[HN Gopher] Association between ADHD medication and depression: ...
___________________________________________________________________
Association between ADHD medication and depression: A 10-year
follow-up
Author : imperio59
Score : 143 points
Date : 2022-06-14 15:39 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)
| tjridesbikes wrote:
| Anecdata, but I've been on methylphenidate (Concerta) since age
| 7, and holy cow has it impacted my life in an insanely positive
| way. 21 years later, I'm still on Concerta, but excelling in my
| career, spending meaningful time with friends, family, and
| hobbies, and generally pretty happy with myself. When I tried
| dropping the meds in college, my life basically fell apart in a
| matter of months. My then-girlfriend now-wife almost broke up
| with me, I started failing classes, I lost contact with friends,
| and really struggled to feel alive. The Concerta doesn't fix my
| ADHD, but wow does it make it manageable. Thankfully, I had a
| supportive and invested family, understanding friends, and
| support structures all around me. I'm so glad my parents put me
| on meds instead of making me struggle throughout my childhood due
| to an outdated believe that "drugging kids bad". I owe my life
| and success to this drug, and while it doesn't work perfectly for
| everyone diagnosed with ADHD, it works so well for me that you'd
| have to pry my prescription from my cold, dead hands.
| sph wrote:
| Same. I've had a low-grade depression for all my adult life,
| which has worsened in the past 5 years.
|
| I got diagnosed with ADHD 5 months ago, started medication 2
| months ago, and last week I told my therapist I'm pretty sure
| my life-long depression is in remission. There's a definite
| feeling that my life is now in a slight upwards trajectory,
| even on the worst of days.
|
| Life tends to become pretty sad when you have no control over
| your executive function and action.
| FollowingTheDao wrote:
| Why is it so strange that an amphetamine would get rid of
| depression?
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| Well, a dose doesn't last forever. It wouldn't be
| surprising if it was a net negative. You tend to feel worse
| on the comedown for example.
| danShumway wrote:
| Concerta is a long-release drug that's designed to
| produce a (roughly) steady effect throughout the day
| rather than a single "high".
| engineeringwoke wrote:
| So, a "high" for the whole day then?
| zrail wrote:
| It's not a high. If you're getting high off of ADHD meds
| you either don't have ADHD or your dose is way too much.
| It's more like an assist for task initiation and follow
| through, as well giving a boost to staying on task, for
| people who find those things incredibly difficult _even
| if they want to do those things_.
| danShumway wrote:
| No, speaking personally I don't consciously notice the
| effects of Concerta. Far from being a high that I crave,
| I actually have to set myself reminders in the morning
| and make a ritual/checklist, and I set my medication out
| on a visible shelf in the bathroom, otherwise I'll forget
| to take it.
|
| I'm not sure how many people with addictions are
| regularly forgetting to take their drugs without a phone
| reminder.
|
| The point of the delay release is that you don't have the
| same kind of ramp up to extreme effects and then come-
| down. Instead the goal is to get a (roughly) consistent
| dose that helps with executive dysfunction, and doesn't
| do much else. As always, that's something you work out
| with the help of a psychiatrist, not everyone reacts to
| methylphenidate the same way.
| andybak wrote:
| The come-down for me is predictable, short-lived and
| manageable. Less than an hour of mild deflation and a
| desire to sit quietly away from company.
| sph wrote:
| My come down is only feeling a little more tired. I
| suspect you are not talking from experience but hearsay.
|
| > Well, a dose doesn't last forever. It wouldn't be
| surprising if it was a net negative.
|
| My near-sightedness returns as soon as I put down my
| prescription glasses. I've had to wear them every single
| day to be able to function decently. Imagine that.
| FollowingTheDao wrote:
| As someone who's been institutionalized in a psychiatric
| hospital four times in a still living with bipolar
| schizoaffective disorder I can tell you being nearsighted
| is no comparison to having a mood disorder. If people
| were not ignorant enough to ignore all the nutritional
| facts that go around the production of catecholamines
| there would be no need for medication.
|
| Your doctors are probably doing more harm than good by
| not treating an underlying metabolic disorder. It's quite
| possible you have an underlying B6 deficiency.
|
| Why don't you go get your B6 levels tested and ping me
| when you get them back OK?
|
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16846100/
| danShumway wrote:
| I don't know what everyone else's experiences are, but my
| psychiatrist definitely ordered blood tests for me before
| prescribing medication, and I was able to look through
| the results myself as well. I'm happy for you if you
| managed to fix your own problems by getting your B6
| checked, but vitamin deficiency is not the reason I have
| ADHD.
| mrtranscendence wrote:
| This is prime kook right here. You don't see it every
| day.
|
| Most psychiatric problems are not due to a nutritional
| deficiency. My B6 levels aren't causing my adhd.
| FollowingTheDao wrote:
| Kook huh? Nice.
|
| Is that why I've been able to get off all of my
| medications? Because I'm a kook and I don't know anything
| about neurobiology? Or anything about immunology? Or
| genetics?
|
| You say your B6 levels are not causing your ADHD, but
| have you ever had them tested?
|
| Yeah it's so "kooky" that they keep finding B6 defieicny
| over and over in children with ADHD.
|
| https://hrcak.srce.hr/file/303406
|
| And heck, you might try to take it with your meds, it
| might help: http://sjh.umsha.ac.ir/download.php?mod=a_atc
| h&atch_id=253&a...
|
| And I suppose it is nothing that polymorphisms in a gene
| that makes dopamine (DDC) is implicated in ADHD and also
| needs B6 as a cofactor.
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4946061/
|
| But I am the kook I guess. No, it's not crazy at all to
| take an amphetamine. It's not crazy to never wonder why
| they don't try to find out why you're not producing
| enough amphetamines on your own. It's not crazy we give
| these drugs endlessly yet ADHD keeps rising.
|
| My Schizoaffective Bipolar Disorder is caused by
| nutrition. Ask me how!
| anotherman554 wrote:
| I'm near-sighted but when I wear glasses my brain doesn't
| attempt to achieve homeostasis by altering the way I see
| with glasses on in order to make my sight closer to how
| it was before I wore glasses.
|
| I'm not saying you shouldn't be on drugs or that you'll
| find the drugs stop working. I'm just saying the effects
| on the brain are pretty complex and shouldn't be compared
| to wearing glasses.
| 331c8c71 wrote:
| I almost didn't have a comedown when I started taking
| Ritalin. Few years later it became a nightmare. I was
| becoming extremely annoyed every afternoon and was pretty
| much useless in the evening as a result.
|
| I also started having very annoying anxiety in the
| morning after taking meds. And all that with a reduced
| effectiveness of the drug - clear slowdown in the
| afternoon after lunch which I didn't have in the
| beginning of treatment (the dosage was more or less
| constant from the start after initial titration).
|
| Ritalin clearly affects my sleep patterns. On it I never
| feel rested and wake up with a feeling I haven't slept at
| all. There was no change, the effect was present from the
| start. It takes at least three days without meds for it
| to be gone.
|
| Finally, Ritalin is definitely bad for my creativity. For
| instance, I have a habit to play piano or guitar as a way
| to relax since I was a kid. Composing or improvising at
| least 50% of the time. This invariably stops when I am on
| meds - it feels like the activity becomes dull and stops
| being pleasurable.
|
| All in all, I think it is great that the meds exist and
| work for a large number of people. That being said I
| can't stand when someone praises stimulants alluding the
| consequences of taking them are invariably positive and
| the side-effects are trivial (if they are acknowledged).
|
| Sadly, most internet discussions on ADHD meds (among
| people who don't deny it) are infected with overly
| simplistic toxic positivity: "get diagnosed and treated
| and your life will be fixed while you'll be happy". The
| first part I agree with but there is no need to
| trivialize - the life is more nuanced than that.
| sph wrote:
| Who said it's strange? I didn't know I had ADHD, and if I
| hadn't and still was depressed, probably an anti-depressive
| would have been more suitable.
|
| My point is, of course AMPH helps depression from ADHD,
| because ADHD is a debilitating disorder. But AMPH probably
| doesn't help in other types of depression not caused by
| executive function disorders.
| Jiocus wrote:
| Amphetamines has an established history in depression
| treatment, with some emphasis on _light depression_. They
| fell out of favor with the introduction of then state-of-
| the-art SSRI 's (1980s I think).
|
| Somewhat before that - US context late 1970s - there was
| political pushback against the largely unrestrained (but
| legal) amphetamine production by the pharma industry,
| which supplied more than enough to saturate all the
| recreational and abuse cases.
|
| DEA brought amphetamines into the Scheduled drugs,
| manufacturing became quota limited. Incidently, the
| medical community found that psychostimulants does not
| have any medical value in treating depression.
|
| Some studies have found them beneficial, some not. The
| pharma industry has since transitioned into opioids but
| stimulants have been making a comeback for 20 years with
| record numbers in ADHD,ADD diagnoses.
| scyzoryk_xyz wrote:
| Opposite here - only have been taking medication for several
| years and growing up had one of those parents fearful of
| "drugging" but eager to punish and berate for crappy
| performance.
|
| I've only just finally started actually fulfilling my potential
| and reading your comment fills me with the regret that things
| were not different for me...
| stainablesteel wrote:
| What worries me more for lifetime-use like this are epigenetic
| effects (generational-level adaptations to DNA via methylation)
| that will be felt by anyone inheriting the outcome of their
| parents behavior.
|
| Epigenetic mechanisms are what turn pigs into boars when
| released into the wild. In humans, if someone undergoes drastic
| starvation in their childhood, their children will often be
| fat. Their bodies hold onto fat more readily because it
| essentially expects to undergo a similar level of starvation.
| Evolutionarily, people who's epigenetics could benefit their
| children in this way were selected for via easier survival.
|
| There are no studies, due to a lack of understanding in the
| past, of the effects of lifetime use on future generations. It
| could, potentially, be a positive effect - or none at all.
|
| But that's optimistic for biological mechanisms imo, I'm
| remaining a pessimist and preferring the route of non-lifetime
| medication. If someone else wants to test this on their life
| and family, I would be happy to read about it.
| Deritio wrote:
| Good for you not needing meds...
| FollowingTheDao wrote:
| Hey, this is really bad. I am disabled for Bipolar
| Schizoaffective disorder, living with it for 30 years,
| hospitalized quite a few times. I was on countless meds.
| They told me I needed them or I would get worse. But I kept
| getting worse.
|
| Now, for the last 8 years I am med free and showing signs
| of recovery.
|
| You do not need meds. You need to find out why you need
| them biologically. We know that ADHD is primarily caused by
| low dopamine. So why are you not making enough dopamine?
| danShumway wrote:
| I am always happy for people who can work without meds,
| but extracting out from that to assume that every
| physical/chemical balance can just be cured by addressing
| some reversible root cause isn't really sound logic.
| There are lots of situations where our bodies don't
| produce enough of a chemical and there isn't really a
| solution for that other than to introduce more of that
| chemical.
|
| I also feel like:
|
| > We know that ADHD is primarily caused by low dopamine
|
| is a bit of an oversimplification. ADHD is not always
| caused by low dopamine/norepinephrine/etc _production_ ,
| it's often in part caused by faster than normal reuptake
| of those chemicals. But when arguing that ADHD is
| entirely caused by environmental deficiencies, "you're
| not producing enough dopamine" sounds better than "your
| brain is absorbing dopamine too quickly so it's not
| signaling as effectively as it should even when it's
| released in the same amounts as other people."
|
| And again, this is complicated and different people's
| brains work differently, medication _isn 't_ right for
| everyone. That's why doctors should be involved. But
| what's going on is a lot more complicated than "something
| in the environment is making you depressed so you don't
| release dopamine" or "you don't have enough of X vitamin
| so your body can't produce the chemicals it needs"; it's
| more accurate to say that ADHD is often caused by
| differences in how actual neurons and synapses interact.
|
| If reabsorption is happening prematurely, it's not
| necessarily that less dopamine/norepinephrine is being
| produced, it's that the chemicals being produced aren't
| as able to be used to do the things they're supposed to
| do.
|
| And that more complicated explanation ends up being a lot
| more useful to describe some of the less well-known
| symptoms of ADHD that sometimes pop up for some people;
| symptoms like hyperfocusing, poor interoception. It
| paints a more complicated, multi-faceted picture of how
| the body can find itself unable to _stop_ focusing on
| things when neurotransmitters do manage to finally bond,
| or why certain bodily signals just don 't seem to reach
| the brain reliably. I am not a doctor, but I think it's a
| lot easier to understand what ADHD does when you look at
| through the lens of a physical difference in the brain
| that has knock-on effects on how the brain continues to
| develop as it learns to rely on other signals and coping
| mechanisms and strengthen those pathways.
|
| TLDR but I kind of disagree with explanation of people
| with ADHD as if they're dopamine-deficient, I think where
| modern research is leaning is that they (often, everyone
| is unique) have brains that aren't able to make use of
| the dopamine (and other chemicals, not everything in the
| world is dopamine) that is produced.
| _the_inflator wrote:
| Can confirm. Concerta gave me the impression that there is
| simply no distraction, only nothing to do with your focus time.
| Impressed me.
| slingnow wrote:
| Have you considered that you're an outlier and that policy and
| approaches shouldn't be based on your outcome?
|
| It's clear you're an evangelist for this approach, but your
| complete dismissal of people who have issues with drugging
| children doesn't add anything to the discussion.
| danShumway wrote:
| > Have you considered that you're an outlier and that policy
| and approaches shouldn't be based on your outcome?
