijuana also made me an A student. After
| smoking it, I could actually read books instead of just looking
| at words.
|
| I doubt it would work for everyone but it has certainly worked
| for me and anytime I need to study, I smoke some weed now. It
| surprises me how well I understand the subject after I finish. If
| I try sober, I don't retain anything and I don't understand
| anything.
|
| In fact, some newer studies show that marijuana is actually an
| effective treatment for ADHD [1].
|
| [1] https://www.karger.com/Article/Fulltext/495307
| jedimastert wrote:
| I have a fun story I tell people about Adderall:
|
| It's really hard to tell when adderall is working from the
| inside. If it's working correctly, it shouldn't be noticeable.
| I finally realized when the following happened: I was working
| on some homework when I noticed that the trashcan next to my
| desk needed to be taken out. So I took it out and finished my
| homework. After I finished, I realized that, were it not for
| the medication, I never would have come back to my homework. I
| would have got to do something else after I brought the trash
| can back in, or before I took it out, or I would have not been
| able to get back to work after even noticing the trash can,
| "taken a break", and just never started again.
|
| It was a genuinely emotional revelation.
| Diederich wrote:
| > marijuana
|
| May I ask: which strain do you use?
|
| I've been treating my ADHD with (sparing, irregular use of) the
| main stimulants, which has worked fairly well.
|
| I've only used cannabis a couple of times, and each time I
| rather hated how it made me feel.
| rubyn00bie wrote:
| I personally used marijuana for years to help me. The best
| strains I've found were high potency sativas (like 28%+) like
| Super Silver Haze or J1. I find the higher the percentage the
| sativa high tends to be more clear, energetic, and cerebral.
| If it's too low it's usually "muddied" so to speak.
|
| Additionally, ummm how can I put this, if I took a break from
| smoking it wouldn't help with my ADD as it would make me
| anxious. If I smoked weed like a chimney (effectively
| mitigating most of its normal effects because of the increase
| in tolerance), it worked really pretty damn well most of the
| time (I could at least eventually start my work).
|
| For me to have it work right (and I tried a lot of different
| ways of going about it), and maybe some folks are different,
| you need to pretty much be high all the fucking time so your
| tolerance is high enough. I'd smoke an ounce, by myself, in
| roughly 7 days to give some perspective.
| Diederich wrote:
| Ok thanks for the info. I had previously used a hybrid, and
| only edible. I've never been able to tolerate putting
| anything in my lungs.
|
| I'll try a pure sativa later on and see how that feels.
|
| > If it's too low it's usually "muddied" so to speak.
|
| So I think you're saying that even if you take a high
| potency sativa, but at a lower dose, you don't gain any
| focus/ADHD relief? That it's only therapeutic at high
| doses?
|
| I well understand how long term use is often required in
| order to mitigate some of the less desirable side effects.
| gjs278 wrote:
| [1].
|
| [1]
|
| this is your brain on weed
| elamje wrote:
| With all of these types of conversations and threads I am more
| curious to hear from the disciplined, focused people who seem to
| be the goal for what Adderiddlinvanse fixes.
|
| I have wondered if I have ADD many times in the past. Mostly,
| because I was in school and being forced to do a task that I
| didn't enjoy, nor wanted to enjoy. When I have found things that
| I do genuinely enjoy, I can focus for hours and hours on end.
|
| I am not opposed to any diagnosis or treatment, but I really have
| never met anyone who can truly focus on anything, at any moment
| for a super long amount of time. From my own experience and the
| conversations I have had with friends that take Adderall/etc. it
| seems like we have believed that there exists a significant
| portion of the population that has an uncanny ability to focus on
| tasks, both fun and boring. I certainly think there are a few
| people out there like this, but anecdataly, most people I know
| are more towards to the distractable/ADD/ADHD spectrum than the
| focused types.
|
| I bring this up, because if our perception of how many people
| around us have this god-like ability to focus is wrong, I suspect
| many people will take medicine under a misconception.
|
| Like I said, don't want to ignore the extreme cases, but
| genuinely would like to hear from a few people that read this and
| can confidently say they can do most/all tasks without breaking
| focus.
| techopoly wrote:
| This is a good point. People have an incentive to act as if
| they have 100% focus all the time, especially at the workplace,
| and especially in American-style culture. So, many people also
| feel as if they are broken because they get distracted. There
| is probably a significant portion of the population that truly
| has a disorder, but for the rest of the population, should we
| really be calling distraction behavior a "disorder" if it's a
| massive portion of the population?
|
| I think much of the modern issue with focus can be attributed
| to the Digital Age. How can anyone focus with all these alerts
| and dings and emails and sounds everywhere all the time? And
| multitasking is worshipped like it's the modern man's solution
| to all problems. We're still drinking the 60s Kool-Aid, as if
| the modern, fancy, carefree Jetsons' lifestyle is right around
| the corner. It isn't. We're still the same human beings with
| the same old problems, except now we have additional problems
| due to the onset of technology.
|
| (Not that technology doesn't solve certain issues, of course.)
| eq_sd_ wrote:
| > When I have found things that I do genuinely enjoy, I can
| focus for hours and hours on end.
|
| One of the hallmarks of ADHD is not being able to get started
| and stay focused on things you do enjoy, not just things anyone
| would find unenjoyable.
| elamje wrote:
| Possibly. I would say the effects vary quite a bit. I have a
| close family member that has very rough ADHD, but can pull
| all nighters working on hobbies without medicine. As with
| anything, might just be an exceptional case.
| 40acres wrote:
| I was diagnosed in 2019 after a long series of conversations with
| a therapist following a work disaster that nearly cost me my job.
| Getting diagnosed was like finding the missing piece of the
| puzzle regarding my life. My schooling history suddenly made
| sense, the poor financial decisions, etc. everything became
| clear.
|
| The biggest thing I realized is how tightening feedback loops is
| the key to my productivity, I gravitated towards python because
| it's interpreted nature meant I could get feedback on my code in
| 20 seconds max as opposed to 3-5 minutes waiting for my code to
| build.
|
| Adderall is a help but is not a cure all, it took me months to
| learn how to use it right, at first Adderall just fueled my ADHD
| and made everything worse. It's a constant struggle and
| maladaptive perfectionism is still the one thing I struggle with
| the most. I can't count the times of I've completed reverted my
| git sandbox to start from scratch after reaching a certain
| frustration level with code.
| ranman wrote:
| How do you use it right? I was on stimulants as a kid and they
| worked but made me feel emotionally empty and suppressed my
| appetite and energy. I'm 28 now and I've started taking it
| again to help with work. The appetite suppression is gone but
| the emotional apathy remains. If you have suggestions or
| experiments to make the best use of these meds I'd love to hear
| them. I started with the lowest possible dose.
|
| Also, your comment on python ... very very true
| qzx_pierri wrote:
| Stimulants are bad news bro. I was diagnosed as a kid, and my
| sophomore year of college as well. I also didnt get enough
| sleep (or low quality sleep), had a terrible diet, etc. You
| can avoid the grips of amphetamines with regular exercise,
| mindfulness meditation, keto diet, yoga, etc. It's a bit
| harder to maintain, but you won't have to take amphetamines.
| 40acres wrote:
| Get plenty of sleep the night before, try to get some form of
| aerobic exercise daily, start working on whatever task you
| need to focus on within 30 minutes of dosing (ideally
| before), stay hydrated, turn off notifications on your phone
| and block addictive sites, wear noise cancelling headphones.
| If you're going to listen to music have it on random shuffle
| so that you don't have to break focus to change the music
| yourself.
| FisDugthop wrote:
| Thanks for mentioning that not everybody responds well to
| Ritalin. I was medicated with it while in grade school, and it
| was not pleasant; the school nurse would check my mouth to make
| sure I took the pills each morning, because I would spit them out
| otherwise. To this day, I am not interested in taking medication
| for my mental health.
| ohbleek wrote:
| I can't take Ritalin. I get mood swings and suicidal ideation.
| Adderall, however, changed my life. Have you tried other
| medications?
|
| I also find that a vegetarian diet, low in carbs helps a lot
| for me. But I can' t keep to it very well without the adderall
| unfortunately.
| munk-a wrote:
| Ritalin in the 90's was pretty brutal for me too - when I was
| first put on it it was a big morning pill and I think two
| separate afternoon boosters - this meant that I was constantly
| cycling between overly sedate, level, and apathy - but I've
| found that switching over to a single XR pill has helped out, I
| think I've also benefited from being able to clump my active
| hours according to my own schedule so that I can be productive
| semi-reliably and sort of trail off in the evenings.
|
| If you're able to get by without it then good on you - but I
| thought I'd mention that things have improved somewhat.
| d--b wrote:
| This is interesting, because I definitely have been a non-
| believer. This article makes it real.
|
| It does seem to me that ADHD is over-diagnosed for kids,
| especially since the condition as described in the article really
| looks like what a small child seem to experience (the inability
| to focus, the constant distraction, etc.). And because it is much
| less rare to see someone in their 20s saying they have ADHD than
| to see some parent saying their kid has it. It is convenient for
| a parent to think that their kid has ADHD to explain why the kid
| is "late".
|
| Here the problem really is about "lateness". Children grow up at
| different paces, and if a 6-year-old boy behaves like an
| "average" 4-year-old, people will think he has ADHD, while his
| brain might just need more time to develop.
|
| There are kids who finish high school before hitting 10. Do we
| diagnose them with anything? Like Attention Surplus Disorder? No,
| because it doesn't seem to induce any trouble.
|
| The ADHD as described in the article sounds like a nightmare to
| be honest, and I really wish scientists find some way to help
| these people.
| lawrenceyan wrote:
| Meditation helped me to deal with ADHD immensely. My ability to
| focus and concentrate is now on par if not better than most of my
| peers, though it requires me to spend about an hour every day in
| the morning to meditate.
|
| I find that it's very much worth the time investment, and would
| recommend anyone struggling with focus/anxiety to try it
| themselves.
| WBrad wrote:
| Do you have any resources for getting started? I struggle with
| ADHD every day.
| ZitchDog wrote:
| How long did it take you to see results? I've battled
| (manageable) ADHD all my life and have been meditating for
| around a year. I've seen many positive impacts on my life, but
| the ADHD is still very much a thing I still battle.
| lawrenceyan wrote:
| Interestingly enough, it took until I stopped trying to think
| of meditation as something to game or try and get something
| out of, for it to finally start working.
|
| My personal hypothesis is that the inherent expectation of
| wanting/needing to feel some kind of effect every time I
| tried meditating ended up being the very blockade that
| prevented me from doing so. I kept falling into a negative
| recursive thought loop of, "I haven't noticed anything yet.
