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Chazani posted:I'm currently going through the motions of getting my diagnosis. I'm 35 years old now. Not surprisingly I have a variety of former issues in my life including very severe depression and complete alienation for a few years. I did manage to complete a master's degree in philosophy after the depression, but now when I need to actually get to adult life things started to be way too tricky. The effort of forcing yourself to focus really is exhausting with ADHD, it is possible for short periods, possibly months, but I can totally understand that a PhD would just be too long to sustain. I think you will have a much better time once you have started treatment. Talking therapy may well help to an extent but from what i read most people with ADHD do best on medication. Can I ask where you are? Your writing doesn't read like you are in the US, if you are elsewhere it might not be too hard to get drug treatment? I was diagnosed last year and it explained a lot about how I work, or rather don't. I started treatment with stimulant medication this year and it has made a world of difference. The anxiety I had of constantly being behind with work (and needing that pressure to have enough motivation to focus) has evaporated and I am a much happier person.
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Feb 20, 2018 12:59
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Chazani posted:I live in Finland. The low access to medication is a shame. I guess you will need to see what help you can get through the health service. If you can get diagnosed maybe at some point you can get a private prescription somewhere. [I googled "ADHD Finland" and ended up reading an article by some rear end in a top hat British novelist who doesn't agree ADHD exists (and has written a book on it). rear end in a top hat] Best of luck
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Feb 20, 2018 19:59
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Laserface posted:I cant wear headphones as I 'need to be approachable' This is terrible. I would get no routine tasks at all done if I couldn't use headphones - I use the Shure noise isolating earphones, when they're in I get great focus, if not then I hear absolutely everything going on in the office and just can't deal with routine tasks. I remember about 5 years ago a boss sent an email round my team saying earphones were banned. This was way before I had investigated having ADHD, but I got super stressed out, I just knew I would be unable to work. Total nightmare, earphones are an absolute lifeline for me. Interestingly I got a slightly more senior job now and my time is split between gettin' poo poo done and making decisions so it's a bit of a tightrope between meds (and earphones) for focus and my natural ADHD brain for making intuitive decisions.
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Dec 3, 2018 00:19
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velocirapstar posted:How (if ever) have you discussed this with your boss/manager before...? ADHD medication is super important but unfortunately can't do the work for you. I really recognise what you're feeling and have felt that paralyzed block a lot of times before. I think lots of people with ADHD find that once you get started on doing what you are supposed to it all clicks into place much more easily. If you haven't read it before I would recommend reading the Adult ADHD Toolkit which has some good strategies for assisting you get started and get on with stuff. I have a notebook and (sort-of) following a thing from that book I write out a plan of tasks I am going to do in my day in 30 minute chunks, getting the tasks off a master to-do list. It means I have to own up to what I really need to focus on during the day and then allocate a reasonable amount of time to (attempt to) do them. I also find I can't concentrate at all in the office unless I wear noise isolating earphones. https://www.amazon.com/Adult-ADHD-Tool-Kit-Facilitate/dp/0415815894 These notebooks are also lovely, the dotted ones are the best. https://www.amazon.com/Leuchtturm-Softcover-Medium-Dotted-Notebook/dp/B003EVHV6S Got to say I would personally avoid telling my boss I had ADHD unless it was absolutely necessary as I just don't feel it would be treated fairly. Sucks but I don't think people see it as a "proper" disability.
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Dec 17, 2018 00:34
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Hipster_Doofus posted:So, question: How can I be dog tired and get to sleep easily last night, yet 5 or 6 hours later there is apparently still enough left in my system to make me very agitated and completely unable to lie still, when I can normally sleep 10 or more hours very comfortably (and do/did)? Is that a result of having a low but not *too* low amount in me that once I've put in a decent minimum amount of sleep, the stuff suddenly asserts itself? How long before that goes away (not that I want it entirely gone, actually)? I couldn't sleep on Vyvanse and switched to standard IR dexamphetamine. My doc was completely fine with me switching but I was a bit apprehensive about asking directly for a drug with high abuse potential. I only take a very small dose, no probs sleeping now in general. 10mg vyvanse is also a low dose and from what I remember the usual starting dose is 30mg and go up or down from there. You could maybe look at the prescribing information and ask why you are not at the normal starting dose. There is a possibility I have a crappy CYP2D6 enzyme which means I am quite sensitive to amphetamine (as it doesn't get broken down), thus the vyvanse insomnia, and also means codeine doesn't really work.