|
| I don't think it's reasonable for OP to advocate for policy
| that would materially make their life worse. I'm not sure
| what you expect their response to be, but it's not going to
| be, "medication doesn't work for everyone? Great, I'll just
| go back to being miserable then so no one accidentally takes
| it unnecessarily."
|
| Prescription medication is something you should work out with
| a doctor/psychiatrist who monitors your behavior and figures
| out whether the approach is right for you. But even if
| methylphenidate only worked for even just 10% of the people
| who have ADHD -- those people should have access to it. And
| the rest of the people don't need to take it, that's
| something their psychiatrist/doctor can work out with them.
|
| > complete dismissal of people who have issues with drugging
| children
|
| It bothers me that people read "hey, medication worked for me
| and didn't give me depression" as "literally everybody and
| their dog should be on this." I don't think that OP is the
| person here who's dismissing or generalizing.
| billjings wrote:
| I did the same thing as you. I wasn't on Concerta for as long;
| I started on Ritalin in 3rd grade, and switched to Concerta my
| senior year of high school. I dropped all meds in college.
|
| I actually tried TWICE to drop my meds. Each time my life fell
| apart, as you described.
|
| The second time, however, I did not interpret my life falling
| apart the way you did: instead of interpreting it as validation
| of the medication's effectiveness, I interpreted it as a
| withdrawal period. So the second time I quit, I expected going
| into it that the process of adapting to life without medication
| would probably last at least 2-3 years.
|
| I can't say what would've happened had I taken your path and
| not mine. But fifteen years in, I have no regrets. I still
| don't do what I'm told, but I'm productive and happy and
| useful. I've found my own way, and it's been a good way.
| johnnymorgan wrote:
| Love this post, can't say exactly why but it resonates with
| me.
|
| Cheers and kudos!
| sph wrote:
| I have said this many times already: the downside of
| medicating children is that they never have a chance of
| learning how dysfunctional ADHD is. Then they blame the
| medication because they find they can't function without it.
| No shit, that's why you were taking it.
|
| I have been diagnosed in my 30s and when I stop medication,
| my life returns to the same exact shit it's been for 30
| years. It feels like falling apart, because that's how it was
| for three decades for me.
|
| That said, I'm happy you found a path without needing the
| medication. One of the positive aspects of ADHD medication is
| that you actually learn to function without them, because it
| gives you the mental energy and fortitude to build healthy
| habits that can help keeping you ticking along even without
| the boost of increased dopamine.
| billjings wrote:
| My personal view is that this worldview, the one that that
| views my inability to "function" in school, work, etc. as
| attributable to a clinical disorder treatable by
| medication, was incorrect.
|
| ADHD is defined as a disorder of executive function: that
| is, an individual with ADHD is unable to do what they wish
| to do. This was an accurate description of me; to this day,
| finding and working toward my goals is something I'm
| constantly working on.
|
| But if I look back on my childhood, I see that there was
| never a time when I had space to figure out how to
| understand and execute my own wishes in the world. Indeed,
| within my own family it was not recognized that I had a
| will of my own at all.
|
| Medication helped cope with this state of affairs, but it
| never helped repair it. So e.g. if I found I didn't much
| like being a student, I could take a stimulant and improve
| my ability to perform as a student. But taking that
| medication did nothing to help me solve that key equation:
| to do something I want to do, that other people also want
| me to do for them.
|
| So my answer to the problem posed by an ADHD diagnosis is
| growth: I had to start as an autodidact, but as I've grown
| into my adulthood I've found friends, mentors, and peers
| along the way who help me find my way. The world is making
| it harder and harder to get, but it's out there.
| danShumway wrote:
| > The Concerta doesn't fix my ADHD, but wow does it make it
| manageable.
|
| Methylphenidate affects me in fairly subtle ways and I'm
| constantly wondering whether it's actually working or if it's a
| placebo effect. However, my general experience when I look at
| the tracking data I collect in my own life mirrors this
| sentiment.
|
| Methylphenidate doesn't get rid of my distractability or make
| it easy for me to focus whenever I want, but it does help with
| my executive dysfunction _just enough_ that I can now set
| timers more reliably, I can now use calendars more effectively.
| It 's not that the medication made the problem go away, but it
| seems to have helped enough that it "unlocked" a bunch of
| additional coping strategies that I had never been able to
| access in the past no matter how much I tried.
|
| Definitely not for everyone, but also that's what a
| psychiatrist is for -- to help you experiment with different
| medications to see if there is one that will help, and to
| monitor you to see what the side effects are and what the long-
| term effects are, and to figure out and advise you on what your
| risk factors are. For some people it can be life-changing.
|
| I think a lot of people see this as a question of medication vs
| therapy, but for a lot of people with ADHD the two parts work
| together -- the medication makes the therapy more effective and
| more productive.
| TrevorJ wrote:
| This doesn't surprise me. I've been prescribed Ritalin at times
| both as a child and an adult in small doses. It is a remarkable
| _strong_ medication, and operates much like I imagine
| recreational drugs operate - there 's a definite strong high, and
| an equally brutal comedown afterword. I would be extremely
| cautious about prescribing this to anyone, especially children
| unless nearly every other kind of intervention has been explored.
|
| If you are a parent and considering Ritalin for your child, first
| ask yourself if you'd consider legal cocaine to be a reasonable
| solution for your child. If that sounds insane to you, then you
| should consider the fact that Ritalin is probably not so
| different.
| n8cpdx wrote:
| If you're getting a high from it, your dose is too high. If
| there is a "brutal" come down, your dose is too high.
|
| What do you consider a "small" dose?
| daniel-cussen wrote:
| Yeah instead take half the dose with three- or four-hour
| intervals.
| TrevorJ wrote:
| First off, do you are assuming that everyone reacts to drugs
| in the same way? I was taking 1/5th to 1/10th of a 'normal'
| dose. Secondly, if you do a few minutes of research online
| you will find that both issues (the high, and the comedown)
| is not at _all_ an uncommon complaint. Ritalin is a CNS
| stimulant.
|
| With respect, you are being a bit too condescending relative
| to the amount of knowledge of the issue you posses.
| Avamander wrote:
| They aren't assuming it about you specifically. It's just a
| common part of the process, with a common solution. It's
| likely a very valid question.
|
| If you're one of the few for whom it didn't work out, cool.
| But with equal respect, your anecdotal experience is not
| sufficient to call it "legal cocaine". Neither is it
| sufficient to make generilizations about how medical care
| of ADHD should be approached.
| TrevorJ wrote:
| 1. Ritalin is a schedule V medication precisely because
| of the reasons I mentioned.
|
| 2. Five minutes of research online shows that my
| experience is not uncommon. Hell, reading the warning
| label from the pharmaceutical manufacturer is sufficient
| to make my point.
|
| 3. I am very pro-medication when it comes to treating
| ADHD, but I also believe many people are not sufficiently
| educated on the potential consequences of these
| medications in children.
| dymk wrote:
| Ritalin still isn't "cocaine", despite your negative
| experience with it, and you're going to do more harm to
| those who would benefit from it by spreading around FUD.
|
| Part of the process of treating ADHD is finding the right
| medication, and Ritalin works for most, and if it's
| working as intended, does not produce the "high" feeling
| that you got. If you're getting high off of it, it's not
| the drug for you, or you're on the wrong dose.
| Avamander wrote:
| > Ritalin is a schedule V medication precisely because of
| the reasons I mentioned.
|
| Doesn't make it okay to call it "legal cocaine".
|
| > Five minutes of research online shows that my
| experience is not uncommon. Hell, reading the warning
| label from the pharmaceutical manufacturer is sufficient
| to make my point.
|
| Obviously it's documented, but it doesn't make your
| point. As I already said, it's a thing that happens in
| the process when finding the correct dosage for an
| individual.
|
| Though for neurotypical people who don't have the
| disorder, there's no correct dosage and they'll
| experience what you did.
| TrevorJ wrote:
| I did not call it legal cocaine, though I did compare the
| two, and I stand by that statement. Ritalin's mechanism
| for action is extremely similar to cocaine - it even
| competes for the same binding sites on neurons.
|
| It's still a very useful therapeutic, and I strongly
| believe it should not be stigmatized. But parents
| absolutely do need to be educated about the sort of
| prescription drug this is.
|
| I liken this somewhat to the use of opioids for pain
| control after surgery: they are a fantastic tool that I
| would certainly not want to forego. But I am grateful
| that we've become more intentional about educating people
| on some of the specific dangers around their use so that
| patients can be more aware. I'd like to see the same
| thing happen around the use of strong stimulants in
| children.
| n8cpdx wrote:
| What do you consider to be a "normal" dose? I've heard of
| people using 60+ mg of Ritalin and thinking that's normal.
| Ritalin is a powerful stimulant at 5 or 10mg. You can get
| lower doses or different formulations - e.g. 5 or 10mg at
| extended release to last through the day.
|
| Extended release is usually preferred by doctors in part
| because you avoid the highs and lows.
|
| Regardless of what "normal" practice is, if you are getting
| high from methylphenidate, the dose is wrong, and if you
| can't get therapeutic effects at a dose low enough to avoid
| a "brutal" comedown, you should be looking for
| alternatives.
| smittywerben wrote:
| > I've heard of people using 60+ mg of Ritalin and
| thinking that's normal.
|
| Hello. That's me. I can sleep on that dose. Is that not
| normal?
| TrevorJ wrote:
| >if you can't get therapeutic effects at a dose low
| enough to avoid a "brutal" comedown, you should be
| looking for alternatives.
|
| Agreed, this is why I no longer use it to treat my
| condition. The point I am making is that parents need to
| be aware of these potential side effects, because a child
| isn't necessarily in a position to articulate the fact
| that they are experiencing adverse effects like this. The
| medication is a CNS stimulant first and foremost. These
| effects aren't exactly rare.
| daniel-cussen wrote:
| Methylphenidate and cocaine are very very similar, but the
| nuance is different. It' like a bank account at -1C/ or +1C/,
| very similar accounts, how will they differ as time passes?
|
| In particular because cocaine is addictive whereas
| methylphenidate is not. Cocaine is euphoric while
| methylphenidate is much less, cocaine is arrogant while
| methylphenidate is just in-the-zone, just makes you want to
| work. Makes drudgery feel like a video game.
|
| There is also such a thing as an affine cocaine user, like
| Maradona, Iceberg Slim, and Sherlock Holmes (whose cocaine use
| was based on a real guy--a fucking freakish detective whose
| privacy Arthur Conan Doyle protected). These guys actually have
| an essentially healthy relationship with the drug, and yeah
| it's rare but it exists and they should be allowed to have it.
| Or narcoleptics, they're not going to get heart problems, let
| them.
|
| Or what? If Sherlock Holmes was on your child's abduction case,
| would you tell him no cocaine injections for the deduction
| trances? Nah man, you'd tell him go for it. That's legal
| cocaine. And the best detective of all time! In that case,
| would you still argue legal cocaine is bad for your child?
|
| Honestly I'm like, methylphenidate can be taken like in high
| school, for athletic competitions, tests, and writing
| essays...that's when I would have taken that or similar. Later
| on parties, that's medically acceptable, and is a medically-
| accepted partly-recreational use for a _part_ of the supply,
| which is mostly intended for work.
|
| So one thing, daily methylphenidate reduces adult height about
| as much as artistic gymnastics, like two inches. Apart from
| that, like something milder is better...like coffee with whey
| protein, that's worth 5 milligrams of methylphenidate. There's
| vyvanse, that's a good one for kids. There's adderall, too
| strong I'd say, but typically there's adderall deficits and
| ritalin deficits, never heard of someone being helped by both.
|
| I would say I would have wanted the choice for myself as a kid.
| TrevorJ wrote:
| It certainly can be addictive.
|
| "Warnings Ritalin may be habit-forming. Tell your doctor if
| you have a history of drug or alcohol addiction. Keep the
| medication where others cannot get to it.
|
| Misuse of Ritalin can cause addiction, overdose, or death.
| Tell your doctor if you have had problems with drug or
| alcohol abuse."
|
| https://www.drugs.com/ritalin.html
| smittywerben wrote:
| > I would be extremely cautious about prescribing this to
| anyone, especially children unless nearly every other kind of
| intervention has been explored.
|
| A well-trained psychiatrist can diagnose me in <10 minutes and
| ADHD meds are not that strong. I don't know what "intervention"
| means, but outgrowing ADHD is a common myth [1]. What you
| describe is not ADHD. I would try elsewhere. Sorry.
|
| [1] https://chadd.org/about-adhd/myths-and-misunderstandings/
| TrevorJ wrote:
| I don't claim that people outgrow ADHD, nor do I believe that
| to be the case. There are a number of other therapeutic drugs
| for ADHD beyond Ritalin, and there are other useful
| behavioral interventions including diet, exercise, time
| outdoors, cognitive therapies etc. That is what I mean by
| 'interventions'.
|
| I'm trying, probably somewhat poorly, to make the point that
| there are a lot of potentially useful things to try in terms
| of managing ADHD beyond Ritalin (though that can be a very
| useful tool for some).
| falcolas wrote:
| FWIW, ADHD increases the risk of depression too. Executive
| Function Disorder creates a lot of internal thoughts of "I'm a
| loser" "I'll never be able to succeed", and so forth.
|
| Though, being fair, those are thoughts other people will direct
| at those with ADHD as well.
| babypuncher wrote:
| I can add my anecdata to the pile. Treating my ADHD (with
| medication) helped eliminate most intrusive thought patterns
| that put me in a depressive spiral.