| This isn't working. There's no point in trying to continue
| meditating" that cycled into a cascading growth of anxiety
| that prevented me from reaching a state of balance.
|
| It took me many months to realize that I was trapping myself
| inside this loop, but once I became aware of it, I was able
| to almost immediately start seeing results. The biggest thing
| that helped me was coming to a realization that the thoughts
| in my head are, at the end of the day, just thoughts. They
| have no ability to harm or control me other than what I
| choose to allow them to. The thought loop I was putting
| myself into could only continue because I chose to let it.
|
| When I meditate in the present day, you might think that I no
| longer deal with any of these issues. That's actually
| completely not the case. In fact, I constantly still get it,
| especially at the beginning of my sessions, but now instead
| of stressing out, I just choose to let it go. By actively
| choosing to accept and let things go, the loop breaks right
| from the beginning.
| grawprog wrote:
| >The biggest thing that helped me was coming to a
| realization that the thoughts in my head are, at the end of
| the day, just thoughts. They have no ability to harm or
| control me other than what I choose to allow them to.
|
| This is probably one of the most important lessons i've
| learned in my life. Realizing this made a hugely drastic
| improvement to my emotions, my ability to control them and
| my ability to focus on things and pay attention. Learning
| to quiet that voice or just ignore it when I need to is a
| skill I think everyone should learn and would benefit from.
| TOGoS wrote:
| This reminds me of troubles I used to have falling asleep
| if anyone was making any noises nearby (I would get very
| annoyed at the fact that I was startled, which would make
| it even _harder_ to fall asleep, in a terrible feedback
| loop). I think I managed to improve eventually, using the
| 'Paradoxical intention' technique that Viktor Frankl talks
| about in Man's Search for Meaning.
| pgt wrote:
| What is the 'paradoxical intention'?
| ZitchDog wrote:
| Very cool. I've been doing "the mind illuminated" technique
| for the past 4 months and it's slow going - I'm assuming
| because of my ADD. I am, however, far more patient with my
| children and content with my life in general when I
| meditate. I haven't seen much improvement in my ADD
| however, but I'm going to give it a few more months of 1hr
| / day practice before I try medication.
| yonaguska wrote:
| I had a brief stint of about two months where meditation,
| combined with dietary changes, exercise, and most importantly
| a daily routine item that kind of motivated my day made me
| feel like I was actually productive. Plus meds of course.
|
| I get obsessive about things, so I tried to use those
| obsessions to shape a regular routine that helped everything
| else fall into place. I focused my obsession on exercise,
| specifically jiu-jitsu, because once I got to class, I didn't
| have to think or motivate myself, I was just there and
| focused on learning and fighting. Then it turned into a
| positive feedback loop, I'd get external validation from my
| teammates, I was improving, I was doing it in the morning, so
| I absolutely had to get out of bed, and of course after
| class, I had nowhere else to go but work. So that fixed my
| habitually late problem as well. Being 10 minutes late to
| class was fine as long as I was on time for work. Then I
| could ride that dopamine rush to have a productive morning.
|
| Then life happened, my routines where interrupted, and I
| haven't been able to get it back.
| proverbialbunny wrote:
| I'm probably unusual, but I noticed clear benefits within a
| week. Though, I was meditating while waking up first thing
| every morning, and the initial benefits was not immediately
| obvious except that I could lower my ADHD med dosage by a
| couple of mg and get the same effect.
|
| Instead of trying to magically concentrate perfectly, I
| focused on identifying when my focus would move to something
| else. I noticed meditation is a practice of becoming quicker
| at identifying when I would lose focus, giving me the choice
| to come back to focus.
|
| After a couple of months of meditating I was able to go off
| of adhd medication. Then maybe a half a year later I noticed
| my concentration was above average and had been for a while.
|
| Meditation does work well on ADHD, but you have to be willing
| to take a break from your day to day worries, giving a mini
| vacation away from mental work. It's quite enjoyable.
| esch89 wrote:
| What type of meditation / do you use any apps?
| jasonlotito wrote:
| I have ADHD and OCD. I take medication. This post on ADHD hits
| hope with me on how people treat OCD.
|
| "My OCD is kicking in, it needs to be aligned!"
|
| OCD is not wanting things straight. That's human nature.
|
| OCD can be crippling. It can take over your thoughts and your
| life. That's the compulsion. It takes you over. It's doesn't help
| with programming, it doesn't make your code neat.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| > "You're an engineer, that's not a field that people with ADHD
| have any success like you in."
|
| I knew a _neurologist_ who had ADHD.
| omgwtfbyobbq wrote:
| For anyone diagnosed with ADHD, taking stimulants is associated
| with 8+x increase of being diagnosed with a basal ganglia and
| cerebellum disease later in life.
|
| _I believe this is NOT causative, but is instead a correlation
| between other diseases associated with Dopamine production and
| ADHD. I take and have continued to take stimulants for ADHD._
|
| https://www.nature.com/articles/s41386-018-0207-5
|
| In my family's case, we likely have something called Dopa
| Responsive Dystonia (DRD), and what the author is describing
| sounds to me like what I experienced prior to being diagnosed
| with ADHD, and later with DRD.
|
| _Having said that, I 'm not a doctor, so please go see an
| experienced movement disorder specialist if you are reading this
| and have any concerns._
|
| DRD is very hard to diagnose, but easy to treat. Because the
| stimulants (Adderall and Ritalin) made the DRD symptoms worse, my
| mother happened to get early onset Parkinson's, and my
| grandmother also responded to carbodopa/levodopa (carbo/levo), it
| was fairly obvious in retrospect, but if we didn't have a family
| member with early onset Parkinson's I doubt it would have been
| picked up.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dopamine-responsive_dystonia
|
| My sense is that anyone with ADHD who uses stimulants should see
| an experienced movement disorder neurologist or few about basal
| ganglia and cerebellum diseases and try out medications based on
| their assessment. From personal experience, it became extremely
| clear I had DRD after taking carbo/levo, but there's no way I
| would have really known without trying it. It also helps with
| some of the stimulant side effects, which I still continue to
| take because they are very effective.
|
| My family has seen maybe six neurologists total, and only one
| really knew about DRD. The Dystonia Foundation has a decent
| doctor locator.
|
| https://dystonia-foundation.org/living-dystonia/find-a-docto...
| pgt wrote:
| Thanks for this! Any news on increasing the risk of Alzheimer's
| by taking dopaminergic drugs?
| aidenn0 wrote:
| Parkinsons seems to be more likely than Alzheimer's since
| dopamine plays a big part in parkinsons.
| omgwtfbyobbq wrote:
| There's no direct link I've read about. From personal
| experience, having DRD increases the risk of being diagnosed
| with Alzheimer's, which happened to my grandma about 20 years
| ago, but that's just because some of the symptoms are very
| general, and it's especially hard to tease out with co-morbid
| conditions that may have some overlap.
| vonseel wrote:
| Thanks for this, I'm going to have to look into that research
| mdthrowaway wrote:
| Segawa's is completely irrelevant in this case and not
| supported by any symptoms the author reports in the original
| article. I have diagnosed Segawa's. It is quite irresponsible
| to wave people off of successful treatments of ADHD, as you're
| doing here, because of your family's (unfortunate) history with
| a genetic disease. I apologize that we know little about
| Segawa's and you've had a journey to understand it, but there
| is approximately zero overlap between common ADHD symptoms and
| the presentation of Segawa's, which is primarily motor-related.
|
| Please, don't read comments like these and distance yourself
| from treatment. There is always more to a study.
|
| Source: Board-certified neurologist.
| [deleted]
| omgwtfbyobbq wrote:
| I think you're misinterpreting my post based on some of the
| other responses. I will update it to unambiguously state that
| people taking stimulants for ADHD should continue to take
| them, just like I have continued to.
| mdthrowaway wrote:
| I'm not misinterpreting your post. You diagnosed the author
| with Segawa's based on your experiences by pointing out you
| wouldn't be surprised if he "had something similar". He
| does not, with certainty. You're also warning folks that
| the only consistently successful treatments we have for
| this (much, much more common) hyperactivity disorder are
| associated with unlikely neurological outcomes. Sure, an 8x
| increase _sounds_ high, until you realize that it 's
| multiplying a mere fraction, context you do not include.
|
| I'm sorry to appeal to authority here, but comments like
| these do actually harm people by shying them away from
| treatment (just look at your replies), and please don't
| write them. Again, I'm sorry you're dealing with Segawa's,
| but even your edits in response to my comment are making
| your statement more harmful because they're based in pure
| speculation.
| SirSavary wrote:
| Hate to break it to you, but the OP's edited comment is
| far less harmful than yours.
|
| I've been suffering from a myriad of symptoms that happen
| to match up with Segawa's... a disease I learned about
| less than ten minutes ago.
|
| > please don't write them
|
| Please don't make statements requesting that other's
| don't share their experiences with misdiagnosis and rare
| conditions. It's rude and furthers the stigma that some
| conditions are too rare for their sufferers to discuss.
| mdthrowaway wrote:
| > Hate to break it to you, but the OP's edited comment is
| far less harmful than yours.
|
| It has been significantly, damned near whole cloth,
| edited in several ways since I said something, so I'd ask
| a little consideration that I'm coming from a good place.
| I'm not asking for anyone to avoid discussing Segawa's;
| I'm specifically responding to the speculation, across
| multiple comments, that the common element of dopamine as
| a neurotransmitter makes them related diseases. Given
| that people attack doctors when they try to arrest
| harmful discussion like this, I'm taking great pains to
| _not_ be rude, so I apologize for coming across that way.
|
| If you diagnosed yourself with Segawa's based on
| Wikipedia, please bear in mind that my single diagnosis
| across my entire career involved four months of
| differential diagnosis and observation, and led to a
| publication. It's simply that rare. There are several
| much more common possibilities, and I'd ask you to talk
| with your neurologist with an open mind rather than
| assuming the Internet has steered you correctly. That's
| also part of the reason I've responded as I have, exactly
| due to what you're saying.
| omgwtfbyobbq wrote:
| If you have any specific edits you want me to make,
| please post them and I will include them.
| mdthrowaway wrote:
| My answer to that question will come across snarky or
| "the medical profession appealing to authority," I'm
| afraid, because I'd like to see your remarks entirely
| removed as medically harmful. Your purpose is clear from
| your other, more to the point remark: if only it had been
| for a random HN commenter who's never been to medical
| school speculating about two entirely unrelated diseases
| based on the presence of a common hormone, you might have
| avoided the diagnostic history and pain in your family
| that you report. That's a ridiculous position, both
| interpersonally as well as scientifically, but I know
| that engaging on it with you will look like I'm trying to
| steer people to my field rather than encouraging
| independent research of our discipline.