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Sep 4, 2019 10:38
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BoneMonkey posted:Oh man codeine does nothing for me as well, is that a thing? Yeah, codeine itself isn't an active drug, it's a prodrug that gets metabolised into morphine which . If you have a duff liver enzyme it doesn't get converted into morphine very quickly, or maybe at all, and it's inactivated and excreted. The same enzyme (cytochrome P450 2D6 or CYP2D6) is the one that breaks down amphetamine, though I think the variations lead to less difference in amphetamine metabolism. Interesting anyway. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK100662/
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Sep 4, 2019 20:52
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poshphil posted:I think I am going to discuss ADHD with my GP in the New Year. Hi, Posh Phil. Your experience is really similar to my own and I just want to offer some support. Firstly your "should have done better" attitude to your grades is really unfair to yourself and I went through the same thing; if you weren't swimming against the tide you would probably have got better grades, but your brain literally wouldn't let you get started. People told me for several decades that I was lazy but in reality that wasn't true. Secondly you would probably be surprised by how crap people are at their jobs and how little they get done. If you're like me you will normally have procrastinated right up to the wire, and then become a hurricane of effort and energy when the consequences of loving up overcome the inertia of procrastination. It's easy to assume that should be your normal work rate or that other people's work rate is similar. It's not. Just ticking a few things off the list every day seems to get way more poo poo done than my colleagues. The key is getting started (and medication). You should definitely see a doctor about your brain. Personally I paid out of pocket for a private psychiatrist (in the UK), the cost wasn't too high and it was very straightforward. I used to be a constant ball of anxiety about gradually loving up my life but really don't feel like that nowadays.
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Jan 3, 2020 12:46
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Hypnolobster posted:So I just finished a clinical drug trial for ADHD (and I got the placebo out of a 1/3 chance) and am in the long term open label version of the study now where I get the actual study drug. Having looked up the study it's for a drug with a lower abuse potential than stimulant drugs. That may be fine but a) stimulant drugs work and are around the most effective of any treatment for any disorder; and b) I worry a bit that this will get in the way of some people getting the best possible treatment because "stims bad".
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Jan 6, 2020 07:12
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Chazani posted:I guess in an ironic twist, my SO left me like 24 hours after making my earlier post. Sorry to hear this. I feel that you have probably never been in a better place to handle becoming single. Enjoy getting to know yourself properly as an individual!
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Mar 2, 2020 18:25
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Dr. Red Ranger posted:On one hand, that would explain a few things. On the other, knowing that I've potentially been struggling with life: hard mode well into adulthood doesn't make me feel much better about it. It cuts both ways, very annoying to realise you've been playing on hard mode and could/should have been helped. On the other hand, understanding what the problem is, and more specifically the situations you struggle with is a real help. I have misophonia as well and have had real difficulties with open plan offices. Basically my brain can't help but pay attention to noises and especially talking. I need noise cancelling / isolating headphones or earphones otherwise I really struggle to focus. The drugs massively help, I started with Vyvanse but couldn't sleep so asked for immediate release dex and the doc had no problem with that. I've recommended it before but there's a trick for time management in the Adult ADHD Handbook that I really like. You have an ongoing Master To-Do List which is just a list of everything you are supposed to get on with,like I guess everyone has. Each day you then write down on paper a few things off the list into a plan, and also your meetings and whatever. The act of writing them out just seems to load them into my brain, and it requires you to make a realistic assessment of how long each thing will take. I don't set a very challenging amount of tasks every day and stay on top of my workload many times better than I did before.
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Jul 23, 2020 15:06
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Yakiniku Teishoku posted:iirc grapefruit has an additional mechanism that makes it interact badly with meds beyond this Yes, grapefruit inhibits an enzyme that metabolises drugs before they get into your bloodstream (CYP3A4) so it can cause the blood concentration of some drugs to increase. That's different from what might be happening here though. The medical literature doesn't really support vitamin C or stomach acidity affecting amphetamine absorption from what I read, but that doesn't necessarily mean it isn't happening.
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Oct 15, 2020 10:11
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Dr. Red Ranger posted:Does anyone with a diagnosis have experience trying to learn languages? I loved learning them when I was younger. I took Spanish in high school, French in college, and enjoyed it greatly, but its all well past gone now. I've spent the last three years trying to learn Japanese, and it's become the same frustrating experience everything else has since I was about ~24 or so. Nothing sticks, ever. It's like my brain is actively resisting new information and even then things I want to do slide off a thick teflon coating of irrepressible compulsive daydreaming and poor memory. I try to listen to training podcasts while I run and drive to work, and I can feel my mind resisting the entire time. This sucks, and It causes my anxiety and depression to spin up harder because I ~want~ to do this; traveling and working in other countries has been a dream of mine since undergrad, and now that I'm 34 in a dead end career it feels like I'll never make it unless something fundamentally changes in my brain chemistry. I was good at languages at school and learned French and German without putting in any effort. It's way harder 30 years later. I've moved to French-speaking Switzerland and while my French has improved it's been pretty slow and a bit frustrating. Early this year I did do a basic teaching course in French (kids ski instructor) and I passed but it was pretty hard. Worth bearing in mind that pretty much everyone describes this getting harder with age, though there are some annoying people who just seem to absorb new languages aged 40+.