|
| The meds are not without their side effects. Every now and then
| I take a break for a week or so just to reset my biology. As my
| problems with executive functioning return, so does the
| depression.
|
| I think the moral of the story is that interaction with your
| doctor should be ongoing. You should not just get a
| prescription for Adderal or Ritalin and check back with them in
| 2 years.
| robonerd wrote:
| > _" I'll never be able to succeed"_
|
| Is it the condition which causes this, or the _diagnosis_ of
| the condition? I think diagnoses can easily inspire feelings of
| futility. It 's no longer something you can change about
| yourself by wanting to change, it becomes a medical condition
| you've been stuck with.
| PartiallyTyped wrote:
| Anecdata: I never considered the case that I have adhd until
| I chatted with a friend who was diagnosed with it and our
| experiences and patterns of behaviour were alike.
|
| I'd go as far as to argue that a diagnosis opens the door to
| solutions even non medical ones.
| BoorishBears wrote:
| A lot of people who get diagnosed are diagnosed without
| anything near a full understanding of what it is, especially
| when diagnosed at a young age, so I don't buy this
| hypothesis.
|
| As I kid I didn't have any inkling of what aspects of my
| personality and/or abilities were related to ADHD, and most
| people I've met who were diagnosed young have been in the
| same bucket.
|
| If anything being diagnosed should help stave off depression
| since ADHD tends to mimic a mentality most people just refer
| to as "lazy". You don't have "executive function disorder",
| you just fixate on things you like and ignore stuff you
| don't. You don't have ADHD, you're just messy and
| disorganized.
|
| Futility comes with a lack of understanding when it comes to
| this disease.
| thomastjeffery wrote:
| As a 28 year old who was just diagnosed, I can tell you from
| lived experience that it's the condition, and by extension,
| the expectations that people have of you that you aren't
| capable of meeting.
|
| When I was a kid, I constantly described myself as "lazy" and
| "tired". Now I understand I was really experiencing
| "executive disfunction" and "understimulation".
|
| Adding those words to my vocabulary didn't cure my ADHD, but
| it did relieve some internalized shame and anxiety that were
| caused by living undiagnosed (and therefore untreated).
| lucasmullens wrote:
| When I got diagnosed with ADHD I felt empowered. It let me
| think, no, I'm not uniquely broken, there's a ton of
| successful people who have similar brain chemistry to me.
|
| I think you're getting downvoted because it sounds like
| you're encouraging people not to get professional help.
| Avamander wrote:
| It's the condition. You can try place your hand on a glowing
| hot stove. Couldn't? Imagine that with every task, however
| willing or not you are. Some have it better, some worse. Just
| one side of the disorder already being a big hindrance.
| falcolas wrote:
| Fantastic analogy, because that hesitation is something
| everybody can relate to.
|
| All that's missing is how there's no consequence underlying
| that hesitation; how you can't justify why you can't do the
| task.
| dymk wrote:
| It's the condition that causes it. One of the diagnostic
| criteria for ADHD is anxiety over not being able to get
| things done. Your comment sounds dismissive of the real
| adverse impact of ADHD on one's inherent executive function;
| rather it's just someone being too "in their head" after
| they're giving a diagnosis.
|
| > it becomes a medical condition you've been stuck with
|
| 90-ish% of people with ADHD respond well to stimulants, and
| have complete remission of symptoms. And for those who don't
| respond well to stimulants, we have bupropion, etc.
|
| It's the one class of mental disorders where medication is
| very effective. For almost all with ADHD, it's not something
| you're "stuck" with.
| FollowingTheDao wrote:
| "One of the diagnostic criteria for ADHD is anxiety over
| not being able to get things done."
|
| No, it is not.
|
| https://www.aafp.org/dam/AAFP/documents/patient_care/adhd_t
| o...
|
| If you have to keep taking amphetamines you are stuck with
| it. It is clear that something dopamergenic is going on
| with these kids, but no one is trying to find out why they
| do not have enough dopamine. You know we have biological
| pathways that produce dopamine which are controlled by
| things in our environment.
|
| https://www.researchgate.net/figure/he-biosynthetic-
| pathway-...
|
| Yeah, I said it, you can control ADHD by changing the
| environment. Zinc, B6, air pollution, protein intake,
| etc...
|
| Yet all we get is a pill? And you are all happy with that?
| user_7832 wrote:
| It can be because the person will try to do things
| repeatedly, fail/be unsuccessful (due to executive
| dysfunction) and just feel shitty about their life overall.
|
| And by doing things it can even be "basic" stuff like laundry
| etc.
| andybak wrote:
| A diagnosis had completely the opposite effect for me. I
| stopped blaming my own failings and could compartmentalize
| those aspects of my life that were holding me back as
| something external that wasn't my "fault". The result was a
| big reduction in guilt and a big increase in happiness and
| productivity.
| adastra22 wrote:
| This hasn't been the case for anyone I know who has been
| diagnosed. For all of us it was immensely empowering:
|
| "Oh all that stuff I've been struggling with wasn't actually
| my fault? With this magic pill I can get stuff done too and
| not feel like an imposter all the time? Heck yea!"
|
| I can imagine what you saying applying to some childhood
| diagnoses. I cannot speak to anyone I know who was diagnosed
| in childhood thinking that way though.
| falcolas wrote:
| The condition. It's abso-fucking-lutely the condition.
|
| Executive Dysfunction means you're screaming in your head to
| stand up and get work done, but your brain just keeps
| browsing hacker news. And not just monthly or weekly, but
| hourly. Sometimes even every few minutes.
|
| Diagnosed or undiagnosed.
| doliveira wrote:
| I wonder if it's a "horoscope reading" kind of feeling, but
| I just identify so much with these descriptions of ADHD.
| LordDragonfang wrote:
| If you identify with these descriptions strongly, it's a
| pretty conclusive indicator that you have some degree of
| executive dysfunction. Whether you specifically have
| _ADHD_ is up to a doctor to determine, but this type of
| executive dysfunction tends to be a hallmark of the
| disorder.
| balfirevic wrote:
| What are some other disorders that manifest as executive
| dysfunction? I've seen it mentioned about depression, but
| I'm curious if there are others.
| falcolas wrote:
| Well, 5% of the population in general is the expected
| ratio of people with ADHD, but only 2% of the adult
| population is diagnosed with it, and it doesn't magically
| go away when you become an adult.
|
| So, there's definitely a chance. Two thoughts:
|
| - Everyone will occasionally exhibit some ADHD symptoms,
| the question is how often. Monthly? Probably not a
| problem. Hourly, or every few minutes? Probably is a
| problem.
|
| - See a professional. Self diagnosis can't get you the
| help you need.
| doliveira wrote:
| Yeah, mine have persisted all day along for as long as I
| can remember... I guess I'm not the stereotypical
| hyperactive, but when it comes to the attention span it
| does fit me a glove.
|
| I should probably get it checked. Thing is I'm afraid of
| "faking it", if it makes any sense?
| LocalPCGuy wrote:
| I'd personally recommend to go get checked. The
| evaluation I went through was like 6 hours long (I know,
| getting checked for ADHD and they want 6 hours of
| testing?! Seriously.) But it is to rule out other issues,
| other conditions and to ensure that the results are
| correct. In fact, they even adjust for "faking it" in the
| tests (not that someone couldn't do it, but they are
| looking for common patterns that would indicate someone
| try to sway the tests).
|
| I'm definitely not, as you put it, the stereotypical
| "hyperactive", but on learning more, I realized how many
| little tics I have that I do but in very masked ways so
| as to not draw attention. But that aside, there is 3
| different diagnosis for ADHD - primary hyperactive,
| primary-inattentive or combination (both to some level).
| Despite what I said about tics, my diagnosis was for the
| inattentive side of things. "Head in the clouds",
| "daydreamer", etc.
|
| It's all relatively new for me, it wasn't something I
| really seriously considered until a year or two ago (and
| I'm in my 40s now), despite having a brother who was
| medicated fairly young and a father who displays many of
| the same traits (never diagnosed though). It's definitely
| helped me to know this, puts some puzzle pieces in place,
| so to speak, and gives me a path forward toward managing
| something I didn't really realize I needed to manage, but
| was having a significant impact on my life regardless.
| zemoose wrote:
| Annecdotally? The condition. It was actually the opposite of
| what you described. Getting diagnosed in early adulthood was
| actually a huge weight off my shoulders, because I suddenly
| understood why I was struggling and had a path forward for
| seeking treatment. Prior to that, I was just drowning and
| overwhelmed, and I didn't know why. It felt like nothing I
| did helped and I wasn't making any progress towards my goals.
| I felt like I was barely a functional adult. It felt
| terrible.
| ALittleLight wrote:
| It's horrifying to me that so many children are drugged so they
| become more complacent in school. School is not that important.
| pornel wrote:
| This is a mass-media trope. It's as reality-based as a
| complaint that "It's horrifying that so many hackers are
| allowed to just walk into Pentagon's network with their visual-
| basic 3D IP viruses".
|
| The reality is that ADHD can cause all kinds of problems with
| making decisions, planning, perception of time, staying focused
| on a _chosen_ task, emotional regulation, and sleep. School
| just happens to be the first place where these difficulties
| become apparent, but this can be a struggle in all areas of
| life, and not everything can be helped with environmental
| accommodations.
| TopRattata wrote:
| Complacent. Aight. I actually got /feistier/ when I started
| ADHD meds at 33, because I finally felt confident enough in my
| brain's function to start actually voicing my opinions to my
| peers. But go off, I guess.
| smittywerben wrote:
| It's like parking in my handicap spot so Billy can get an A on
| his math quiz.
| Verdex wrote:
| The brain chemistry altering controlled substances aren't
| necessarily the problem in my eyes. It's the lack of focus and
| individuality. School is a system that's supposed to help set
| people up for life as fellow citizens. If solution A doesn't
| work then one would hope that they would have the bandwidth to
| try solution B.
|
| It does feel like there's a lot of "hey that's weird, this one
| person isn't like everyone else, maybe we should try pumping
| some drugs into them" going on. Perhaps we could explore the
| problem space a bit before reaching that conclusion. Of course
| that sounds like it could take a lot of work and involve
| understanding the problems on an individual basis. Standard
| cocktail of drugs, however has an industrial, assembly line
| feel to it. Why figure anything out when we can just find a way
| to make the problem go away.
|
| Although, for those who really do need brain chemistry
| alterations to function, I'm glad we have something that we can
| actually do to help them. I just wish that the approach would
| be to actually assist the individual instead of only assisting
| the assembly line student output. It seems like I only hear
| about the later, but of course perhaps that makes sense because
| a story about the former doesn't have very good memetic
| fitness.
| Avamander wrote:
| > It does feel like there's a lot of "hey that's weird, this
| one person isn't like everyone else, maybe we should try
| pumping some drugs into them" going on.
|
| But it isn't like that.
|
| Just as a thought excercise imagine you're talking about
| glasses, that's how damaging and silly such arguments are.
|
| Things like bad eyesight or executive dysfunction don't start
| and end on school grounds, they're just more visible and more
| obstructive there.
| thomastjeffery wrote:
| It's not just about school.
|
| School is a place where several people in the same age group
| and similar social circles are expected to perform the same set
| of tasks, which makes it really useful as _diagnostic_
| criteria.
|
| But _treatment_ isn 't (or at least shouldn't be) about _only_
| doing well in school. It 's about doing well in life.
|
| I finished elementary and high school by the skin of my teeth.
| I did it without an ADHD diagnosis or treatment.
|
| I finally got diagnosed this year and started treatment. Why?
| So I can do my hobbies. So I can wash the dishes. So I can
| _live_ my life instead of staring at it, waiting for my feet to
| start moving beneath me.
|
| ADHD medication is not about school, because school is not the
| singular instance where a person's life is affected by the
| disorder. ADHD affects every aspect of my life, and so does
| treating it.
| falcolas wrote:
| > School is not that important.
|
| I'd make a comment about how office work mirrors education, but
| if we do decide to treat school as unimportant, it's not like
| children would be able to get such jobs.
|
| Instead they'd be more likely to get jobs doing manual labor,
| destroying their bodies before they've past their mid 30's.
| echelon wrote:
| Nor is the structure of life after school. (Offices? 9 AM start
| times?)
|
| Kids with ADHD can go on to find incredible success in breaking
| the rules.
| Avamander wrote:
| Sure they can, people endure and cope with a lot of things.
| That's a really low and unnecessarily painful approach
| though. They could do even better, do things they want to do,
| when they aren't hindered as much by the disorder.
|
| I really think the comparison with glasses is apt, sure
| someone can squint their eyes and sit a bit closer at times,
| but why should they? We'd call it neglect to force someone to
| cope with bad eyesight without correction. Now you're talking
| about some ADHD kids doing well breaking the rules, so it's
| fine not to help? Eugh.
|
| Do you know how many without help end up with incredible
| failure? Teen pregnancies, accidents, addiction, depression?
| It's more likely to be bad.
|
| I really wish this discussion would revolve around helping,
| not potentially forcing coping.
| falcolas wrote:
| Especially with the plethora of evidence about how much
| harm "masking" can cause for a neurodivergant individual.
|
| Because that mask can never really be taken off.
| echelon wrote:
| I don't know where you're going with your comment. I didn't
| say anything about whatever you're implying. You might be
| responding to a different person?
|
| ADHD kids can take medicine, but the rest of the world can
| also lighten up. That's my point. The rules and benchmarks
| are stupid and impose unnecessary stress on ADHD
| individuals. Over half of the time you can ignore it and be
| fine.