|
| I'm here because I'm learning to write software, but I
| wouldn't pretend to understand the paper or mathematic
| theory behind, say, Paxos because I recognize some terms
| in it. I know my limitations, and all I ask is that you
| consider them, as well. The problem with raising
| awareness as you are is that it's difficult to
| objectively remove yourself: Segawa's is _incredibly_
| rare, making all of the events in your family difficult
| to explain. Scientifically, transferring your experiences
| to others is a very tall order without much further study
| (and I hope you, and your family, are being studied,
| specifically because the genetics of Segawa's are poorly
| understood). What people portray as medical professionals
| swinging the hammer on "the information that could make
| us irrelevant" is actually trying to stand fast to the
| exact same scientific discipline that you, and every
| member of this audience, does in _every single other
| context_.
|
| Your speculation about the relationship between ADHD and
| Segawa's is so far off base that a second-year medical
| student could probably explain why; you just happen to
| have been diagnosed with both. Left unspoken: it is quite
| possible to have both, because they present and manifest
| in different ways.
| omgwtfbyobbq wrote:
| I am not a doctor and I did not diagnose them with
| anything. I stated that what they described sounded very
| similar (nearly identical) to my experience, initially
| with ADHD and then with DRD. I have updated the initial
| post with clarifying statements.
|
| I don't intend to mislead anyone. However, I do want
| people to be aware of possible links between ADHD and
| other disorders so that they can evaluate their own
| situation and seek medical care if they would like to.
|
| More to the point, my family has been misdiagnosed for
| decades, and this likely would have been avoided if we
| were more aware of other possible diagnoses.
| RankingMember wrote:
| I didn't know this, but I take my medication as rarely as
| possible because I hate the comedown, appetite suppression, and
| tolerance building that occurs. It sucks, but I had a feeling
| there was some long-term downside like this. Hopefully
| lessening frequency to occasional use also lessens the
| likelihood of what you describe.
| omgwtfbyobbq wrote:
| I don't think it's a causative relationship. My feeling is
| that there are a group of disorders related to Dopamine
| production that overlap with ADHD, for obvious reasons, and
| if you have one of those you're more likely to get diagnosed
| with ADHD.
|
| On the flip side, getting treatment for those disorders,
| provided you have one of them, can also help with some of the
| ADHD symptoms.
| s_y_n_t_a_x wrote:
| Cannabis definitely helps the irritability and loss of
| appetite.
|
| But ironically it helps me even enough as a cure on it's own.
| I no longer take or need stimulants.
| RankingMember wrote:
| I've tried it but never got anything but crazy anxiety for
| my troubles. Maybe I'll try something light on the sativa
| and heavy on the indica sometime.
| s_y_n_t_a_x wrote:
| If it helps any, sativas don't work on my wife and I,
| only indicas do.
|
| Also that tends to go away once you build your tolerance,
| it's just kind of overwhelming at first because the weed
| these days is really strong.
|
| I actually smoke to reduce my anxiety as well.
| nicoburns wrote:
| This. I will always advise people to avoid medication for
| ADHD and major depression if they possibly can, not because I
| have a moral problem with it, but because I've yet to find
| one case where it was sustainable long-term.
| (bipolar/schizophrenia/BPD are a different matter. Quite
| possibly because the medications aren't stimulants).
| munk-a wrote:
| I would really suggest stopping that advise unless you're a
| medical professional, the long term effects should be
| considered and attempting to be on a methylphenidate for
| extended periods of time isn't to be taken lightly due to
| even obvious and relatively minor effects like increased
| blood pressure. But, for some people it makes quite a
| significant and noticeable differences and adding to the
| stigma of taking a medication by reinforcing that it's non-
| essential will decrease some folks' quality of life.
|
| Presenting information about the long term effects is good
| and I, especially, appreciate it - but please don't attempt
| to judge treatment efficacy when, especially in the realm
| of neurological disorders, treatment efficacy can vary
| wildly from case to case.
|
| So please do share your story and invite people to learn,
| but don't council others.
| ashildr wrote:
| What a beautiful advise, it remembers me of two friends
| with major depression who stopped taking their meds and
| thus will not have a bad long term experience with their
| anti depressants. One committed suicide last year, one the
| year before. Oh, I hear you say that they only should have
| stopped taking them "if they possibly can". I'm sure their
| families now know that they possibly couldn't. I would
| appreciate if you could work that into your future medical
| horoscopes...
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| Thank you for citing this article. It is also known that using
| methamphetamine increases cardiovascular risk. Prescription
| amphetamines might do the same.
| ryandvm wrote:
| Thanks for the info on ADHD / basal ganglia and cerebellum. I
| was not aware of this.
|
| It should be noted though that the study authors were pretty
| clear that the correlation is unclear given that untreated ADHD
| sufferers had a 2.5-fold increase in the same diseases.
|
| > Researchers postulated that the association between
| psychostimulant use and BG&C diseases may be a result of a more
| severe ADHD phenotype, rather than a direct pharmacological
| effect.
| munk-a wrote:
| This has always been quite concerning to me as I've had a
| worsening essential tremor that was slight in my early twenties
| but is quite observable now that I'm in my thirties. The
| confounding effect that really hurts me here is that my father
| has had a benign essential tremor for his whole life - so
| there's a constant see-saw internally and with medical
| practitioners about whether my tremor is something to be
| concerned about or not.
| omgwtfbyobbq wrote:
| I suspect that my mom developing a tremor is what turned her
| DRD, which was in retrospect similar to what myself and my
| grandma have, into Parkinson's. As far as I can tell, for my
| family anyway, developing the a tremor will rapidly deplete
| what little Dopamine we can produce and lead to normal'ish
| looking Parkinson's.
|
| The genetic defects associated with this are I believe a
| spectrum though, and we happen to be close to one side of it.
| If you have any symptoms related to DRD, I would see a
| movement disorder specialist and ask for a trial of
| carbo/levo. It'll be immediately obvious if it helps, and if
| you don't have any problems with Dopamine production it won't
| do anything (except for some mild side effects).
| [deleted]
| yellow_viper wrote:
| Yep - these conditions are closesly linked
|
| https://scientonline.org/open-access/dystonia-and-its-treatm...
|
| Neurodevelopmental Disorders (Autism, ADHD, Delayed
| Speech/language, dyspraxia)
|
| >"hyper mobile joints are an uncommon finding in those who do
| not have attention deficit disorder/attention deficit
| hyperactivity disorder."
|
| >Differences in the structural integrity of temporal and
| parietal cortices may underlie wider behavioural phenotypical
| expression of hypermobility: abnormalities in superior temporal
| cortex are also seen in autism.11 Inferior parietal cortex can
| affect proprioceptive awareness and hypermobility is itself
| linked to dyspraxia.1 Our findings suggest that processes
| compromising function in neuro-developmental conditions may
| occur in individuals with hypermobility, putatively enhancing
| vulnerability to stress and anxiety.
|
| Autism, Joint Hypermobility-Related Disorders and Pain
|
| ASD and HRDs, specially hEDS, are conditions with a strong
| genetic component, a polymorphic clinical presentation,
| appearing both in infancy, and sharing several phenotypical
| features (35). Although existing data does not allow to
| ascertain increase prevalence of ASD in HRDs, as well as shared
| underlying patho-mechanisms between both conditions, there is
| increasing evidence suggesting that these co-occur more often
| than expected by chance. This requires be confirmed by further
| investigation which should consider the recent nosological
| changes both in EDS and the hypermobility spectrum disorders
| [see (17, 38)], and in ASD (72).
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6292952
|
| Joint hypermobility and the heritable disorders of connective
| tissue: clinical and empirical evidence of links with
| psychiatry
|
| - In 1988, Hofman et al.[58], in a sample of 30 children with
| MFS,observed that 17% had attention deficit disorder with or
| without hyperactivity. A decade later, Harris[59] stated, based
| on his clinical experience with 200 patients with ADHD, that
| "hyper mobile joints are an uncommon finding in those who do
| not have attention deficit disorder/attention deficit
| hyperactivity disorder."
|
| In Sweden,Hollertz[60,61] also pointed out the frequent co-
| occurrence of ADHD and JH in adults patients. He observed that
| an orientation to orthopedic and rehabilitation care was common
| in these patients due to joint problems. Thus, this author
| speculates about a possible genetic marker com-mon to ADHD and
| EDS.
|
| Recently, Koldas Dogan et al.[62]explored JH using the Beighton
| score in 54 children with ADHD compared to 36healthy controls.
| In this study, JH was significantly more frequentamong patients
| than among controls (31.5% vs. 13.9%). In accor-dance with
| these results,
|
| Shiari et al.[63]also found a higher prev-alence of JH,
| assessed with the same method of the previous study,among
| Iranian children with ADHD compared to controls (74.4%vs.
| 12.8%), confirming an association between ADHD and abnormal
| collagen conditions.
|
| JOINT HYPERMOBILITY AND AUTONOMIC HYPERACTIVITY: RELEVANCE TO
| NEURODEVELOPMENTAL DISORDERS
|
| > It is likely that the importance of hypermobility and
| autonomic dysfunction to the generation and maintenance of
| psychopathology in neurodevelopmental disorders is poorly
| appreciated. Work underway(autonomic testing, fMRI) will test
| the hypothesis that autonomic reactivity and interoceptive
| sensitivity predispose to the expression of psychiatric
| symptoms, particularly anxiety
|
| - We demonstrate for the first time that rates of hypermobility
| and symptoms of autonomic dysfunction are particularly high in
| adults with neurodevelopmental diagnoses. It is likely that the
| importance of hypermobility and autonomic dysfunction to the
| generation and maintenance of psychopathology in
| neurodevelopmental disorders is poorly appreciated. Work
| underway(autonomic testing, fMRI) will test the hypothesis that
| autonomic reactivity and interoceptive sensitivity predispose
| to the expression of psychiatric symptoms, particularly
| anxiety. It is further hypothesized that inefficient neural co-
| ordination of efferent autonomic drive with imprecise
| interoceptive representations may be amplified in hypermobile
| individuals. In hypermobility, this mechanism might explain
| increased vulnerability to stress sensitive and developmental
| neuropsychiatric conditions. -
| https://jnnp.bmj.com/content/85/8/e3.40?utm_source=trendmd&u...
|
| [Searching for a biological marker common for both ADHD and
| EDS].