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Nov 5, 2020 09:49
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Crosby B. Alfred posted:I highly recommend keeping work and gaming separate. I'd get a second desk and put it in a completely different room. Yeah if you can switch over to your personal computer by pressing a button it's pretty easy to lose a load of time that way. In terms of being organised, yes a nice distraction free workspace is good, but finding ways to organise your brain is even more important IMO. For me the most important things are a) remembering what I need to do, and b) keeping track of the time. I can basically get up in the morning with no recollection of what specific tasks I need to do, so if I don't deliberately revisit my workload I either get nothing or the wrong stuff done. I keep a master to-do list in Onenote and then physically write down an outline of my day in a notebook, with meetings and a few tasks for the day. Less is more  Writing it out by hand makes it load into my brain way better than doing it electronically. For keeping track of time I have a small clocktab.com window in the corner of my screen, it works wonders to just have the time in my field of view. Also, noise cancelling headphones are fantastic, as is stimulant medication.
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Feb 16, 2021 08:49
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Crosby B. Alfred posted:OneNote is the best Ah I just use it to have a clock running visibly all the time. I resize a window so the numbers are an inch high and have it running in the corner, it just reminds me of the relentless passage of time
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Mar 8, 2021 07:15
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I even use in my personal life just to keep track of bills, hobbies, etc. but how are you using clocktab exactly?
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It's great that you're trying to help him and clearly a tough situation. I can imagine if I was in his place that a world filled with someone else's whiteboards and lists, while my brain is not able to cooperate, would feel fairly oppressive. Something that may not be obvious from the outside is that he's probably putting in a whole load of effort to do what he's doing and you should recognise that. You should also be clear that there are many different routes through life and the straightforward sausage factory one of doing well at school / college / bing bong / good job isn't the only one. Teachers at my schools used to pretend it would be catastrophic if you don't get amazing results at whatever exam. It's just not true, there's always other routes. He could try different medication. It doesn't look like he has been on any of the amphetamine based ones and Vyvanse is popular. Again I can imagine as a teenager that having to take a med that makes you feel a bit different from your normal self may not be what you want. Worth trying though. There are loads of good books and your son may be old enough to look at the taking charge of adult ADHD ones. The vidéos by Russell Barley are pretty good too. And yeah I think you would likely benefit from individual therapy as well as the family therapy. Long time ago but my parents didn't even think there could be anything wrong, or about ADHD, I was just lazy and needed to be told off. Mum is dead and I don't speak to my dad any more, and I've by all accounts made a decent fist of life. Don't be them! Good luck anyway e: you could also consider lurking something like the ADHD subreddit to understand people's points of view when they're talking about their disorder candidly. e2: just thought of something else that's practical, noise cancelling headphones are an absolute godsend for me, to the point that I basically can't get started writing stuff unless I have them on. knox_harrington fucked around with this message at 11:48 on May 19, 2021 |
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May 19, 2021 09:04
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PIZZA.BAT posted:I was just diagnosed a week ago and have an appointment with my PCP at the end of next week to discuss medication. While I've heard a lot of people talking about stim crashes and all the terrible side effects, I'm wondering how much of that is people being more willing to talk about the negatives while you don't hear from most of the people happily going along with their lives. It sounds like a lot of people here have had positive experiences with their drugs. Can anyone tell me what the side effects have been like when they aren't so bad? Yes comments on meds tend to massively over represent negative experiences. Amphetamine based meds work best for me and in general are just a big plus for my life. I guess the main drawback is kinda not feeling "natural". Previously I didn't ever take them at weekends to just be myself when I don't have to work, but it's actually way better for my life that I can actually do productive stuff in my own time, rather than just for my job. For actual side effects: - fingers and toes get a cold - my initial dose was too high (I am apparently a bit sensitive to these drugs) and it sometimes made things worse - in the prescribing information one effect is "changes in libido". This can mean "much increased" sometimes! Maybe TMI - I can be a bit antisocial - Can get sleepy when they wear off, but I wouldn't characterise it as a "crash" All in all not bad, A+ would recommend
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Jun 16, 2021 10:57
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There are some great alcohol free beers now. Brewdog Punk AF is good, also Erdinger Alkoholfrei
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Jul 23, 2021 21:43
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Depends where you live, nobody would give a gently caress over here.
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Aug 27, 2021 22:30
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