| CodeMage wrote:
| It's more horrifying to me that HN has turned into a kind of
| place where people will confidently assert their judgment
| something they have no knowledge about.
|
| My son has ADHD. There are other ADHD cases in the family, so
| we knew that could be the case with him, but we waited until he
| was in middle school to even try to check, because we didn't
| want him to "depend on drugs", as the trope goes.
|
| We got the diagnosis from two different doctors, to be
| absolutely sure.
|
| The medication makes a stunning difference, and it has
| _nothing_ to do with complacency at all. It has to do with
| being able to focus better and to overcome an obstacle that
| people like me don 't have.
|
| And the medication shouldn't be the only thing to use for ADHD.
| It should be used as a tool to help, but that's just the start.
| It's important for the parents to work with a psychologist, for
| two reasons: 1) to help the child develop their own tools and
| strategies to overcome the cons of ADHD, and 2) to help the
| parents understand the child better.
|
| Like I said, I don't have ADHD. The things my son has to
| struggle with are often difficult for me to understand and
| identify with. The medication helps so he doesn't have to
| struggle as hard. And he's less "complacent" than ever, and
| that's a good thing.
|
| What you're saying is the equivalent of "it's horrifying to me
| that so many children are forced to wear glasses so they become
| more complacent in school".
| speedmagnet wrote:
| In my opinion it's normal for some kids or people to be
| distracted easily or have more energy than others. They
| require more attention. Also a child's brain is not fully
| developed. Why do we expect all kids to be great at focusing?
| Do you think the focus is worth the reported short and long-
| term side effects[0]?
|
| [0] https://dailymed.nlm.nih.gov/dailymed/drugInfo.cfm?setid=
| aff...
| Avamander wrote:
| It's not simply being "more distracted", that's
| oversimplification to the extent of belittling people who
| have the disorder.
|
| Fully developed or not, ADHD doesn't disappear. Neither
| does it change if someone wants fully working executive
| functioning or control over their "train of thought".
|
| The "focus" is worth it, especially if you make a fair
| comparison with those that weren't so lucky to get help.
| TrevorJ wrote:
| Two things can be true at the same time. Some kids truly do
| have a disorder that benefits from medication. Some kids are
| prescribed medication they don't need simply so they are able
| to do something that no child should reasonable be expect to
| do: sit in a chair and listen to people talk at them for 8+
| hours a day. One truth does not preclude the other.
| lghh wrote:
| > One truth does not preclude the other.
|
| Do you have any evidence to support that children are
| prescribed medication to sit in a chair when they don't
| have ADHD at a high enough clip to warrant the appearance
| of being concerned about it at equal weight to actually
| getting those with ADHD help? Comments like this only
| further stigmatize getting those with ADHD the help they
| need, so before you make them you'd better be damn sure
| it's worth it or else you're taking part in stigmatizing
| parents who get children the help they deserve.
| thomastjeffery wrote:
| I sat at a desk for 8+ hours a day, then I proceeded to sit
| at a desk for another 2-4 hours.
|
| I didn't have a singular issue with sitting at a desk. I
| could - and in fact did - sit at a desk from sun up to sun
| down 5 days a week without complaint.
|
| Did I resent it? Yes. Do I think schooling should have been
| done differently? Yes. Could doing school differently have
| cured my ADHD symptoms? No. Absolutely not.
|
| Living with undiagnosed ADHD is hell, whether you are a
| child or an adult.
| CodeMage wrote:
| That's true. And it's also true that ADHD is overdiagnosed
| and overtreated, and the rate is non-negligible.
|
| That is a problem that both the public and the medical
| community are aware of. I agree with maintaining awareness
| of that, but I strongly disagree with going to the extremes
| and stigmatizing ADHD medication and everyone involved.
|
| Look at the comment I objected to. Does it read like a
| rational, polite way to maintain awareness of that problem?
| Or does it look like a knee-jerk judgment that's parroting
| a popular trope?
| luckydata wrote:
| who told you it's over-diagnosed?
|
| Science generally agrees ADHD is under-diagnosed. Read
| the statement of consensus. There's some sort of moral
| panic cause the beautiful souls of a bunch of people
| can't fathom stimulants can be used for medical purposes
| cause "all drugs are bad and Concerta is essentially
| meth" which is absolute BS.
|
| There's no need to spew hearsay and lies when you know
| next to nothing about a medical condition that affects 5%
| of the population.
| CodeMage wrote:
| I based what I said on the study by Kazda, Bell, Thomas,
| et al [1], although there's always a chance that I might
| have misunderstood it. From what I understood, it seems
| that there's a certain degree of overdiagnosis in milder
| cases of ADHD. Again, it's perfectly possible that I
| either misunderstood it or that they're wrong.
|
| If you look at the rest of my comments in this
| discussion, you'll see that I'm not pushing the moral
| panic you mention -- on the contrary, I'm pushing against
| it strongly -- and that it's definitely not true that I
| "know next to nothing" about this condition.
|
| It wouldn't surprise me to find that ADHD is being
| simultaneously over- and under-diagnosed, because it's
| new enough that we're still discovering more and more
| about it. That's why I don't dispute that there's
| probably some degree of overdiagnosis, but I strongly
| object to pushing the narrative that it's some kind of an
| overmedication epidemic or crisis.
|
| [1]: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/ful
| larticle...
| ALittleLight wrote:
| I wrote that it is horrifying so many children are
| drugged to be more complacent in school. I saw you
| objecting to that and assumed I'd need to come back and
| support the idea that ADHD is over diagnosed and over
| medicated (e.g. the diagnoses have about doubled in the
| past couple decades in the US and are substantially
| higher than in European countries and US pharmaceuticals
| have a history of being over prescribed). Yet now I find
| that you are already aware ADHD is overdiagnosed and
| overtreated - so what exactly are you objecting to in my
| original comment? You don't think it's horrifying that
| parents, teachers, and doctors are basically conspiring
| to drug kids to keep them from acting up in schools?
|
| School is a pretty boring and restrictive place. Children
| are notoriously poor at dealing with boring things and
| young boys in particular are particularly prone to the
| kind of misbehavior that will get them in trouble and
| drugged.
| CodeMage wrote:
| I've already expressed what I object to: that it's a
| pithy, kneejerk, judgmental trope-parroting that does
| more to stigmatize the majority who want to help their
| kids, than to help combat the abuse perpetrated by the
| minority of bad parents.
|
| It is remarkably difficult to find any figures even
| estimating the overdiagnosis and overmedication rates for
| ADHD. Most of the talk around this issue tends to make a
| big deal out of the rising rate of ADHD diagnoses.
|
| Those who talk about it responsibly and rationally
| recognize right away that this doesn't necessarily mean
| we have an overdiagnosis crisis on our hands, and seek
| additional information. The best study I've been able to
| find about this [1] does indicate that there may be some
| overdiagnosis and overmedication going on, but even there
| it's not framed as "parents, teachers, and doctors are
| basically conspiring to drug kids to keep them from
| acting up in schools", nor does it lend any credibility
| to that claim.
|
| Are there bad parents who don't want to deal with their
| kids' behavior and try to get them "drugged into
| complacence"? Yes, definitely. Do we know how many and
| how that number compares to other kinds of parental
| abuse? No, we don't. Is it a problem of epidemic
| proportions? There's no evidence for that, and the onus
| is on those of you who make that claim.
|
| More importantly, if we distance ourselves from the
| sensationalist tropes about "drugging kids into
| complacence", we can ask a better question: are there
| currently any perverse incentives in the medical
| community to overdiagnose ADHD and overprescribe
| medication? This _might_ be the case, but it remains to
| be proven and it should be dealt with just like any
| similar case of perverse incentives.
|
| So what do I object to? I object to the sensationalist
| "Will Nobody Think Of The Children" overstatement and
| hyperbole. I object to people bringing up the same trope
| over and over again, out of ignorance, and doing their
| best to stigmatize the vast majority of us who are doing
| our best to provide our kids with the best life we can. I
| object to not trying to constructively work to slowly
| evolve the best approach to dealing with a concrete, real
| and potentially debilitating problem that was discovered
| too recently to have a perfect solution to it, just
| because drumming up outrage and spreading FUD is easier
| and more gratifying.
|
| And yes, school _can_ be a pretty boring and restrictive
| place, but that 's just the tip of the ADHD iceberg.
| Reducing the whole problem space to just that is not
| helping, either.
|
| [1]: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/ful
| larticle...
|
| EDIT: I realized that I forgot to provide the link for
| [1], so I'm adding it now. My apologies for the
| oversight.
| ALittleLight wrote:
| To me you're coming across as defensive when you make
| these insults and assert that I'm ignorant and don't know
| what I'm talking about (when, ironically, you have no way
| of knowing and are therefore ignorant to my level of
| exposure to the topic). I understand being defensive -
| you've made a significant decision about your child's
| health and I hope for your, and his, sake that it's the
| correct one.
|
| Your defensiveness aside - it's actually not a "trope" or
| a kneejerk reaction to notice that the rates of ADHD and
| ADHD medication have doubled in the past couple decades
| in the US and are significantly higher in the US than in
| Western Europe. The US has a pattern of over prescribing
| medications - the current opiod epidemic is an example.
| My understanding of this is that it's most likely there
| is over-diagnosing, and therefore overmedicating, of
| ADHD, and that's bad.
|
| "Are there bad parents who don't want to deal with their
| kids' behavior" - there are, sure, but that's not what I
| think is most common. My intuition is that bad parents
| would just not care what their kids are doing and leave
| it to the school to handle. If I had to guess, I would
| guess that the modal problem parent is one who,
| understandably, wants what is best for their kids and is
| concerned about what the schools are telling them. The
| schools, for their part, want kids who don't overly
| disturb the system. The doctors hear about a problem that
| they have the pharmaceuticals to treat.
|
| I don't think the people involved are evil and acting out
| of malice or laziness but I do think that this group
| works together to create a system where a fundamentally
| boring place (school) has a problem managing people who
| are fundamentally bad at being bored (boys) and they, in
| part, solve that problem by giving them drugs (ADHD
| medication). I've been thinking about my choice of the
| word "complacent" from earlier, and maybe it's not quite
| right - I originally meant it in the sense that the
| natural state of the boys is to think of school as a
| problem and rebel against it and their medicated state is
| to not rebel against school as much or to the same
| extent.
| CodeMage wrote:
| If I'm coming across as defensive, then I haven't been
| clear enough. I'm not defensive, I'm furious but I'm
| trying to channel it into rational discourse. There's
| nothing "defensive" about wanting to stop the propagation
| of this trope.
|
| And yes, it's a trope. I said very clearly that this is
| not about rising rates of ADHD diagnoses and medication.
| The trope I'm referring to is the tendency to not only
| jump to a conclusion that it means we have an
| overdiagnosis crisis, but to present that conclusion as a
| fact and a significant problem.
|
| The reason why I'm furious about it is because this
| narrative has been pushed for years and it has a negative
| impact on those of us who wish to help our children. In
| my personal case, it created a strong urge to avoid
| addressing the issue and just hope it would go away with
| "better parenting". If it hadn't been for the stigma of
| "you just want to drug your kids into submission", I
| would have started helping my kid earlier -- not with
| medication, but by finding a psychologist to help us.
|
| Again, the focus on "school is boring and kids misbehave,
| so they get drugged" is too narrow and damaging to those
| who are affected by ADHD. Imagine being interested in
| many things, but not being able to advance in any of them
| beyond initial interest because your brain doesn't let
| you overcome simple obstacles that require concentration
| and it only lets you do so if you become somewhat
| obsessed by a particular random thing it settled on.
|
| Yes, the study I (belatedly) linked in my previous post
| does indicate that there might be some overdiagnosis and
| overmedication of milder ADHD cases. And yes, that's
| something that we need to be aware of and work to
| improve.
|
| I'm not objecting to raising that awareness. I'm
| objecting to the utterly irresponsible and damaging way
| to do so.
| ALittleLight wrote:
| Do you think society is currently tilted too far in the
| direction of undermedicating ADHD? That though we went
| from 5.5% of children diagnosed with ADHD in 1997 to 9.8%
| in 2018 we still have more ADHD yet to find? More than a
| tenth of children are so psychologically flawed they need
| mind-altering medication to address what's wrong with
| them?
|
| There is a widespread belief in ADHD and that it should
| be medicated. That's why millions of children are so
| medicated. There is institutional belief in that idea as
| well - that's why so many doctors prescribe these drugs
| to children. It's not the case that treating ADHD is some
| minority view that needs to be protected from criticism.
|
| I read your comment as suggesting that I shouldn't share
| my opinion on the topic because my opinion stigmatizes
| children who need help. I hope I can highlight the
| problem with that sentiment by giving an example like if
| I said you shouldn't share your opinion because the
| children who are over medicated need help and you are
| silencing and stigmatizing ideas that would help the over
| medicated kids.
|
| There is no reason to think my comments are "utterly
| irresponsible" or "damaging" and you are being hyperbolic
| by describing them so - any more than your comments are
| damaging because they encourage over medication. Again,
| I'd refer you to the "defensive" element of my prior
| comment. And, since you've mentioned tropes, one trope
| I'd like to point out is the trope of thinking that
| "Because I strongly hold belief X I will accuse anyone
| disagreeing with X of being bad or harmful." You are
| entitled to your opinions, but not to try and silence
| people who disagree with you.