|
| - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22468413 - speculated
| about a common biological base shared by ADHD and EDS after
| observing the frequent cooccurrence of both pathologies in a
| clinical setting.
|
| Connective tissue problems and attention deficit and
| hyperactivity
|
| Attachments - [ADHDBaeza-
| Velascoetal.2015.pdf](https://checkvist-prod-
| uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/u/OKFCuEQ7Zl...)
|
| - To the Editor, The heritable disorders of the connective
| tissue are a group of genetic disorders affecting connective
| tissue matrix proteins that classically include Marfan syndrome
| (MFS), Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (EDS), benign joint hypermobility
| syndrome and osteogenesis imperfecta (Grahame 2000). As
| connective tissue is found throughout the body, the clinical
| manifestations of these disorders are varied, including
| disturbances in different systems (skeletal, ocular,
| cardiovascular, etc.). A common feature of the heritable
| disorders of the connective tissue is joint hypermobility (JH),
| which is a highly heritable condition characterized by an
| increased range of motion of the joints as a consequence of
| connective tissue involvement.We encountered a 7-year-old boy
| addressed by teachers due to school problems. His mother suffer
| from MFS such as his maternal grandmother who died by cardiac
| complications. Considering familial antecedents, his morphotype
| (long bone overgrowth), JH and ocular ...
|
| A connective tissue disorder may underlie ESSENCE problems in
| childhood
|
| Attachments -
| [1-s2.0-S0891422216302402-main.pdf](https://checkvist-prod-
| uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/u/aghis3LMNv...)
|
| - 
|
| Attachments -
| [Screenshot_2019-06-27_at_16.53.23.png](https://checkvist-prod-
| uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/u/dm7JuPP8Gq...)
|
| __Attention-deficit /hyperactivity disorder, joint
| hypermobility-related disorders and pain: expanding body-mind
| connections to the developmental age. __
|
| > Recent research seems to indicate a degree of co-occurrence
| of JHS/hEDS and some neuro-developmental disorders including
| attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorders (ADHD) and
| developmental coordination disorder (DCD). In the area of ADHD,
| researchers found that adults with ADHD had higher rates of JH
| and problems with automatic control of body functions
| (dysautonomia) compared to healthy controls. Other researchers
| observed high co-occurrence of JH or EDS with ADHD. Concerning
| DCD, children with DCD have more symptoms associated with
| JHS/hEDS compared to typically developing children. The
| relationship between JH and DCD may be due to poor positional
| sensing in affected children.
|
| - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29446032
|
| __A Cohort Study Comparing Women with Autism Spectrum Disorder
| with and without Generalized Joint Hypermobility __
|
| - This research supports a growing body of literature
| indicating that immune-mediated disorders are a common comorbid
| feature in hEDS and GJH. In addition, we have also shown that
| this dysfunction may be paired with endocrine dysregulation,
| leading to complex immune and hormonal exophenotypes, such as
| autoimmune disorders, allergic rhinitis, asthma, endometriosis,
| and dysmenorrhea. While we have not addressed autism and GJH
| comorbidity rates in this study, their co-occurrence in the
| adult ASD female population suggests links between the
| dysfunction of connective tissue and the immune and endocrine
| systems in this subpopulation.
| -https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5867488/
|
| __Rationale for Dietary Antioxidant Treatment of ADHD __[[MDPI
| - 2018](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5946190/)]
|
| > __ADHD might thus be a (non) allergic hypersensitivity
| disorder caused by an environmental trigger, based on a non-IgE
| dependent histamine release from mast cells and basophilic
| granulocytes, since the histamine H3 receptor is involved in
| hyperactivity and promotes dopamine release in the frontal
| cortex __. Moreover, polymorphisms in the histamine N-methyl
| transferase (HNMT) gene, impairing histamine clearance, were
| found to affect the behavioral responses to food additives,
| which increase histamine levels #ADHD
| vslira wrote:
| About getting treatment: it's extremely irritating that some
| people judge using Ritalin is somehow morally wrong. Yes, I get
| that "lifestyle changes" could help, but I don't want to change
| my lifestyle.
|
| Imagine if there was a pill to reduce risk of cardiac arrest,
| with some increased risk of something relatively minor. Can you
| imagine the uproar if cardiologists denied prescribing the pill,
| instead forcing people to spend 30m a day running? Sure, it's
| "better" in some metrics to just run, but that's their choice to
| make. Doctors should be doctors, not moral guides.
|
| Source: been there
| viklove wrote:
| A pill that decreases the risk of cardiac arrest is very
| different than a pill that is psychoactive. Many people just
| can't relate to taking a drug that quite literally changes your
| behavior on a day-to-day basis, even if it has positive effects
| on your life.
|
| This is something I myself have struggled with. I suffer from
| anxiety but I can't bring myself to take medication because I
| like the person I am and I don't want to change my behavior or
| personality.
|
| No one should be stopping you from taking Ritalin, but each of
| us is entitled to our own opinion, so the only thing that is
| irritating is when someone calls out an opinion another holds
| even if that opinion has no tangible effect on anyone's life.
| kitsune_ wrote:
| " Lanham, Md. (Jan. 8, 2019)-- The message is clear.
| Treatment for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder
| (ADHD), along with the related health risks it poses, has the
| possibility of adding an average of nine to 13 years to the
| lifespan of children and adults diagnosed with ADHD. This is
| the implication of a cutting-edge research study conducted by
| Russell A. Barkley, Ph.D., who evaluated the connection
| between ADHD and 14 critical health factors including
| nutrition, exercise, and tobacco and alcohol use."
| https://chadd.org/advocacy-blog/new-research-suggests-
| untrea...
|
| ADHD is an extremely harmful condition. You are more likely
| to end up in jail, crash a car, suffer from diabetes, smoke
| etc. than neurotypical people. 9 to 13 years in life
| expectancy, I mean, wowzah.
|
| And opinions held in society or groups obviously have an
| effect on individuals. That's how social systems work.
| viklove wrote:
| I feel like you're now arguing in bad faith. Medicine for
| heart health does not change your behavior significantly.
| ADHD medication does. That's the distinction I'm trying to
| make.
| Gene_Parmesan wrote:
| The big question for us is, do we consider the parts of our
| behavior caused by whatever we suffer from to be part of our
| identity or personality?
|
| I do not now. I used to -- I had a fairly major crisis of
| identity after my diagnosis, because a very large chunk of
| what I considered to be my personality turned out to be ADHD
| symptoms. I literally had to refind myself.
|
| But it turned out very well, because now I define myself
| based upon what my actual qualities are, rather than defining
| myself based on symptoms of a disorder. I no longer feel like
| everything about who I am changed after meds; I'm still the
| same person I was ten years ago, I'm just now more easily
| able to express that self without ADHD getting in the way.
|
| Also, in almost all cases, the "new qualities" are better
| than the old ones. Whereas before, "I just can't finish
| things" was unfortunately something I considered to be part
| of me, now I am able to finish things mostly the same as
| neurotypical people. That leaves me free to define myself
| based on positive qualities -- good humor, optimism, and so
| on.
|
| The thing is, it became much easier for me to feel okay about
| taking medicine when I realized that the goal of medicine is
| simply to bring me back to a "normal" level. I had been
| operating at a deficiency of certain neurotransmitters; the
| medication simply brings those levels closer to normal. Once
| I had adopted a more biochemical perspective on my brain and
| identity, my initial reluctance disappeared.
|
| A side effect of this is that I kind of no longer believe
| personality is fixed. I really don't find that the things we
| tend to call 'personality' are the sort of permanent
| identifying landmarks to a person we want them to be. Now
| I've adopted a view that puts a much stronger emphasis on the
| actions a person chooses to take, which I think is a better
| way to identify a person's qualities anyways.
|
| ---
|
| I would hesitate though with ADHD in particular, because
| untreated ADHD reduces your lifespan in a statistically
| significant way, is literal hell to live through, and the
| treatments are perfectly safe and extremely effective. If
| someone has a child who is diagnosed with ADHD, I would beg
| them to not let their personal prejudices against medicine
| keep them from getting the child the help they need. As
| someone who lived through it as a kid, it was physically
| torture. The word "restlessness" sounds benign, but I find it
| to be quite similar to akathisia on bad days, which is really
| horrific.
| munk-a wrote:
| I've dealt with this quandry!
|
| Oh man, sure, the medication makes me a better member of
| society... but am I killing the old me? Am I discriminating
| against the old me? In taking the medication are we
| declaring the me I was born as a dysfunctional useless
| person?
|
| I actually came to pretty much the same conclusion, I
| prefer being the me that is clear headed - the medication
| is a requisite for that and I dislike that chemical
| requirement, but I prefer this me.
|
| I think I've gotten more over this after bringing someone
| bipolar(with some other issues) closely into my family,
| they are drastically different when off balance and
| constantly have to fight (adjusting meds, checking Li
| levels) to stay on balance... And the off-balance person
| isn't a bad person, but they're highly internally
| inconsistent, they constantly put roadblocks in their way
| and, even when the meds are way off balance - they'll come
| through stable for random moments and strongly want to
| rebalance themselves.
|
| Their condition is rough enough that they can't self-
| correct, I can _mostly_ self-correct, it 's hard but if
| I've run out of meds I can make it into the Doctor and get
| more and I feel quite lucky to be able to do that.
| munk-a wrote:
| There's another weird factor. Ritalin is an upper and it's
| stigmatized to take an upper - either your performance, judged
| by coworkers, will be equivalent or below theirs and the
| stimulant is seen as the only thing keeping you in your job
| (which can get super depressing internally) - or, if you're
| doing well in your position, it can breed internal and external
| doubt as to whether your performance would just be normal and
| is being boosted by the drug.
|
| It's kinda hilarious that, when going off Ritalin, things don't
| slow down (or become "less upped by the upper") they _stop_ -
| this article touches on it but ADHD can feel the most torturous
| when it impedes even your leisure - especially when coupled
| with depression. Ever spent a day off staring at a wall
| dreading the possibility that you might waste a day until you
| realize the sun has gone down? Yup, so much fun.
| rhombocombus wrote:
| I keep it very closely that I am on any sort of medication
| because of the stigma. At this point in my life I refuse to
| allow someone else to have an opinion of what my doctor and I
| decide I need to be healthy.
| colechristensen wrote:
| I take a suite of medications for symptoms like this and
| never felt the need to advertise or hide it, and never
| experienced stigma although I have the mindset that leads
| me to not even notice negative cues (a mixed blessing).
| penagwin wrote:
| > Ever spent a day off staring at a wall dreading the
| possibility that you might waste a day until you realize the
| sun has gone down? Yup, so much fun.
|
| This is literally every Saturday for me. I'm thinking about
| keeping my Ritalin by my bed. I don't understand why it's so
| difficult and it makes me really frustrated - I just can't
| get out of bed. I try to wake up and my mind goes "naw". I
| sit up to get out of bed, sit there for 40 minutes, and still
| can't get myself to get out of bed. Stare at my Pillow, some
| reddit posts, another 45 minutes are gone.
|
| Now it's 2pm, I've wasted half the day. My depression tells
| me it's because I'm a lazy piece of shizzle.
|
| Source: Diagnosed with ADD/Aspergers/Depression/Anxiety...
| Horaay :(
| nooron wrote:
| Hey, this is exactly why I keep it by my bed with a bottle
| of Soylent. The first thing I do when I wake up every day
| is take it and chug the Soylent to make sure I've got
| enough nutrition for it to work well. It helps a lot, I
| would earnestly encourage you to try it
| sibeliuss wrote:
| Being diagnosed with all of those things -- doesn't it seem
| like a pharmaceutical spiral brought on by a sick process?
| Ever since my sister was misdiagnosed with a handful of
| labels and put on a handful of drugs which subsequently
| ruined her life for a very long time I've been interested
| in looking at alternatives to the pharma status quo. I read
| _Lost Connections_ by Johann Hari recently and it was
| remarkable. The chapter on how people with similar
| diagnoses radically improved by joining a gardening club
| (reconnecting with others) makes the book worth reading,
| but it goes into much much more. It 's worth looking up.
| [deleted]
| ddorian43 wrote:
| None of these "alternatives" ever fixes
| bipolar,schizophrenia, borderline, adhd, etc.
|
| When you have those stuff, you need to take meds AND join
| the gardening club.
|
| You can't go manic at the gardening club.
| sibeliuss wrote:
| Right. Those are very extreme diagnoses. Medication is
| often required. What this book speaks to is the problem
| with overprescription as applied to the average person,
| and offers many solutions.
| Tijdreiziger wrote:
| Fuck I do this every day. Been diagnosed with ASD and I
| probably have at least one sleep disorder too. The guilt is
| indeed the worst part about it.
| penagwin wrote:
| That and being late to work. I don't think anyone would
| believe me if I said that I'm more upset that I'm 10
| minutes late then my boss is.
|
| I got up 10 minutes early! I thought I was running on
| time! Suddenly I'm supposed to be there in 5 minutes!
| WHY?!!? It's like time isn't freaking linear!!!!
| Mirioron wrote:
| What I don't understand is - why is it a problem that
| somebody performs better on medication? Life isn't sports or
| a game. It's not a competition. Shouldn't people be happy
| that someone else can keep their life together? That's less
| of a burden on society.
|
| > _Ever spent a day off staring at a wall dreading the
| possibility that you might waste a day until you realize the
| sun has gone down?_
|
| That sounds silly and boring. I was daydreaming instead of
| looking at the wall.
| viklove wrote:
| > It's not a competition.
|
| Are you kidding? Life in a capitalistic economy is
| _absolutely_ a competition.
| insertnickname wrote:
| In a capitalist economy, others doing well generally
| benefits you. It's not zero-sum.
| viklove wrote:
| Sometimes you benefit from others doing well. Sometimes
| you are hurt by it. It's not as simple as you make it out
| to be. Globalization, for example, is zero-sum for many
| people. Since we're now buying <wheat/metal/electronics>
| from <x country>, people who did that here lost their
| jobs. It's absolutely a competition. In capitalism you
| have to fight for your right to feed yourself, and if you
| are in the bottom x% of society, you quite literally have
| to live on the streets.
| noodle_face_ wrote:
| Life itself is competition...
| RankingMember wrote:
| > It's not a competition
|
| I surmise that the people who have a problem with the idea
| of someone taking medication feel otherwise.
| vsgzusnex wrote:
| This seems like wishful thinking. We all have a place in
| the hierarchy of our societies and your performance
| certainly impacts your position. Don't believe me? Decide
| to stop working. Eventually you loose your job, can't pay
| rent, and become homeless. You will find yourself falling
| down the hierarchy pretty fast.
|
| Not trying to make any kind of judgment about this being
| good or bad. Just trying to point out reality. This is the
| world we live in - performance matters.
| cirno wrote:
| > Shouldn't people be happy that someone else can keep
| their life together?
|
| There are entire large groups of people in this world who
| feel the need to drag other people down with them. Some of
| them are _extremely_ good at it. Pray you never attract
| their attention. It 's a nightmare.
| IIAOPSW wrote:
| Replace "upper" with "caffeine" and the absurdity becomes
| apparent.
|
| "either your performance, judged by coworkers, will be
| equivalent or below theirs and the stimulant is seen as the
| only thing keeping you in your job (which can get super
| depressing internally) - or, if you're doing well in your
| position, it can breed internal and external doubt as to
| whether your performance would just be normal and is being
| boosted by the caffeine."
|
| the difference between them lies only in the degree of
| effectiveness. I dream that within my lifetime uppers will be
| as de stigmatized as weed.
| [deleted]
| Mirioron wrote:
| > _Imagine if there was a pill to reduce risk of cardiac
| arrest, with some increased risk of something relatively
| minor._
|
| (Some?) Antihypertensive drugs can contribute to harm to the
| liver. They're unlikely to cause anything on their own, but if
| your liver is already not the healthiest it can make things
| worse.
|
| > _Yes, I get that "lifestyle changes" could help, but I don't
| want to change my lifestyle._
|
| As far as I've read about ADHD, nothing comes close to the
| effect that medication has in treating the issue.
| dx87 wrote:
| I can't speak for everyone, but regularly exercising and
| eating healthier foods reduced my need to take my ritalin as
| often. When I first started taking it, I had to take a dose
| every 2 hours to stay on track. Once I started eating
| healthier and doing ~1 minute of exercise every hour, I can
| comfortably go 3-4 hours between doses. I still function much
| better when I take my medication, but as long as I eat
| healthy and exercise, I don't feel useless without it.
| bnjms wrote:
| > Yes, I get that "lifestyle changes" could help
|
| No. Just don't entertain this idea. You can go 20 years since
| the first time someone told you you may be ADHD or depressed
| with subsequent diagnoses. Then tell yourself it's all in
| behavior no one needs drugs. But twenty years on you'll still
| find yourself in the same cyclical patterns of periodic
| depression or chronic inability to select your attention to a
| task. "Lifestyle changes" could help with the right crutch. But
| if you need Ritalin or another drug to learn those lifestyle
| changes so be it.
|
| In your (not quite perfect) comparison. It's as if the pill
| will reduce cardiac arrest _and_ improve peoples aptitude to
| learn to run for 30 minutes daily.
| ninjakeyboard wrote:
| Yeah I'm 36 getting a diagnosis/script now and it took an
| incredible amount of distress to finally get me to the
| doctor.
| filoleg wrote:
| There is definitely a lot of internalized shame/pressure
| when it comes to ADHD diagnosis and seeing a specialist. I
| have been diagnosed and prescribed since many years ago,
| but I still feel the distress and get anxious every time I
| am forced to switch a provider due to life events (nothing
| dramatic; usually just either to me moving states or my
| provider moving states, which is exactly what happened with
| my most recent one).
| colechristensen wrote:
| Very true.
|
| There are about a dozen factors with a positive correlation
| with each other, but they are not links in a causal chain.
| One does not simply "fix" them, they all have feedback on one
| another.
|
| The knowledge of how they are related helps, but does not
| fix.
| smorephism wrote:
| For what it's worth, I took up running, changed my diet, and
| found that both of those in combination did effectively nothing
| to address my ADHD symptoms. I'm a lot healthier now than I was
| before I discovered I loved running, but to this day I use
| medication because it's the only thing I've tried that makes a
| meaningful difference.
| fouc wrote:
| Can someone share how Ritalin helps with the issue of attention
| switching? How does it reduce distractibility?
| munk-a wrote:
| My best personal description of it would be something like...
| my brain is constantly thrashing and offloading caches - with
| Ritalin the context switches still happen but the prior task
| doesn't get booted out of memory... so it's sort of like
| imaging running across a marshland, where every time you hit
| water you lose... the Ritalin might be like logs across
| streams, it isn't that suddenly you're always running across
| solid ground, you aren't constantly in single focus[1] but
| you can cross more of the marsh and reach the far side
| without getting wet.
|
| There, that's my terrible analogy.
|
| 1. There's a flip side, staying with the marsh analogy, there
| are also some dykes someone built randomly in the marsh and
| it's really easy to run along those, and they're really
| comfortable... but they might not go to the far side of the
| marsh - but hey it's right over there and it'd be easy to get
| over there instead of trying to trudge through the marsh.
| Running on those dykes feels really good since you're
| definitely running, but you don't get to chose where the dyke
| goes and it might not be helpful for yourself to run along
| it.
| devwastaken wrote:
| Ritalin based drugs are all that works for me. It's not even a
| choice, it's that I don't function how I need to without it.
| timw4mail wrote:
| The medication is just as personal as other options in how
| effective they are.
|
| As a diagnosed sufferer of ADHD, my experience is that Adderall
| works better than Ritalin, but the extended release stuff
| shortens my temper. If I'm still having a bad day, an energy
| drink can help.
|
| On boredom: I can be bored, but lack the drive to do anything
| to make me less bored. When I'm having fun, it is difficult to
| switch to the next thing I need to do.
| ditonal wrote:
| Well, I admit I'm biased because I started taking ADHD meds and
| then had a manic/psychotic episode, that involved me getting
| involuntarily committed to a psych ward and burning all my
| career bridges, and also got diagnosed with heart failure, and
| I attribute a huge chunk of the blame to the ADHD meds. Both my
| psychiatrists and cardiologists insisted I needed even more
| meds or things would get worse, but instead I just said, I'm
| going to disregard medical advice, I'm going back to a no meds
| baseline, and focus hard on lifestyle changes, and everything
| improved. I've been emotionally stable and my echocardiogram
| and cardiac MRI showed my heart is back to normal. So that's my
| bias.
|
| I am just a bit of a psych meds skeptic these days - I don't
| think the comparison to drugs like insulin carry as much weight
| as their advocates would like them to. For one thing, there's
| no brain scans or blood tests for any of these diagnoses. The
| diagnosis criteria is basically a "personality test", called
| the DSM-5, a manual heavily influenced by the pharmaceutical
| companies. Stimulants at least do in fact have research
| supporting they actually outperform placebo (unlike the
| massively prescribed antidepressants), but they come with a
| host of negative side effects.
|
| If you're predisposed to mania, you shouldn't take stimulants.