| CodeMage wrote:
| There is a "widespread belief" in ADHD and that it should
| be medicated because there is evidence for it. The ADHD
| my son has and the ADHD my nephew has, among others, are
| not things I choose to believe in irrationally.
|
| As for where the society is currently tilted, it's
| possible -- and likely -- that ADHD is being both
| overdiagnosed and underdiagnosed at the same time. Like I
| said, it was discovered recently enough that we, as a
| society, don't yet have a perfect solution for it and
| we're still learning more and more. The approach is still
| evolving.
|
| And yeah, going from 5.5% in 1997 to 9.8% in 2018 is the
| jump everyone loves to quote and panic about, but it
| doesn't constitute a crisis. Especially if you frame it
| as "more than a tenth of children are so psychologically
| flawed they need mind-altering medication to address
| what's wrong with them". That's exactly the hyperbole I'm
| objecting to here.
|
| Let's start by acknowledging that 9.8% of children
| _diagnosed_ does not equate 9.8% of children _medicated_.
| Once we hopefully agree on that, I 'm also hoping we can
| agree that ADHD is not this binary thing that manifests
| exactly the same and in the same degree in every patient.
| Just like we've discovered that autism is not a binary
| thing but rather a spectrum (and even more nuanced than
| that), ADHD can't be reduced to "either you have it and
| you'll forever medicate, or you don't have it".
|
| So yes, we're still dealing with a developing situation
| and there's more work to be done. That's not something I
| dispute and I'm not trying to "silence" that opinion. As
| I already explained repeatedly, I am objecting to the way
| you presented that. Or rather, I'm objecting to the way
| you _didn 't_ present that at all.
|
| You just tossed out a judgmental, dismissive comment and
| got upset when people pointed out that it wasn't
| constructive -- or even true, on its own. It didn't come
| across at all as what you're claiming you wanted to say,
| but instead of recognizing that you communicated wrongly,
| you're now claiming I'm trying to silence you. Given
| that, I'm starting to form an impression that we could go
| back and forth like this forever and nothing will come
| out of it.
| greatpostman wrote:
| memish wrote:
| Glasses are not drugs. That's not at all equivalent.
|
| These drugs are altering brain chemistry and one's natural
| state so they fit into the unnatural environment that is
| school. It's horrifying to me that people are doing mental
| gymnastics to defend drugging kids who don't want to sit at a
| desk for hours every day memorizing useless information. If I
| was a kid today I'd fit the qualifications and be drugged to
| better fit into that environment. It's a crime that future
| generations will be rightly horrified by. Not unlike how we
| are starting to be horrified by the treatment of animals in
| factory farms. We're not treating these kids much better.
| luckydata wrote:
| that's bs.
|
| ADHD affects your natural ability to make decisions and
| control your emotions. Has all kinds of health
| repercussions from overeating to unnecessary risk taking to
| difficult relationships with others.
|
| Please stop talking about stuff you don't know like you
| actually have any knowledge of it, and spend the time you
| save by reading some science:
|
| https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S01497634
| 2...
| dymk wrote:
| Please read up on the diagnostic criteria for ADHD (it's
| not just "can't sit down"!), and understand that not
| everybody is born with a brain chemistry that serves them
| well in life. People with ADHD are affected by it even when
| they're not in school.
|
| Lucky for those with ADHD, most respond to medication very
| effectively.
| CodeMage wrote:
| Again, this is not about wanting to sit at a desk for hours
| every day. He's perfectly content to sit at a desk for
| hours every day, in front of his computer, and yet he'll
| have the same problems focusing on most things.
|
| Yes, the medication alters brain chemistry and one's
| "natural state". Do you honestly think that we have the
| science to realize that it alters brain chemistry, but we
| don't have the science to realize that some brain
| chemistries are drastically different from others?
|
| As for the whole "natural state" thing, let's not indulge
| in appeals to nature here. I forgot where I heard "dog poop
| and arsenic are both found in nature, but you wouldn't eat
| either", but it stuck with me. Schizophrenia is a "natural
| state" for some people. So is depression, or autism. Should
| we just leave everyone in their "natural state", because
| it's sacred for some reason? Hence my comment about
| glasses: some people are naturally short-sighted, too, but
| they enjoy being able to see better.
|
| Sure, school is an unnatural environment. Civilization is
| mostly an unnatural environment, too.
|
| What infuriates me, though, is that people who haven't had
| to walk in my son's shoes -- or mine, but his are more
| important -- have the audacity to judge from their position
| of ignorance and declare all the effort and care we went
| through "a crime that future generations will be rightly
| horrified by".
| krono wrote:
| You clearly haven't so much as an inkling of how
| debilitating ADHD can be.
|
| Wish I could have been a proper part of this world we live
| in as a kid but my diagnosis and treatment only came in
| adulthood.
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| Sometimes I wonder how my life would have turned out if my
| parents hadn't believed this so strongly. I didn't even know. I
| never could finish anything I started, never accomplished
| anything I set out to do, never achieved any of the things I
| wanted for myself. From outside it looks like laziness and lack
| of ambition and I internalized that. It predictably led to a
| lifetime of depression and shame. Would I have started drinking
| if I had been medicated properly the first time adults around
| me noticed I could benefit from it? Could it have prevented the
| years of homelessness, mental institutions, and jails?
|
| We'll never know of course. But decades later now that I have
| access to these medications I can actually achieve my goals
| enough of the time to feel ok about myself.
|
| But yeah, complacency in school, totally.
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| I suggesting reading up on ADHD before making this claim. ADHD
| is an absolutely deliberating executive function disorder. It
| is not restlessness or a personality trait.
|
| The biggest difference is in self-motivation. Someone with ADHD
| will desperately want to focus on something they like, but they
| can't. For many things, there is no amount of desire that can
| overcome this limitation.
|
| This is very different from a kid who just isn't interested and
| wants to do something else.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| "drugged". You make it sound like kids are slipped roofies
|
| It doesn't make children complacent. It made me stop kicking
| the shit out of my classmates every day. School is very
| important. I was depriving myself and others of an education
| and those other kids shouldn't have to put up with nuisances
| like me.
|
| My parents were given a choice: put me in special ed classes or
| medication. They didn't want me to be treated differently so
| they chose medication. I think it was a good call.
| CountDrewku wrote:
| aeneasmackenzie wrote:
| > After his [Erdos] mother's death in 1971 he started taking
| antidepressants and amphetamines, despite the concern of his
| friends, one of whom (Ron Graham) bet him $500 that he could
| not stop taking them for a month. Erdos won the bet, but
| complained that it impacted his performance: "You've showed me
| I'm not an addict. But I didn't get any work done. I'd get up
| in the morning and stare at a blank piece of paper. I'd have no
| ideas, just like an ordinary person. You've set mathematics
| back a month."
|
| How could we give these to children indeed.
|
| Of course this article is about Ritalin which is not
| comparable.
| d4rkp4ttern wrote:
| You mean compliant, not complacent?
| avgDev wrote:
| I hate sounding like an alarmist....but something is extremely
| wrong with how physicians handle adverse reactions.
|
| So, I took a flouroquinolone and had a text book reaction. 50+
| physicians later at mayo and other top US hospitals and I was
| gaslighted more than helped in any way. I am now in a group for
| sufferers and meet new people daily, who took the drug and the
| doctor completely dismissed their neurological issues as anxiety.
|
| After sending documents to my primary he agreed that I suffered
| an ADR and stopped prescribing it completely unless no other
| options exist.
|
| "Health care providers/professionals (HCPs) play a critical role
| in ADR surveillance. Only 6% of all ADRs are reported and under-
| reporting acts as great impedance in exchange of drug
| information."
| https://www.ijbcp.com/index.php/ijbcp/article/view/1652
| [deleted]
| dan_quixote wrote:
| Primary care in the US is heavily reliant on the most basic
| heuristics to meet patient throughput requirements. Many
| clinics are operating at 15 min/patient. And no one wants to
| spend their free time charting the visit and making necessary
| orders (pharmacy, radiology, other providers, etc) if it can be
| avoided - so they try to cram it into that 15 min if possible.
| So they simply don't have time to ask the necessary questions
| and perform research.
| oliveshell wrote:
| The quinolone antibiotics in general seem to be a really nasty
| class of drug, with a long list of rare but serious and
| potentially permanent side effects in susceptible people:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quinolone_antibiotic#Adverse_e...
|
| https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-03267-5
| avgDev wrote:
| There is quite a few theories now, such as mitochondrial
| issues(mayo clinic is doing a study on this). It is actually
| a Topoisomerase II inhibitor, like some anticancer drugs, but
| how that all works is a bit above my pay grade and I don't
| want to mislead anyone about what that could imply.
|
| Edit: I think the reactions are rare but not as rare as we
| think. The onset of symptoms is anywhere from few hours after
| a single dose up to 12 months(this is now on the label). If I
| did not have an instant reaction I don't think I would have
| believed that a medication I took 6 months ago caused it. I
| have talked to many individual suffering from SFN, CFS,
| Fibro, chronic tendonitis issues who had an infection prior
| and took the drug. The physician never asked and they never
| made the connection.
|
| Few individuals recovered, only to take the drug again few
| years later and end up in a worse state.
| code_duck wrote:
| Not a drug reaction, but I had a rather dreadful experience
| with Mayo, where I reported severe digestive problems which had
| led to me losing a great amount of weight over a few months
| while being constantly in pain (175 to 118, I'm 5'10"). They
| did some esophagus tests, they looked okay and Mayo wrote it
| off as "health anxiety". It turns out I was actually developing
| a form of adult onset type 1 diabetes (LADA).
| Group_B wrote:
| Was your blood sugar extremely high during that time before
| being diagnosed?
| code_duck wrote:
| I have no idea what it was when I was at Mayo, but later
| on, yes. I went into diabetic ketoacidosis and had 650
| glucose at the ER, with an HbA1c that indicated an average
| of 300 for the preceding 3 months.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| This was for ONE adhd medication and the risk was only increased
| for the initial 90 days... and then went back to baseline.
| jimmygrapes wrote:
| Should also note that the return to baseline was only after
| discontinuation of the MPH. Can't really tell if it would
| return to baseline if the medication was continued without
| digging into the study more than I have so far.
|
| Also worth noting for those less familiar with medication
| names, methylphenidate is sold under the brand names Ritalin
| and Concerta.
| [deleted]
| baskethead wrote:
| You misread it. It went back to baseline after discontinuing
| the treatment which means that the increased depression was
| during the time while taking the medication.
| mmmrtl wrote:
| The authors show increased depression risk in the 90 days PRE-
| exposure (before starting treatment). To me, the authors seems
| to have dangerously misinterpreted the data. It could easily be
| the case that a depression diagnosis leads to seeing a
| psychiatrist and deciding to treat their underlying ADHD with
| methylphenidate. How could being about to go on methylphenidate
| in the next 90 days possible be the cause of depression???
| sascha_sl wrote:
| Considering stimulants (generally, but also specific ones) only
| work for a portion of people that try it, I find this very
| unsurprising. The increase isn't that big and probably down to a
| mixture of disappointment and side effects without the main
| effects.
|
| It's one of the main reasons doctors prescribe different
| stimulants. I've personally heard every mutation of "This one
| worked for me but the other one gave me bad side effects and
| little effect".
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| The study is useful as something to watch for when using
| medication, not for avoiding medication. We already know
| starting antidepressants has an increased suicide risk.
| sascha_sl wrote:
| Do I really seem so defensive? I really didn't mean to...
|
| I of course know that this is how it's meant to be used.
|
| But having gone through ADHD and trans healthcare I know
| everything that looks like ammo will be used as ammo. Even
| the things that explicitly state they are not ammo. By
| healthcare professionals and those that want to enact change
| on a higher level.
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| I was attempting to add on what you were saying. :)
| jimmygrapes wrote:
| You'd think by now we would have some way to test the
| concentration of various things (serotonin, norepinephrine,
| etc.) in the body BEFORE issuing medications that might modify
| them, and then measure such concentrations afterwards to get a
| better idea of what to use, rather than the current "try
| different things and rely solely on the subjective description
| provided by the (likely untrained and inarticulate) test
| subject."
|
| Or maybe we do and I've never been privy to this knowledge nor
| provided such a test.
| 331c8c71 wrote:
| Looks like the existing methods for measuring neurotrasmitter
| concentrations in the brain are pretty invasive, e.g.
| electrodes at best and the analysis of extracted tissue at
| worst. And I am not sure whether blood concentrations are
| indicative of anything.
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| The problem is neurotransmitters are signaling devices, there
| are no "levels". There are only differences in reactivity to
| signals that differ all over the brain.
|
| It would be like trying to tracks cars by only observing
| traffic lights.
| am_lu wrote:
| A bit of perspective from speed user (amphetamine, not meth) who
| I know: Been into it for 10+ years. Usual weekend binge on 3.5
| grams of good quality amphetamine. Can last from Friday evening
| till Tuesday, will little sleep between. Lots of things get done.
| Rest of the week head and brain is out service, depression you
| call it, nothing is been done, hard to go to work, any excuse
| willdo, sort out yourself some food or a takeaway, watch some
| youtube, sleep a lot till you get better. Current state, 5 weeks
| clean: go to work, no problem 8 hours shift, do your duty to pay
| the bills. After work - eat, relax for a bit, read a lot be it
| books or just daily news. Bed time. Personal projects be it
| coding or electronics just put on hold....
| nowahe wrote:
| From personal experience, I feel like the crash following a
| multi-day binge isn't necessarily due to amphetamine
| withdrawls, but more so the consequences of multi-day sleep
| deprivation, dehydration, under-nutrition; all the while having
| over-exerted yourself.
|
| On the comedown of a multi-day binge, I don't feel depressed
| per se. I'm constantly tired while awake, which I can only keep
| at bay if I'm physically active. Also, my ability to focus and
| get motivated dips below baseline, inversely proportional to
| how high over baseline I was. (And I would speculate that it is
| mostly due to a depletion of dopamine & its precursors rather
| than a withdrawl, as it can be alleviated through a decent
| diet).
|
| From what I've read as well, most of the long term side effects
| of amphetamine abuse stem from chronic lack of sleep, food &
| water rather than damage from the molecule itself. Although
| repeated overstimulation of your reward/dopaminergic system
| definitely can't be good for you, be it through adaptation or
| damage of the dopaminergic neurons (I remember reading
| somewhere that long term meth users are more prone to
| Parkinson's).
| adhdthrowaway89 wrote:
| As context for readers who might not know normal dosing, the
| maximum therapeutic Adderall dosage in the US is 60mg per day.
| So what this commenter is describing is between 15x and 20x the
| maximum therapeutic dosage based on whether you count this as 3
| or 4 days.
| nowahe wrote:
| As a semi-regular user of speed, I can almost guarantee you
| that a gram of street amphetamine is nowhere near 100%
| concentrated. You would be lucky to find it at 20% (cut with
| half caffeine half random white powder). I've done acetone
| washes of amphetamine paste, and it's almost unbelievable how
| little amph there is in it.
|
| A few times I was able to get my hands on really pure
| dextroamphetamine (>90% validated by a lab test), and even
| with a tolerance, there is no way you're consuming more than
| 100mg over the course of a day. 10-15mg was my sweetspot to
| get enough focus without getting locked into tasks and
| feeling wired. Although speed like that is pretty hard to
| find and quite pricey (~60-70EUR/g).
|
| I've also realized that most of the unpleasant physical side
| effects of speed (palpitations, jittering, elevated cardiac
| rythm, anxiety, etc) are actually due to the massive amount
| of caffeine in it and not the amphetamine themselves (tho I'm
| sure there is a synergy between them). Even while feeling
| pretty high on pure amphetamine, my bpm only rose by about
| 4-5 bpms (compared to 15+ on street speed). For anyone in the
| same case, L-theanine works wonders to calm down the caffeine
| side effects, highly recommend you keep some around just in
| case.
| user_7832 wrote:
| On a related by side note, methylphenidate has been shown to have
| mild neuroprotective effects (unlike some amphetamine
| derivatives) [1]. Interestingly dopamine can cause/be neurotoxic
| (presumably at high levels for a long time). [2]
|
| (Both sources were quickly googled, I'm sure there are better
| papers.
|
| 1 - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2701286/ 2 -
| https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-59259-006-3_...
| FollowingTheDao wrote:
| As long as everyone else here is giving anecdotal data, here's
| mine.
|
| My nephew was diagnosed with ADHD and was given Ritalin. He hung
| himself a week later.
| carlmcqueen wrote:
| I'm not a doctor, but as a family member and extended family
| member, I know that many bipolar children appear with ADHD in
| their early years and are treated with ADHD medication.
|
| They are treated with stimulants that have no effect on bipolar
| disorder.
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| This happened to me. Symptoms were noticeable when I was 5.
| First major depressive episode when I was 9. Was on stimulants
| from age 6 to 19. Didn't get properly diagnosed until I was 35.
|
| Bipolar is often comorbid with ADHD. Stimulants can help, but
| can they also cause mania if used alone.
| adastra22 wrote:
| This sounds scarier than it actually is, I think. ADHD is
| vastly more prevalent than bipolar disorder, and although we
| have various observational surveys to see if a patient ought to
| be diagnosed ADHD, the real gold-standard test according to the
| docs I've talked to is to administer medication. If you take
| stimulants and the symptoms go away, it was ADHD. If it doesn't
| work, try a few other types of stimulants. If none of those
| work then it probably wasn't ADHD and it's time to consider if
| there's something else going on.
|
| Given that stimulants work nearly 100% of the time for ADHD
| cases, and don't pose a great risk to patients for whom ADHD is
| not the root cause, this is a sensible approach to take. As
| long as the psychiatrist follows up and makes sure the
| medication is working, and investigates if it is not.
| falcolas wrote:
| Back when I was diagnosed with Bi-Polar disorder (I actually
| had ADHD and a touch of autism, but whatever), they put me on
| Lithium.
|
| I'd rather be on a small methamphetamine dose than Lithium if I
| got to choose my misdiagnosis.
| IntrepidWorm wrote:
| Can you clarify the aversion to lithium? I was under the
| impression from multiple friends and family on it that out of
| many of the other drug cocktails prescribed to manage bipolar
| disorder, lithium was one of the tamer and more effective
| medications.
| minsc_and_boo wrote:
| I'm not them, but Lithium can have an acquired resistance
| develop over time, which is unfortunate given how stable it
| is. It will be used as a first step for determining bi-
| polarism, or when a stable med is immediately needed, from
| what I've seen.
| falcolas wrote:
| It's an effective mood regulator, because it's a mood
| dampener. You lose the lows, but you also lose the highs.
| Evanescence has a song about its effects, and they're much
| more eloquent about it than I could ever be.
|
| Especially as someone who wasn't bi-polar - it was creepy
| af... kind of like disassociation. It wasn't me.
| cronix wrote:
| And then we stick them on antidepressants.
|
| > Although only 8.6% of American males are on antidepressants at
| any given time, they seem much better represented as a percentage
| of mass shooters. Here are 39 mass shooters who were either on
| antidepressants at the time of their rampage, had abruptly quit
| taking their medication when they went on their spree, or had
| been prescribed antidepressants at some point in the past.
|
| https://thoughtcatalog.com/jeremy-london/2019/09/37-mass-sho...
|
| Michael Moore came to the same conclusion when researching for
| his movie, Bowling for Columbine:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04UqzYOdGNs
|
| These drugs can have serious side effects in x/1,000,000 people.
| What happens when you give them to tens of millions? You'll start
| to see those edge cases. Why didn't we have many of these mass
| shootings prior to 1990? When did we start mass dosing our kids?
| I think we have a lot more research to do, if anyone is actually
| willing, but you'd be going up against the big guys.
| anon291 wrote:
| ADHD is not a disease. Expecting children to pay attention to
| boring adults is. A good portion of teachers are incredibly
| unanimated and boring. They should not be teaching ADHD kids.
|
| Look, my mother has ADHD (or something like it), and she had no
| problem teaching the (mostly boys) in her class with ADHD. A few
| even went off their meds in her class. Unfortunately, the next
| year, they were put right back on with a new teacher.
| thescriptkiddie wrote:
| ADHD (and associated things like autism) is not just a problem
| for children in school, but also for adults at work and in
| their personal lives. I would argue that society should be
| changed to better accommodate neurodivergent people, but until
| then medication is really helpful for most people.
| throwaway420691 wrote:
| unless you require acute trauma care, look away from western
| medicine for solutions to your problems
| dymk wrote:
| And what "non-western" medicine would you suggest for ADHD?
| swayvil wrote:
| My friend, an ex head nurse, agrees. She puts it like this.
|
| Unless you are in great pain, or can't walk, stay completely
| away from doctors and hospitals.
| westcort wrote:
| An approximately 30 percent increase in incidence rate ratio that
| reversed upon discontinuation of methylphenidate is was was
| reported here. I would be interested to see what the data would
| be with a nonstimulant like atomoxetine, which has a structure
| very similar to that of fluoxetine. Could use in combination
| cancel out this effect?
| 331c8c71 wrote:
| Atomoxetine also has side effects. Problems with erection for
| instance. Should one take viagra or likes on top to fix tgat?
| [deleted]
| kbd wrote:
| This was positive at least:
|
| > After MPH treatment discontinuation... returned to baseline
| levels by 31 to 60 days
| eyelidlessness wrote:
| It's worth mentioning that ADHD also increases the risk of
| depression. Along with anxiety, depression is one of the most
| common comorbidities particularly in people with undiagnosed
| ADHD.
|
| I didn't take ADHD meds as a kid, so I can't speak to their
| effect on me. But when diagnosed as an adult, I had suffered
| nearly my whole life with chronic depression and anxiety.
|
| Both reached a crisis level a few years back, which was a major
| factor in seeking diagnosis. This diagnosis, and treatment, saved
| my life. I won't share my medical charts or anything, but I will
| say that since my meds and dosage have been consistent,
| depression is still there but barely noticeable. Anxiety much
| more manageable.
|
| These meds helped me put my life back together. I'm not
| dismissing the study, or that other people have different
| experiences. But I share my perspective when things like this
| come up, in case it benefits others who might have similar
| struggles and wonder if ADHD might be a factor.
| immacoward2022 wrote:
| throwaway account ----
|
| - ('if You Have ADHD, You Are Likely To Be depressed'):
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkXpcs_an80
|
| - ('why does your adhd make things so hard'):
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svD71EJWOBU
|
| I'm a "closet'ed" adhd person and these books have helped:
|
| - Anxiety and Panic: How to Reshape Your Anxious Mind and Brain
| by Harry Barry
|
| - ADHD 2.0 by Edward M. Hallowell M.D. & John J. Ratey M.D.
| comprev wrote:
| Thanks for the suggestion. I've ordered the Barry book for a
| friend who suffers greatly from anxiety.
| lghh wrote:
| If you don't mind me asking, why are you closeted about your
| ADHD? I am 30 and was recently diagnosed and it's one of the
| most liberating things that has ever happened to me.
| aaomidi wrote:
| Different places treat ADHD differently. In some countries
| if you are diagnosed with it you won't be able to, for
| example, drive a car.
| lghh wrote:
| Interesting. I was not aware of that. Good to know,
| thanks.
| lettergram wrote:
| > worth mentioning that ADHD also increases the risk of
| depression
|
| I don't think that's true, I thought it was a correlation, not
| causation.
| WhompingWindows wrote:
| Consider: ADHD reduces executive functions, which are like
| the "secretary" of the mind. This means they can not direct
| attention onto where they need to: work, school, onto family
| and friends, etc. Those with ADHD have less 3 friendships on
| average, due to less ability to hold their attention on
| others. As they age, they may find relief in drugs like
| cocaine, caffeine, nicotine, and THC, which may lead to more
| drug abuse than neurotypical people. They're more likely to
| commit suicide. These are evidence-backed conclusions from
| the literature, which I reviewed for my MS.
|
| All of these problems then feed into depression and anxiety.
| Is that so hard to believe? Less friends, less success, more
| abuse of substances, it's a potentially rough life.
|
| If so, look at these articles, which review the hard evidence
| and find there's very strong links between ADHD and
| depression, and anxiety:
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2990565/
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6493806/
| aaomidi wrote:
| It absolutely is.
| Avamander wrote:
| It doesn't matter what you think. It's fairly obvious even
| without any research that losing some amount of agency and
| struggling with things others don't can impact someone very
| negatively.
| lghh wrote:
| And the research backs that up so we don't have to rely on
| it being obvious!
| colecut wrote:
| Can I ask what medication is working for you?
| eyelidlessness wrote:
| Adderall, currently. Vyvanse (which is very similar) also
| worked well for me.
| kurupt213 wrote:
| weird. amphetamine is one of the medications of last resort for
| debilitating depression
| sph wrote:
| Last resort doesn't mean it's not effective. And depression is
| often a symptom, not an illness itself.
|
| In the case of ADHD, amphetamine helps the dopamine dysfunction
| which in turns alleviates the depressive symptoms.
| fwip wrote:
| For what it's worth, as an undiagnosed (and unmedicated) ADHD
| kid, I was depressed from age 8 to $current_age. Doing much
| better now with therapy, Adderall, and an SSRI.
|
| Trying to conform to a neurotypical world is hard.
| swayvil wrote:
| Warping ourselves to fit our society. Modern footbinding.
| greatpostman wrote:
| In case people don't know yet, doctors in some sense have an
| imperative to prescribe medication, regardless of whether it will
| destroy someone's life. It's almost considered mal practice not
| to prescribe SSRIs to a depressed person. But that prescription
| may follow them for life, most never get off them. Or don't even
| know who they are when they get older, was that drugged person
| them or someone else?
| liveoneggs wrote:
| doctors practice "medicine" not "health" :)
| thatguy0900 wrote:
| Not many people will accept a prescription of "stop eating
| shit all the time and exercise ", unfortunately.
| prismatix wrote:
| I used to think like this. I was very anti medication, pro
| meditation and mindfulness, and then it happened to me. After a
| significant life event, a lot of things bubbled to the surface.
| I wasn't as in touch with myself as I used to be but, again, I
| was anti medication and thought I could fix things myself. It
| took me a scary amount of time to ask my doctor for meds, and
| of course they were happy to prescribe but they never pushed
| them on me in any way. I was worried I'd feel different, not
| like myself.
|
| Now, 2+ years on SSRIs and I can honestly say I've never felt
| more like myself. With the meds, I feel like I've unlocked my
| full potential. Before, I had bouts of heightened success, but
| they were always weighed down by this underlying instability. I
| don't consider myself a "drugged" person, but rather the
| version of myself that I want to be.
| MaxDPS wrote:
| > More than 60% of Americans taking antidepressant medication
| have taken it for 2 years or longer, with 14% having taken the
| medication for 10 years or more.
|
| https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db76.htm
|
| It seems like most people do stop using them with time.