| If you're predisposed to heart problems, you shouldn't take
| stimulants. My question is, how was I supposed to know that I
| was predisposed to these things short of finding out the hard
| way by taking the stimulants and having those negative side
| effects almost ruin my life/kill me?
|
| Previously, on HN people have accused me of "doing it wrong" in
| some sense with the ADHD meds, but the truth is I got the
| diagnosis from the doctor and took the meds as prescribed.
|
| The whole idea that we can neatly categorize this person as
| ADHD, this person as MDD, this person as Bipolar-2, this other
| person as bipolar-1, this other person as BPD, after doing a
| ton of investigating into mental health, I just no longer buy
| it.
|
| I do think the answer is in lifestyle changes, the person who
| is at risk of cardiac arrest, yes they should exercise for 30
| min a day and reduce sodium intake before relying on a pill if
| that pill carries with it a ton of other dangerous side
| effects.
|
| I also agree with that other commentor, that our society, and
| my past self, is a bit obsessed with "success" metrics, usually
| judged by things like career success. The idea that, maybe if
| you just accept that your career won't be what it could be but
| that's better than drugging yourself up to achieve those goals,
| seem foreign to some people. Becoming "somebody" important
| becomes more important than just being stable and healthy.
|
| Well, if you find yourself in my position, where you get
| diagnosed with heart failure and learn that ~50% of people in
| your position die within 5 years of diagnosis, all the sudden
| that big N promotion doesn't seem as important anymore. And the
| drugs that help you get there don't seem as worth it. So
| nowadays my mind still wanders constantly, my wife gets
| frustrated by how often I start day-dreaming mid-conversation
| with her, and I know that intellectually I'm capable of more
| career success but I'm held back primarily by my lack of focus
| and discipline. But I've come to just accept all that, being on
| stimulants to fix it, is not worth the downsides.
| tcj_phx wrote:
| Stimulants have the adverse effect of harming the
| mitochondria/metabolism.
|
| Most conditions improve when the metabolism is normalized.
| B-vitamins are pro-metabolic.
|
| Sometimes doctors do good work. My girlfriend's doctors
| eventually figured out that she is a poor methylator, and
| can't convert folic acid into folate (Vitamin B-9). She
| therefore absolutely requires a dietary source of Folate,
| instead of the folic acid that is used to fortify many foods.
| She said this vitamin was profoundly helpful for her
| complaint of "depression".
|
| Sometimes doctors make work for themselves. Using Stimulants
| to treat metabolic problems is an exercise in futility.
| eq_sd_ wrote:
| I can say the opposite. I have the MTHFR mutation and ADHD.
| Taking vitamins did not alleviate my ADHD symptoms.
| easton_s wrote:
| I was told by my doctor that since I have a successful career as
| a software engineer I do not have ADHD. I'm still fighting to get
| a prescription. What he doesn't understand how my coping
| mechanisms are probably more unhealthy then the drug. I have
| allocate recreation time to work, use a lot of caffeine, and
| sleep deprivation to overcome my ADHD. Sleep deprivation is
| probably the strongest tool to combat ADHD but as I get older it
| takes a greater toll on my body.
| elcritch wrote:
| If your doctor is a family medicine practitioner, you really
| should visit a practice that specializes in ADHD. It can cost a
| lot more but well worth it. They'll be much more proficient in
| providing an actual diagnosis and subtype along with the
| knowledge to help find treatments. IMHO, as others mention,
| medication still requires behavioral/mental habit changes which
| having a psychiatrist familiar with the details of ADHD will be
| a huge boon in incorporating into your lifestyle.
|
| Oddly I get the bit about sleep deprivation. It can be oddly
| effective. I also sometimes do more effective work when I have
| a cold/flu as well.
| jacoblambda wrote:
| Other than your experience with your doctor, what you described
| is near perfect recreation of my experience prior to getting
| medication. Afterwards those coping mechanisms nigh complete
| disappeared almost overnight.
|
| Keep pushing to at least get a trial run with the medication
| and seeing if it helps you. Also if your doctor is seriously
| ignoring your concerns, consider looking for a better doctor.
| People often place way too much confidence in their doctors and
| stick with crappy doctors who don't make efforts to resolve
| their patients concerns.
|
| Best of luck finding something that helps you get away from
| those coping mechanisms.
|
| Note: This post is a little rambly since I am typing this up
| while doing something else but I felt the need to comment.
| easton_s wrote:
| Thanks for the push. I've been working with ADHD my entire
| life. I never considered medication before until my son
| started on it and I watched an absolute transformation in the
| way he works at school. His 4th grade teacher literally cried
| it was so positive.
| walshemj wrote:
| That's unusual as the profession is known for having a lot of
| neurodiverse members.
| vonseel wrote:
| I'm 31 and have ADHD (diagnosed in my teens) and I'm pretty sure
| NOBODY with ADHD is going to have the wherewithal to read this
| entire article! Unless it happens to magically coincide with
| their hyper-focus topic of the moment!
|
| In all seriousness, I skimmed parts of the article and kept
| scrolling and it just kept going and going and going... like the
| Energizer bunny. I guess the author found a doctor to prescribe
| stimulants; they do make it easy to write long rants.
|
| I can identify with _some_ of his analogies, not all. The
| forgetfulness, standing at desk with power supply / getting
| "stuck", lots of that sounds familiar. Some of the stuff he talks
| about is behavioral though and if it can be called lazy, it
| probably is at least partially lazy. I could never file TPS
| reports everyday, but I can do it occasionally. My brain's
| capable of it. I just don't like doing boring things. And yeah, I
| probably wouldn't last if I had to do boring things everyday for
| a job. But the article makes it sound like he's actually not
| capable of doing a boring thing.
|
| The more interesting parts of ADHD are the stuff that is lesser-
| known and often overlooked, like mood swings and
| anger/irritability issues. Ironically stimulants pretty much
| cured lifelong mood issues for me. I used to blow up on people
| all the time; now I'm easygoing.
| alerighi wrote:
| I never heard about this since reading two articles today (one
| here and one on Reddit). And I think that this thins explains
| perfectly every aspect of my personality.
|
| Yes, me too I didn't read all the article, as I skipped around
| parts in articles, books, and similar stuff.
| khalilravanna wrote:
| That's interesting to hear about ADHD causing mood
| swings/anger/irritability and the stimulants doing away with
| them. Is that a common trait of the illness? I only noticed
| that _after_ I started taking stimulants my temper became a lot
| more short. It 's to the point that I have to be really
| cognizant of it lest I inadvertently snap at someone due to
| some biological response (really not good as a leader in an
| organization).
| vonseel wrote:
| So, the mood swing thing was something I didn't identify with
| ADHD until I saw it mentioned in a book called "Driven to
| Distraction". I can't remember the exact details, but I think
| in the first few pages the author talks about a patient who
| was often getting in arguments with his boss or spouse and
| losing his temper in frustration, and I guess what I took
| from it was that a lot of his emotional instability was
| either a symptom of ADHD or stemming from his inability to
| focus.
|
| In regards to your comment about shortened temper on
| stimulants, I think this is very normal and expected, and I
| _have_ experienced the same at times. I don 't know how to
| explain it, but I think _overall_ I 'm more agreeable than I
| was before I was medicated. This might be an age thing; I
| honestly don't know. Maybe I just grew out of it (I was the
| kid who threw tantrums lol).
| Gene_Parmesan wrote:
| So I'm not a researcher, just a sufferer, but my
| understanding is that yes, emotional regulation issues are
| common with ADHD. Attention-deficit is kind of a misnomer; a
| lot of doctors now think "executive functioning disorder"
| would be a better name. Executive functioning is sort of the
| layer that sits on top of our underlying systems - whether
| they be behavioral or emotional - and allows us some level of
| conscious agency over that stuff.
|
| Poor executive functioning is why I could never make myself
| start writing a paper prior to the day or two before it was
| due, despite the rising sense of panic I would get for weeks.
| (This is key -- it's not laziness, because good lord did I
| wish I were able to do the work. To me, lazy ~= apathy, and
| what I felt was just about the polar opposite of apathy.)
|
| Poor executive functioning is also why, unmedicated, it was
| sometimes difficult to not let my initial emotional reactions
| just come flying out. It was like there was an express lane
| between my limbic system and my action system, totally
| bypassing my ability to control it. I would find myself
| snapping out something and as it was coming out of my mouth,
| I would be kicking myself and thinking "Why in god's name am
| I saying this right now?"
|
| Medication has helped with all of the above and more.
|
| What I will say is that stimulants also can have a tendency
| to put some people on edge and increase sympathetic nervous
| system activity, so shorter temper could be a side effect for
| sure. If it's affecting you that strongly, maybe speak with
| your doctor about a slightly lower dose?
|
| Or is there a possibility that you only became aware of your
| tendency to have a short temper once you became medicated? An
| interesting chicken/egg question; I'm just asking
| rhetorically, mind, because I have a lot of similar
| questions.
| vonseel wrote:
| _Poor executive functioning is why I could never make
| myself start writing a paper prior to the day or two before
| it was due, despite the rising sense of panic I would get
| for weeks. (This is key -- it 's not laziness, because good
| lord did I wish I were able to do the work. To me, lazy ~=
| apathy, and what I felt was just about the polar opposite
| of apathy.)_
|
| That sounds like a good explanation for why I've been
| avoiding studying for something for weeks but feeling
| guilty, even sick, the whole time about it.
|
| I don't know though. It's hard for me to _not_ call that
| lazy, and I don 't think _lazy_ denotes apathy. Isn 't it
| possible to be lazy and still care about a thing?
|
| _Poor executive functioning is also why, unmedicated, it
| was sometimes difficult to not let my initial emotional
| reactions just come flying out. It was like there was an
| express lane between my limbic system and my action system,
| totally bypassing my ability to control it. I would find
| myself snapping out something and as it was coming out of
| my mouth, I would be kicking myself and thinking "Why in
| god's name am I saying this right now?"_
|
| I still struggle with emotional impulsivity anytime I take
| a few days off meds. Drug holidays can be surreal. Or
| sometimes they might not be special at all. But I've taken
| time off before and noticed everything - birds, wind in the
| air, music on the radio, and it felt so surreal that I
| broke down crying.
|
| Why in god's name am I saying this right now...
| wahern wrote:
| Is that _while_ the medication is at its peak, or more toward
| the tail end of the cycle? The extended amphetamine release
| Vyvanse, for example, can leave you feeling tired after it
| wears off. Especially on "vacations", like weekends or other
| extended periods, until you readjust. Such exhaustion would
| likely shorten anyone's temper, but especially someone with
| ADHD.