| dijit wrote:
| So, I had a psychologist tell me that I have many ADHD markers
| and referred me to the central mental health agency for an
| official diagnosis.
|
| Unfortunately, In Sweden, an official diagnosis means higher
| insurance (fine), higher mortgages (not fine) and the inability
| to hold certain licenses.
|
| Of course those markers of ADHD are pretty severely affecting my
| life, which is why I was seeing the Psychologist in the first
| place...
|
| Would anyone recommend seeking a diagnosis in those conditions?
| Has anyone done this in Sweden and then gotten a mortgage? Is
| there anything else I can do?
| unethical_ban wrote:
| Wow. That sounds like a terrible abuse of government power, and
| a great way to keep people from getting the mental health
| assistance they need.
|
| The idea that ADHD affects mortgage rates! How terribly absurd.
| I'm sorry to hear that.
| seandoe wrote:
| Dude, you have to respond to these comments. I'm dying to know.
| That is the most dystopian thing I've heard of coming from the
| land of "socialized medicine is the panacea".
| dijit wrote:
| There's nothing to respond to in most of the comments.
|
| I elaborated more about it but I got downvotes after that,
| so...
| KingMachiavelli wrote:
| How does a medical diagnosis result in higher mortgage costs?
| Is health privacy data not protected in Sweden?
| dijit wrote:
| In general Sweden treats as much data as possible as being
| open. As such you can find my home address, who I live with
| and my phone number (and what car I drive) with a simple
| google search of my name.
|
| Salary data is also publicly available, but as a nominal fee
| and you buy a "book" which is an area of the country.
|
| When it comes to mortgages, banks ask for extended rights to
| look into your data on your behalf, you have to sign this
| with your digital ID (BankID).
|
| This information is centralised and you give permission
| because they are ostensibly looking for outstanding debts and
| bankruptcies.
|
| Unfortunately I only learned about the health discrimination
| when I was applying for an official diagnosis, I received a
| letter from a company "Modigo" warning me against getting a
| diagnosis because it can negatively impact my life in this
| way.
|
| I heeded the warning of course.
| comprev wrote:
| Perhaps a higher risk of unemployment due to impulsive
| decisions - be it getting fired or quitting? I wonder if
| bipolar patients also get penalised for their condition.
| kcolford wrote:
| That is horrifying that your medical issues could be used
| against you in insurance, mortgages, and licensing... I'd
| suggest just leaving the country at this rate or getting the
| diagnosis in a sane country that won't share this information
| and getting the medication from over there (assuming you can
| move somewhere close to the border)
| dijit wrote:
| > I'd suggest just leaving the country at this rate or
| getting the diagnosis in a sane country that won't share this
| information and getting the medication from over there
| (assuming you can move somewhere close to the border)
|
| I live on the border with Denmark, I'm not sure if it's ok
| for me to access healthcare in Denmark without a "CPR Number"
| https://international.kk.dk/cpr-number
| throwaway892238 wrote:
| When I was on ADHD medication and developed depression, they gave
| me ADHD meds + anti-depressants. When those didn't work they
| added anti-psychotics. I was 12 years old, getting my blood
| checked regularly to try to detect the liver or kidney failure (I
| don't remember which) they knew was a side-effect.
|
| Turned out I just didn't like living in Florida.
| dudus wrote:
| Maybe you could have got worse without the meds.
| throwaway_1928 wrote:
| They have to make money somehow.
| nickstinemates wrote:
| I just started on ADHD meds after knowing I've had it most of my
| life and not wanting to be reliant on drugs. I turn 37 in 8 weeks
| or so. I have had bouts of apathy, have had some really rough
| times, definitely anxiety and sadness.
|
| Still early days. I'm about 2 months in. I can feel the effects
| when I am on it. I can feel when it starts to wear off. No
| feeling of addiction at all. No dependence. No taking it every
| day like I've heard about for depression medication. Take breaks
| on weekends / on light work days without looming deadlines.
|
| I actually like a big part of my ADHD brain more than the drugged
| version. Probably because I am used to it. But also I kind of
| like being multi-threaded by nature. It feels great to be able to
| do a lot of things simultaneously. The downside to this is it's
| very hard to be "present" in anything. This is where the ADHD
| meds come in.
|
| I've been taking a lot of notes on feelings and side-effects
| since starting, and on the emotional side I feel a stronger sense
| of everything - from pleasure to joy to sorrow. Maybe it's the
| "present" part of it.
|
| I have always been very good at "listening," well, hearing what
| people are saying and internalizing it/remembering it. But I've
| never been good at _listening_ - in terms of applying critical
| thought to what people are actually saying to me. More like a
| note+file vs. analysis.
|
| Some parts of me that have been dormant, especially the creative
| as in creating (not creative as in thinking) side of me has
| really sprung to life. And I'm enjoying that aspect the most.
|
| Anyway, depression seems to be very far away from the side
| effects for me. It would suck and I empathize with anyone who has
| complications/side effects like that.
| screye wrote:
| Can someone comment on whether ADHD medication leads to 'loss' of
| the unfiltered imagination that I have come to associate with my
| perpetually distracted self ?
|
| A friend on ADHD meds told me that it feels like trading
| unbridled creativity for stability. He found it to be an
| essential drug for functioning, but I got a sense that it
| involved losing something really central to your sense of self.
| Almost like being made sedated/compliant by force.
|
| I have long dealt with the double edged sword of ADHD (diagnosed
| at 27, obvious symptoms since early age). I have had my best
| ideas / 1st author papers during moments of hyperfocus. At the
| same time, I struggle to do mundane busy-work with any level of
| reliability and have had bouts of depression tied to ADHD derived
| perfectionism/procrastination (if you know, you know).
|
| I have yet to make the leap to medication as I have managed to
| 'hang on' through the different things I have tried in life. I
| often joke that I will start medication if I get fired. I am
| grappling with the decision of making the leap over to
| medication, and if the cons are worth it in any situation that
| isn't incredibly desperate.
|
| Some perspective here would really help.
|
| edit: Thanks a lot for sharing your personal experiences. It
| really helps in at least convincing me to give meds a try. I'll
| set up an appointment .... tomorrow, soon, surely
| access_patterns wrote:
| I'm 24, and started on meds about six months ago. My experience
| with the double-edged sword sounds similar to your own.
|
| I had the same concerns, but I found them to be unwarranted;
| there was no 'trade'. For me, it's more like being given access
| to a dial to control the speed of all the scattered thoughts
| flying around in my head. I can space out and get distracted
| just as effectively as I do without meds, but when I need to
| focus, I can nudge that dial. Focus is an active process, and
| it's one that I maintain control over.
| jereees wrote:
| Diagnosed at 25, started Vyvanse right away. My ADHD is similar
| to what you describe, and the medication has helped with the
| mandatory chores of day to day life. If anything it has the
| effect of feeling that nothing is "too hard" for me and that I
| am not "too dumb to learn or do X".
|
| Side effects are light to moderately sever headache if I don't
| drink enough water, IBM, high blood pressure and a pinch of
| insomnia.
|
| It's all worth it.
| sph wrote:
| Weird, my BP and HR lowered on lisdexamfetamine, and I sleep
| like a baby. It's true meds affect people in different ways.
| zrail wrote:
| > If anything it has the effect of feeling that nothing is
| "too hard" for me and that I am not "too dumb to learn or do
| X".
|
| This is a good way to put it. Prior to starting medication
| (vyvanse specifically, although I tried concerta) initiating
| a task or trying to learn something was, most of the time,
| "too hard" so I spun my wheels doing random stuff and
| occasionally doing just enough work to keep myself employed.
| Now, nothing is "too hard" because it's possible for me to
| get over the activation barrier and start doing the thing.
| whiddershins wrote:
| I used it for a while and it was life changing. I learned a
| number of lessons about how my mind makes things harder, and
| since, have been able to for example shop at the grocery store
| when before it was infeasible.
|
| However, I felt I lost a subtle intuition edge.
|
| When I stopped I was a mess, until I found Chen Style Tai Chi,
| which somehow mitigated my worst symptoms without any
| (negative) side effects.
|
| From there, I've been able through (simply aging) and
| deliberate practice of various techniques to make it so ADD is
| rarely an issue for me anymore.
| sph wrote:
| I still feel as creative as my normal self, but I definitely
| feel less "in the clouds" in general, and that's a marked
| improvement. There's some feeling of being serious when I have
| to (i.e. home alone writing code), while previously my
| emotional state was always in foreground distracting me.
| 331c8c71 wrote:
| > A friend on ADHD meds told me that it feels like trading
| unbridled creativity for stability
|
| As someone who has been diagnosed as an adult and been on meds
| for a few years I could not agree more.
|
| I recommend trying treatment though, I can't see any downsides
| if it is an option for you. Highly likely there will be clear
| physiological side effects, but nothing to be scared about.
| rhinoceraptor wrote:
| I recently started Vyvanse, and I don't really notice that much
| of a difference. I have a slight boost in my mood, I still
| hyperfocus on things, but I also have slightly more ability to
| do busy work.
|
| I was only given 1/3 the recommended starting dose though, so
| it'll likely get increased when I see my doctor again.
| mjwhansen wrote:
| I'm 32 and was diagnosed at 11. I received behavior help but no
| meds.
|
| Until earlier this year, when a variety of factors pushed me to
| finally try them.
|
| All of a sudden, I could focus on things without having to have
| all of the stars aligned. I never realized the extent and
| complication of my self-medication until I tried meds. I don't
| think I've lost my "sparkle." Instead meds help it come out
| because my follow-through is so much better.
|
| It took me a few months to find the right med - finally on the
| right one + dose now, but it took some time, so be prepared to
| experiment with your doc if you choose to try meds.
|
| It's not the right choice for everyone, but it's definitely
| been the right choice for me, and it's one I wish I had made a
| lot sooner.
| crucialfelix wrote:
| That has always been my fear and objection. I worshipped my own
| crazy creative engine. But after decades of failing to complete
| those awesome ideas, failure to execute, follow through I would
| suggest that you experiment. It's not some permanent contract.
|
| Currently I take L Tyrosine, CDP Choline, coffee, lionsmane and
| kava. My focus and ease of attention are amazing, and I've been
| very productive.
|
| Even if I get diagnosed and get a prescription, I would still
| take these supplements as they support the core problem: low
| dopamine, low acetylcholine. Eat well, exercise too.
| frigate wrote:
| This study focused specifically on methylphenidate, one of many
| medications prescribed for ADHD. The title should be adjusted
| accordingly, as the current title is ambiguous and potentially
| misleading.
| pflats wrote:
| The study also does not claim to show a causal relationship.
| citilife wrote:
| I was actually going to point that out. IMO from what I've
| seen of parents are that people who bring their children at a
| young-ish age to a therapist have a different issue.
| Especially "being to hyper" or "being unable to focus" have a
| different issue.
|
| Children are supposed to be outside moving 8-12 hours a day,
| have you seen puppies? They need something similar. Instead
| many parents give their children tablets, plop them in front
| of the TV and do something else. Kick them into the back yard
| or go throw a ball with them.
|
| Every child I know diagnosed with ADHD had parents who didn't
| want to deal with them. Bringing them to the gym, to the
| park, playing in the backyard; it's a lot of work. Kids who
| have trouble focusing are likely tired and overstimulated.
| Reduce the number of toys, remove TV / tablets, and send them
| outside. It'll probably solve itself.
|
| As an experiment, look at the people you know on medication
| (or ask), look at the troubled children, etc. I guarantee
| you'll see the same trend: single parent home, started
| medication at an early age, regular therapist appointments,
| etc. They're unhappy and need depressants, ADHD medication,
| etc.
|
| It's not always the case, but it's a trend. People who are
| diagnosed with ADHD at a younger age likely have parents who
| just don't want / know how to deal with issues. Mental health
| "experts" treat the symptoms via medication, but the
| underlying issue(s) just continue to fester.
|
| What we really need is a strong emphasis on family
| development, courses built around it and support groups.
| Parents naturally do this, but I think it's been _severely_
| broken down the past 50-60 years and is getting exponentially
| worse. As such we see more: single parent homes, abundance of
| medication, reduction in religion and adult social clubs,
| etc.
| benfrain wrote:
| You clearly don't have a clue what you are talking about.
|
| I have a child clinically diagnosed with ADHD. It's
| absolutely nothing to do with time spent with him. We have
| stable family home, active life style. etc
|
| He just has a brain that works differently. Not worse.
| Different. He might struggle to pay attention at school but
| he's written two novels!
|
| PS. Religion is horse shit so if that's the only other
| thing you have left for me to help him, I'll take my
| chances, thanks
| FollowingTheDao wrote:
| If you feel his brain is "just different", I have a
| question; Are you medicating them?
| zrail wrote:
| So it feels to me that you're saying ADHD doesn't exist and
| it's a matter of parental failure or indifference. Do I
| have that right?
| nominusllc wrote:
| I have ADHD, and increasing eustress by working out or
| doing fun physical things like sports to the point of
| being tired is one thing that is better than anything
| I've been prescribed. It's not fall asleep tired, it's
| more akin to being physically spent. When there is no
| more need to fidget and do things, I focus like a laser
| and am less prone to impulse.
| adastra22 wrote:
| Great it works for you. You probably have the hyperactive
| type of ADHD. For me and my daughter with
| inattentive/non-hyperactive ADD, doing physical things,
| while fun, just make us tired and want to sleep. Not a
| good idea if you need to focus and get work done.