| filoleg wrote:
| All I gotta say, a good specialist will definitely attempt
| to go through different medications with you, as what works
| great for some people might have side effects for others.
| And there are new ADHD medications being released too, some
| of which end up working fabulously for people who
| previously couldn't find one that works for them without
| any impairing side effects.
| stuntkite wrote:
| Hah. I really liked parts and skipped and scrolled more than a
| few. It looks a lot like some very helpful reddit posts I've
| made in the past.
|
| I sent the article to my girlfriend though and she'll read all
| of it and ask me questions about it so I can cleverly get a
| proxy summary. ADHD Lifehack!
| yonaguska wrote:
| I'm very fortunate that I learned how to read at a very very
| young age. As such, I'm an incredibly fast reader, when reading
| for comprehension, I'm close to 700 wpm. So reading to me is
| easy bc I can read faster than my mind can get distracted.
|
| I think that's the hardest part of ADHD, you'll always find
| some exceptions to the "rules" used to diagnose it.
| vonseel wrote:
| Hmm, I have no idea what my wpm measure is, but I've never
| been able to identify with the perception of ADHD being
| something only low-IQ kids have. People I know with ADHD-
| symptoms are typically bright and creative, above-average
| humans.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| > Unless it happens to magically coincide with their hyper-
| focus topic of the moment!
|
| It's funny. People with ADHD suffer from attention deficit but
| at the same time they display hyperattention when they
| encounter a subject they like. I've experienced it as well:
| once I start programming I have no problem doing it for 12
| hours straight. I've found this trait in many ADHD patients.
| There's usually something that really turns them on and I
| always try to find it.
|
| I think of it as an signal/noise ratio problem. Very high
| signal is needed to grab their attention and there is very low
| tolerance for noise.
| zarmin wrote:
| It's less of an attention deficit and more of an _intention_
| deficit.
| vonseel wrote:
| * There's usually something that really turns them on and I
| always try to find it.*
|
| Yep, and that _something_ can drift over years, days, even
| minutes. I find code very conducive to hyperfocus, maybe more
| so than something like playing guitar - it 's funny, because
| so much of coding can be mundane and repetitive, but that
| quality seems to help with getting started and finding a flow
| state.
|
| I rarely hyperfocus on writing music or playing instruments
| anymore, but I used to zone out and play for hours. I'm not
| sure what changes in a person that makes that more difficult
| one day than the next.
| mmanfrin wrote:
| The way I've come to describe it with my therapist is that it
| feels like, internally, I have 12 different brains. All of
| them are constantly scanning around, interested in different
| things, making it very hard to focus on one thing, but
| conversely making me very good at understanding a thing as a
| whole.
|
| The other part of this analogy is that when there is
| something that grabs my interest, it grabs it with all 12
| brains and I bury myself in that interest until I burn out
| after a few hours.
|
| I find that ADHD makes me a very good architect and a very
| bad regular programmer.
| ashildr wrote:
| You have no idea how much sense that last sense made to me
| :)
| firethief wrote:
| > I find that ADHD makes me a very good architect and a
| very bad regular programmer.
|
| I know what you mean. I think if I could click with someone
| who's really organized and good at execution we could turn
| one of my 9 billion potentially-pretty-good ideas into an
| awesome company (I have a pet theory that this pattern is
| often why it takes 2 to found), but I have never really
| been able to connect with neurotypicals. They can play
| along where I can't even tune in, and worse, they are
| content where I am passionate.
| kitsune_ wrote:
| I think as awful this sounds, it is also why often adhd
| people can synthesize a lot of information very quickly
| because their brains have this rapid association chain
| which can lead to absolutely lucid insights, downside is
| that it's hard for them to stay on topic and not go into
| rambling monologue mode.
| ExtraServings wrote:
| So... TL;ADHD
|
| I'll admit, I skimmed it. But I bookmarked it!
| doboyy wrote:
| I thought most of this was just normal life tbh
| paulpauper wrote:
| If this article is an ADD test, I failed .i skimmed the article
| and skipped the middle. I dunno what I have but I will skim if I
| get the gist of what the author is saying. I Everyone's behavior
| is different. Some cannot focus, other lose focus too easily,
| others cannot finish.
| tealWater wrote:
| Wish I could stop myself skipping all those lines
| corporate_shi11 wrote:
| I think there's an important distinction between hyperactive
| thought and hyperactive outward activity. Most people associate
| ADHD with the latter when it's really more about the former, as
| this essay describes well.
| pottertheotter wrote:
| I was diagnosed with ADHD in my 30s because of this. I don't
| habe hyperactice activity so never thought I could have ADHD.
| And since I can't see how someone else's brain works, I didn't
| realize things with me were not normal. It was quite exciting
| to realize that a lot of things I struggled with could he
| explained.
| dx87 wrote:
| Same for me, got diagnosed in my late 20s after I told my
| doctor that I was having serious trouble reading and holding
| conversations. People always thought I was antisocial because
| I didn't talk much, but it was because I couldn't focus
| enough to keep up with a conversation.
| rhombocombus wrote:
| Same here. My brother has it much worse, and it manifested in
| him with outward hyperactivity so he got treated and I did
| not. I got by, but when I finally got into grad school I
| realized I had a problem that will power couldn't fix.
| vonseel wrote:
| Eh, ability to restrain oneself (and keep those hyperactive
| thoughts internal) comes with age. I don't think the
| impulsivity associated with ADHD in children disappears when
| those children become adults; they just learn to control the
| outward behaviors. I tend to interrupt people mid-discussion
| often; I'm guessing it's related somehow.
| corporate_shi11 wrote:
| That's a good point. I'm reflecting on my own experience as
| an adult but as a child I was definitely more active than
| most of my peers. As an adult I've put considerable effort
| and practice towards controlling myself in social situations.
| timw4mail wrote:
| Somewhat pedantic, but ADD and ADHD is a distinction. Both
| probably have the hyperactive thought, but ADHD is the
| hyperactive outward activity.
| Mirioron wrote:
| They're both labeled ADHD nowadays clinically. The ADD you're
| talking about is called ADHD-PI or Attention Deficit
| Hyperactivity Disorder - Primarily Inattentive.
| esch89 wrote:
| After reading this article, I think I have undiagnosed ADHD...
| Wheaties466 wrote:
| Its extremely important to get diagnosed by a professional if
| you do feel this way.
|
| Un-Diagnosed ADHD can lead to a whole bunch of other life
| issues. Its nice to at least be aware of it.
| rustybelt wrote:
| Thousands of words and no mention of diet. I was diagnosed ADHD
| in 5th grade, tried just about every medication out there, and
| never landed on a workable long-term solution until I modified my
| diet. Medication always had mixed results. Many allowed me to
| focus and better control impulses, but the emotional crash at the
| end of the day was too much. Others caused insomnia or
| palpitations. Cutting sugar and limiting carbs, however has been
| transformational. I won't say it's right for everyone, but
| everyone with ADHD should at least try cleaning up their diet.
| It's a no lose option.
| hoorayimhelping wrote:
| I was diagnosed with ADHD 10 years ago. Tried a few drugs, and
| while it definitely helped with the ADHD symptoms, the other
| side effects that affected my daily life were too much.
|
| I switched my diet from a high carb to high protein, high fat.
| Instead of a bagel for breakfast, I'll eat a couple eggs, a
| breakfast meat, and every once in a while a piece of toast.
| Tons of whole fresh fruit all day. Lunch is similar: think a
| chipotle style meal with a base of protein and rice and some
| light veggies. More fruit and raw vegetables and nuts for
| snacks. Dinner is the same thing - protein base but fewer carbs
| and more veggies. I'll have some candy in the evening from time
| to time.
|
| I also started lifting weights 3x a week. I love it cause it's
| the most efficient way for me to exercise - I spend 60-120
| minutes in the gym three times and work my whole body. Heavy
| squats, deadlifts and presses - strengthens the back and hips,
| makes sitting in a chair much easier, and is a really great
| vector for activating that hyperfocus we love so much. I read a
| book called Starting Strength that basically gave me all the
| info I needed to get started.
|
| Since starting this routine about 8 or 9 years ago, I find I'm
| sleeping better, my focus is way better, I'm much more pleasant
| to be around socially, I'm way less impulsive and interruptive,
| I make fewer stupid rash decisions, and I'm generally in a
| better, chipper mood a lot more.
|
| Edit: Might add: I drink coffee like it's going out of style
| and don't find that caffeine really affects my focus all that
| much - more my energy levels. They're similar but on different
| axes.
| monadgonad wrote:
| > but everyone with ADHD should at least try cleaning up their
| diet. It's a no lose option.
|
| It is _extremely_ difficult for someone with ADHD to change
| their diet. It 's difficult even for neurotypical people. I
| know that it and exercise are obviously beneficial, but from
| experience there's a "loss" in that trying and failing
| consistently to improve my lifestyle really takes its toll on
| my motivation and self-esteem. Not to say that I'm not still
| trying... but it's hard.
| ctruzzi wrote:
| I was diagnosed with ADHD around the 3rd grade (2 separate
| psychiatrists diagnosed me) and have never heard about diets as
| working above all others. Are there any studies or information
| about this route or is it perhaps changing your eating behavior
| allowed you to do those same things with other parts of your
| life?
| firethief wrote:
| Evidence for dietary intervention is too weak to recommend it
| in general: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diet_and_attention_
| deficit_hyp...
|
| That said, it's always possible that an intervention works
| well in a subgroup of high-responders (this can be true even
| if the particular intervention is a placebo, not that that's
| necessarily the explanation here), so everyone saying it
| works for them should probably keep it up.
| hopia wrote:
| There are some studies about certain nutrients being
| beneficial in the treatment of ADHD.
|
| For example: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23495677
|
| This particular study found that phospholipid improves ADHD
| symptoms in children (4-14 yo).
|
| There's some ongoing research about the neurotransmitters
| related to ADHD:
| https://psychcentral.com/lib/neurotransmitters-involved-
| in-a...
|
| However, I don't know if any comprehensive studies have been
| conducted about the effects of diet to ADHD, it could be
| tricky to study that.
| CathedralBorrow wrote:
| I don't know about studies but here's an anecdote. I've
| experimented with many potential factors for my ADHD over
| many years, and the strongest and cleanest correlation I've
| found is: More carbs and sugar => More brain fog.
| dec0dedab0de wrote:
| The book Healing ADHD by Dr Amen reccomends diet, and
| exercise based treatment, as well as stimulants and coaching.
| It's been a long time since I've read it, but at the time I
| used some of the techniques, and they worked really well. I
| should probably read it again.
| adamrmcd wrote:
| Nor coffee or other "normalized" liquid stimulants. The coffee
| sweet-spot-of-productivity is so difficult to attain, or even
| find. Is it even worth experimenting with if other avenues have
| failed?
|
| It would be interesting to hear the author's thoughts on this,
| and on alcohol.
|
| EDIT: ...and on exercise.
| kinakomochidayo wrote:
| I was diagnosed with ADHD when I was 12 and put on stimulants
| until I was about 23. I had the classic symptoms of not being
| able to clean my room, not being able to stay on top of bills,
| couldn't use a calendar, bumped into things, changed topics
| constantly, etc.
|
| One day, I did LSD and it permanently alleviated my major
| symptoms. I felt like my brain had a major reset, and I finally
| knew what it was like to be in the present moment. I stopped
| taking medications, and 9 years later, I'm doing fine.
|
| I later learned from other psychedelics that traumas and not
| having emotional connection to my authoritarian parents
| contributed to my ADHD symptoms.
|
| I can guarantee that psychedelic therapy will be huge for ADHD
| sufferers in the near future, especially with the potential
| effects like neuroplasticity and neurogenesis.
| pgt wrote:
| From years of amateur neurochemistry - As best as I can tell -
| ADD & ADHD are two sides of the same coin resulting from a
| dopaminergic deviation that serves the tribe but not the
| individual.
|
| Most people think of dopamine as the "pleasure chemical," but in
| reality it is the "anticipation chemical." Dopamine says: "You
| got this. Almost there!" And it is up-regulated when an uncertain
| profit presents itself, implying that all you need is a little
| bit more focus and practice.
|
| Too little dopamine and you get OCD and hoarding: the inability
| to decide. You can think of a hoarder's room full of stuff as
| decisions left unmade. When you can't decide, you open & close
| your car door 45 times until it sounds "just right".
|
| And when you have too much dopamine, you do stuff with zero
| anxiety, but you don't stop to consider the best course of action
| because you pick the first, best path. Useful when running from a
| predator, but not when solving complex problems. Just look at
| people on cocaine to see how this pans out.
|
| The best personal advice I have to handle the ups & downs of
| ADD/ADHD condition is to build supportive todo & reminder systems
| around the bipolar highs and lows. Exploit the manic highs and
| outsource as much rote work as you can. Find ways to help you
| remember and reward life-sustaining tasks during the lows.
|
| I've been working on some software that helps me get the most out
| of life in this manner, which would also potentially help older,
| mentally-compromised patients. If this is something you are
| interested in, please do reach out.
| NickM wrote:
| Do you have sources for any of these claims about dopamine? No
| offense intended, and I agree that the common interpretation of
| dopamine as the "pleasure chemical" is wrong and
| oversimplifying, but much of what you're saying sounds a bit
| "just so" to me.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| Also, while the relationship between neurochemistry and
| psychology is still in the dark-ages, seratonin is usually
| identified as the issue in anxiety related disorders such as
| OCD.
| hopia wrote:
| I've most commonly seen the description _motivation chemical_
| , which falls more in line with what the thread's first
| poster described.
| ranman wrote:
| I'm definitely interested in the software you mentioned.
|
| > Exploit the manic highs and outsource as much rote work as
| you can.
|
| This. 1000x this. If I've found a flow I tell my partner that
| I'm canceling plans so I can exploit the focus as long as it
| lasts. Those bursts of work every few weeks will pay dividends
| for _years_
| jakoblorz wrote:
| > for years So true!
| verst wrote:
| I'm 34 and I am finally meeting a psychiatrist soon for what I
| suspect has been ADHD all along. I do not suffer from depression
| or anxiety (to my knowledge).
|
| I have a perfectly healthy lifestyle - I run 5 days a week, about
| 40 miles total, eat healthily and sleep well. During my runs
| (which physically feel painful) I have few moments of clarity in
| my head. Other than running though my mind has a thousand
| thoughts all at once that I cannot control...
|
| I tell a story, interrupt myself, get 6 levels deep and then
| essentially have a stack overflow and can't recover to my main
| point that took me down that spiral. Nobody can follow my thought
| process. What I do know is that my mind is stimulated by strong
| feelings.
|
| I sit at my desk to do work, notice a story about the DOT /
| airlines soon banning ESAs and proceed to research the legal
| authority according to the ADA and other provisions in U.S. Code.
| I waste a lot of time thinking about the stuff I need to do, but
| I can't get myself to do it. So I don't do anything that is fun
| for me, nor the work I need to do itself. Only under immense
| stress due to deadlines (and the potential negative consequences
| of failing to deliver) I can force myself to crank out work that
| is of reasonable quality. This is how I went through all of high
| school and college for example. I was completely sleep deprived
| as a result.
|
| Never in my life have I been able to finish reading a book for
| school - I'm bilingual (learned English as a second language),
| but this isn't a language problem for me. I simply don't know
| what I read at the top of the page when I get to the bottom. I
| read incredibly slowly (I have to imagine hearing someone speak
| the words - this is called subvocalization). If I focus on
| reading for fun it will probably take me 3-4 months to get
| through one fantasy books. If I can read 3 books in a year I had
| a very good year.
|
| At a dinner in a restaurant I cannot pay attention to my friend
| (or date) in front of me, because other conversations around me
| draw in my attention and trigger my brain when interesting
| subjects are raised.
|
| I am not able to focus without extreme stimulation and am
| completely at the mercy of my brain / mind. This means I can't
| listen to people well, I get impatient and interrupt people at
| inappropriate moments.
|
| Yes I'm high-functioning and I do well, I have a crazy amount of
| energy, but this isn't a healthy way to live. I am not lazy, but
| my mind is. I am convinced I'm only operating at 20% of my true
| cognitive potential and output potential.
|
| For these and many more reasons I will be seeking diagnosis for
| ADHD (or ADD?) soon.
| sibeliuss wrote:
| Before going down a road that involves powerful stimulants that
| have a high likelihood of abuse or misuse -- the danger is that
| they're fun, and one develops a tolerance, just like other
| similar illegal drugs -- it might be worthwhile to investigate
| a mediation practice, or other exercises to improve your
| attention. If you're already high functioning its likely not as
| bad as it seems.
|
| From experience: First thing to go with the stimulants is
| healthy sleep; it's often hard to sleep on amphetamines. But in
| the morning, because you've got a script, you can take a pill
| and not worry about it (but the body remembers). Next thing to
| go is healthy eating; you simply don't need to eat when under
| the influence, or you do -- but you forget. Soon, those things
| combined could have the potential to turn a high functioning
| and healthy life into quite the opposite. But in the beginning
| -- especially if you've never experimented with stimulants
| recreationally -- you'll feel better than you ever have.
| Stimulants are euphoric. It's a trap, it wears off. Side-
| effects are likely. I've said it in a previous comment, but
| it's profound and interesting until it's not, and once the
| stimulants are gone a dark depression is very possible.
|
| Attention is like a muscle, but also -- attention isn't
| everything. It could also be ones attitude towards these
| things.
|
| Be skeptical -- understand that there might be blind spots in
| your thinking about your problems.
| ohbleek wrote:
| I have NOT found that, when taken at a therapeutic dosage,
| people with ADD/ADHD thinktheir medications are fun other
| than the "fun" feeling of satisfaction you get when you
| complete a task.
|
| I have found that people who do not have ADD/ADHD find those
| same medications to be fun, however, even at a therapeutic
| dose.
|
| Otherwise your comments on the effects are spot on.
| Personally I had to make a choice in my mid-twenties, the
| meds or a happy-go-lucky life where I feel unfulfilled but I
| have a fun time.
|
| I used to just sit all day, thinking about what I needed to
| do, yelling at myself in my head to do it, but never doing
| anything. Just constant maladaptive daydreaming. I have
| inattentive type ADD. I didn't develop mental executive
| functions until I was 28. I started recognizing there was a
| "manager" in my brain that wasn't there before. I sobbed when
| I found out most of my peers developed that 10 years earlier.
|
| From what I've seen, people with ADD/ADHD go through a cycle
| of recognizing then denying that they have a disability. I
| have done this personally 4-5 times in my life. I will accept
| I have a disability and deal with it, then eventually decide
| that it was my environment that was causing the symptoms,
| only to later come to a point where I once again have to
| accept I have a disability that cannot be managed entirely
| with CBT, task lists, meditation, mindfulness, etc... I'm
| happy for those that feel they can do it without medication,
| but I also have to wonder if I'm just meeting those people at
| a point in time before they have to get back on medication
| again...
| kls wrote:
| I would argue that they are not powerful stimulants at
| therapeutic doses and have little risk of dependency. I can
| take my meds as prescribed for months on end, stop taking
| them cold turkey and have no withdraw symptoms other than the
| fog and inability to get started comes back as soon as they
| are out of my system. I personally take prescribed
| methamphetamine which would be considered to be the strongest
| in it's class and honestly it's not fun or buzzy or euphoric
| at therapeutic doses and not as addictive as people make it
| out to be. Opiates and nicotine have 100x the addition
| profile when compared to amphetamines.
|
| As a note to abuse my medicine at recreational doses of meth
| I would consume my months prescription in about 4 to 5 days.
| Not enough time to get physically addicted and it would suck
| for the foggy rest of the month. I think the risk is
| overblown.
| CathedralBorrow wrote:
| > the danger is that they're fun
|
| I don't know about others, but fun isn't the word I'd use to
| describe the ADHD medication which I'm basically chained to
| for life because I cannot function without it, and yet causes
| me so many other problems that I need to work around or cope
| with like loss of appetite (food is no longer a thing I
| enjoy), insomnia, anxiety, restlessness and mood swings.
| Where's the fun part again?
|
| Are you willing to be skeptical yourself and understand that
| you might have blind spots just like the people you're
| talking to?
| sibeliuss wrote:
| > But in the beginning -- especially if you've never
| experimented with stimulants recreationally -- you'll feel
| better than you ever have. Stimulants are euphoric. It's a
| trap, it wears off. Side-effects are likely. I've said it
| in a previous comment, but it's profound and interesting
| until it's not, and once the stimulants are gone a dark
| depression is very possible.
|
| As I said further down. It's most certainly _not_ fun
| later. And it was a difficult as all hell to finally quit.
| CathedralBorrow wrote:
| I can absolutely believe that this was your experience,
| but where I lose you is when you state with certainty
| that everyone else will experience this the same way you
| did. I certainly didn't.
| sibeliuss wrote:
| I'm not saying anything about anyone else. I said "From
| experience: ..."
|
| Either way, I think we're actually on the same page here,
| based on what you wrote above.
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