|
| I take daily medication and it has been literally life
| saving as I was able to turn things around and keep my
| marriage from falling apart, not to mention my happiness
| from being able to accomplish much, much more. I'm
| holding off medication for my daughter only because it
| lessens appetite and she is very skinny already. Once
| she's grown to her full height we'll get her meds she can
| use too.
| nominusllc wrote:
| I feel for you, I hope you guys settle on something that
| works with as little sides as possible. It's a spectrum
| with a lot of means to address a moving target, so some
| trial and error unfortunately comes with it. Luckily I
| was able to work with my doc to find things that work for
| the things that eustress cannot solve. Just curious, what
| do you take?
| davemp wrote:
| I don't see how you are getting that from OP's comment.
| OP seems to be claiming that ADHD is often over diagnosed
| and/or treated improperly. A viewpoint shared by people I
| know in the field.
| Djvacto wrote:
| I started medication as an adult, lived in a home with two
| involved & present parents, never saw any doctor about ADHD
| until I was an adult, and was never an unhappy child.
|
| Looking back, I clearly had ADHD, but since it's a
| condition that's unique and specific symptoms vary per
| person, I just happened to have mechanisms that worked and
| got lucky with how my brain patterns fit into school from
| Elementary - High School.
|
| I had plenty of outdoor activity, and plenty of video games
| / computer use. Not that you mentioned it, but I also read
| fantasy/sci-fi books like they were daily papers, finished
| all of my incomplete homework in the morning while waiting
| for class to start, and was constantly multi-tasking in
| class (reading, doing homework for an upcoming class, or
| occasionally fidgeting).
|
| My sample size is 1, but I have 4-5 diagnosed (either as
| kids or adults) close friends with similar stories.
|
| Your comment takes some generally-well-known positive
| advice (exercise more, social interaction & supportive
| relationships are good, parenting kids is a big task that
| takes time & effort), and identifies some real problems we
| face today (social isolation, a lack of non-religious adult
| organizations, sedentary lifestyles) and uses it to
| disparage people with real, diagnosable conditions, and
| vilifying those who turn to medication for it.
|
| I'm fine with how my life worked out, but I can't imagine
| being the kind of kid whose ADHD manifested in a different
| way that made school exponentially harder than it was for
| me, and being told that life-changing medicine, that let me
| participate in school or work just like everyone else does,
| is something I was given by mistake, or that I just had
| shit parents or should have played outside more.
| adastra22 wrote:
| My situation mirrors yours pretty closely. I didn't
| recognize the symptoms or seek treatment until my
| mid-30's, but looking back I clearly had ADHD symptoms
| that became serious around high school.
|
| In my case, my grades plummeted and I was unable to get
| into the colleges I wanted, or to graduate from an
| engineering program like I had wanted. I ended up
| graduating with a degree after 7 years and bouncing
| between 4 different colleges, and I've had a decently
| good career in Silicon Valley where being a generalist is
| a solid plus. But my dreams of being a (literal)
| astronaut were flushed down the toilet in the process.
|
| Kids shouldn't have to sacrifice their dreams or their
| self-esteem because parents are unwilling or unable to
| seek proper treatment.
| lettergram wrote:
| As you pointed out ADHD is a disease, what's the cause?
|
| Do you have adhd, or do the drugs help you focus and you
| want that?
|
| Calling it a disease implies something is wrong, but
| having trouble focusing isn't "wrong". It's a skill one
| can acquire and may have a variety of factors impacting
| it (from genetics to environment to mental management).
|
| That's the issue I personally take with these kind of
| discussions. Medication may help you focus (coffee does
| that), but do people who need coffee in the morning to
| focus well have a disease? Hardly.
| Taywee wrote:
| Not them, and I don't have ADHD, but I am the parent of a
| child with ADHD and I know plenty of people with ADHD,
| and it's not just "having trouble focusing". For a lot of
| people, it's a complete inability to focus on any one
| thing for any real amount of time. They can try as hard
| as they can to force themselves, but become disfocused
| and distracted despite any effort. It also often involves
| impulsiveness that is incredibly difficult to control, to
| the point that often it feels like it wasn't even their
| own choice. A common description I've heard is that it
| feels like somebody else was controlling them. My son
| would say when he was younger "My brain made me do it" or
| "my hands just did it on their own", and at first I
| thought it was an excuse, but after one destructive
| incident, he broke down crying at the age of 7 saying
| that he doesn't know why he does the things he does, and
| he can't stop or control himself, and he wishes he could
| stop himself from doing it. He tries to be good but then
| something takes control and makes him do destructive
| things or blurt out things he knows are wrong to say.
|
| On medication now, he still has a hard time, but he is
| actually capable of controlling himself, he is capable of
| forcing himself to focus, and he's much happier. Now it
| is just a skill for him to work on, but in the past, it
| was an actual impossibility. It is a true disorder, not
| just "trouble focusing", and ADHD medication is a
| fundamental need for some people to function at all, and
| not comparable to a morning coffee.
|
| In the past, these people were often assumed to be
| possessed, or insane, and were institutionalized, killed,
| or imprisoned. It's not like ADHD is a new epidemic or
| something.
| adastra22 wrote:
| Thank you for you sympathy and empathetic response. Your
| son's in good hands.
|
| As an ADHDer, I never understood what it was like for
| others until I got treatment with stimulants. It's like I
| can just take this magic pill and for 8 hours I'm
| "normal."
|
| I wish there was an opposite pill, one which made people
| inattentive and impulsive. Then everyone else could try
| it for a day or two and see how debilitating it is.
| Regular, everyday life is like being falling-down drunk
| in terms of mental incapacitation, and the pills for the
| first time let us experience life sober.
|
| Edit: how old is your son now? One thing I worry about as
| a parent of an ADHDer as well is her eating. I've so far
| avoided treatment for her because I'm worried she'll eat
| less and her growth will be stunted. We're cautiously
| waiting on medication until post-puberty.
| Taywee wrote:
| My son is 9 now. We only started him on medication this
| year (we were trying so hard to get it under control
| without medication, and his doctor was worried about his
| weight if we put him on the stimulants). Getting him to
| eat is a challenge, but it always was anyway and he's
| always been pretty skinny. Fortunately, he loves milk, so
| we can always get some calories and protein in him that
| way. We get a low-carb full-fat milk so his sugar intake
| isn't crazy high.
| adastra22 wrote:
| Thanks for replying. Which meds? Do you have off days?
| Taywee wrote:
| Dextroamphetamine. Worked great for a few months, but
| have lessened in effectiveness. Now it still works for
| focus, but the impulsiveness came back (he was actually
| able to explain to me that he was having trouble
| controlling his actions), so he's now on guanfacine too,
| for impulse control.
|
| We do a couple off days now and then, but not a lot
| because he feels like it's a wasted day because he can't
| focus on anything he really wants to. I suggested that he
| could take weekends off the stimulant, but he says he'd
| rather be able to operate mostly every day than to have a
| more focused week and completely wasted weekend, and I
| feel like he's capable of making that decision for
| himself.
| citilife wrote:
| > I wish there was an opposite pill, one which made
| people inattentive and impulsive.
|
| I suggest you have someone sleep 4 hours a night for a
| week. You'll often see the same symptoms as someone with
| ADHD.
| olyjohn wrote:
| There's a huge difference between having a little trouble
| focusing, and struggling all fucking day to focus... then
| realizing at the end of the day, you have been working
| all day, but bouncing between tasks so much that you
| really got nothing done. It's frustrating and
| debilitating and makes you feel like a complete piece of
| shit. Then because you're not doing as well as everybody
| around you, you dwell on it at night, and you don't
| sleep. And you know what no sleep does? It exacerbates
| the problem, and so you have to struggle even harder when
| you're exhausted just to get things done. Then you spend
| all weekend sleeping, because it's the only 2 nights of
| the week where you don't have to go back to work the next
| day, and fail yet again. Then you start to feel like your
| life is this fucking cycle of struggle every week, with
| no personal accomplishments.
| EricE wrote:
| ADHD is not a disease; our brains are just wired
| differently. The upsides of ADHD - hyperfocus, strategic
| planning, ability to readily correlate otherwise
| unrelated things all contributed to who I am and my
| success. The drugs help even out the downsides to ADHD.
| citilife wrote:
| One way I try to explain it to people: "We give people
| insulin because they have diabetes. Diabetes is the
| disease, but you can cure it through diet and exercise
| for Type 2 (it's environmental), Type 1 you cannot (it's
| genetic). Insulin treats the disease, but doesn't cure
| it"
|
| Why is it not the same for ADHD or depression? Type 1 is
| genetic and Type 2 is environmental.
|
| The argument I was attempting to make is different from
| what everyone here is saying I think. What is a disease?
|
| > Disease - a condition of the living animal or plant
| body or of one of its parts that impairs normal
| functioning and is typically manifested by distinguishing
| signs and symptoms
|
| Two points:
|
| 1. I would argue that what you describe isn't impairing
| normal function. It's that we are attempting to make you
| do abnormal things (sit in a room all day and be lectured
| at. At the end you have an exam). Society is failing to
| raise children properly and expecting things that are
| abnormal for the human animal.
|
| 2. A disease is basically diagnosed from a bucket of
| symptoms. Those symptoms will have different causes.
| Without taking a measured approach at identifying the
| causes, you are likely going to see a plethora of
| factors. These can and do include things like
| hyperactivity from siting and watching TV (now they have
| energy and want to move). Things of that nature.
|
| Given the above, we're effectively medicating children
| for personal / societal reasons, not because the human
| animal is actually suffering or impaired in any way.
| FollowingTheDao wrote:
| Your analogy fails because type one diabetes also has an
| causal environmental component:
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5571740/
| ghufran_syed wrote:
| I disagree:
|
| " In this paper, we discuss candidate triggers of islet
| autoimmunity and factors thought to promote progression
| from autoimmunity to overt type 1 diabetes (figure 1).
| These factors seem to have their effect _mainly in the
| genetically predisposed individuals_." [my emphasis]
| FollowingTheDao wrote:
| " Importantly, environmental factors that trigger islet
| autoimmunity might differ from those that promote
| progression from autoimmunity to overt diabetes."
| andybak wrote:
| Let me put it another way then - ADHD meds increase the
| range of tasks I'm able to do succesfully. They add to my
| life rather than take something away.
|
| I'm talking about tasks I _want_ to do but would struggle
| with without medication (mainly coding for pleasure).
|
| Yeah - I could find different things to do with my life,
| but I love coding and I am delighted to find there's a
| simple pill I can take that helps me do more of it.
| citilife wrote:
| I understand what you're saying, but reread what you said
| and replace "medication" and "pill" with "cocaine".
| Amphetamine can be used in the same manner and for the
| same perceived reasons.
|
| Granted, I am happy for you and I think drug laws are
| ridiculous.
| andybak wrote:
| (Methylphenidate is not amphetamine btw. Other ADHD meds
| are literally amphetamines but I'm only talking about
| methylphenidate)
|
| If cocaine had positive effects that outweighed the
| negatives then it absolutely should be prescribed. But it
| doesn't. Unlike methylphenidate - which for most people
| has fairly mild downsides at the doses it is usually
| prescribed in. It is also largely non-addictive with
| little evidence of long-term health damage.
|
| Also unlike cocaine.
|
| All in all, I'm not sure how this comparison helps.
| 300bps wrote:
| _Bringing them to the gym, to the park, playing in the
| backyard; it 's a lot of work._
|
| I agree with your point but as I'm wrapping up raising my
| own children I'm coming to the conclusion that I made it a
| lot harder in myself. Driving them to a million activities,
| even driving them to playgrounds several times per week,
| Home Depot kids workshops and so much more.
|
| Sometimes I think a better thing would've been to simply
| say, "Go play outside."
| robonerd wrote:
| Whenever I was moping around inside, my mother always
| told me _" Go be bored OUTSIDE"_
| random-human wrote:
| >> As an experiment, look at the people you know on
| medication (or ask), look at the troubled children, etc. I
| guarantee you'll see the same trend: single parent home,
| started medication at an early age, regular therapist
| appointments, etc. They're unhappy and need depressants,
| ADHD medication, etc.
|
| That sounds like me. My parents are stilled married and
| about to have their 45th anniversary. The extended family
| are all on their first marriage and in retirement age or
| raising families.
|
| I started medication after 30, mental health is not a valid
| thing in my traditional family. According to them, my
| struggles were because I hadn't learned my proper place
| yet. Shame and ridicule from adults, and allowing others in
| the family to participate, was their idea of proper
| treatment that would 'fix' me into being a proper young
| lady. This after their first attempts to keep me in line
| failed. After that, exclusion within family events, that I
| was forced to attend, was the treatment of choice. At least
| less parental attention meant they couldn't keep reminding
| me how defective I was.
|
| Unsurprisingly, I was very unhappy and depressed. Then I
| decided to love myself and see the absolute dysfunction
| this nuclear religious anti-mental health family idea is.
| Now, I am the most well-traveled, curious, adventurous and
| financially successful person in the family. That didn't
| happen until I was able to get the help I needed.
|
| By help, I mean medication to do the core things only I'm
| responsible for in a world that doesn't fit into the way I
| function. Provide myself with food and shelter as an adult.
| I am on the higher end of hyperactive ADHD, also dyslexic -
| which I learned after getting medication for ADHD. I
| noticed similarities in my niece, I was told I didn't know
| what I was talking about and that I couldn't be dyslexic or
| ADHD since I could read and played video games for hours on
| end.
|
| I don't like medication and it took me a long time to admit
| it to others, but the world isn't going to change to fit
| how I function. So, I use medication to fit myself into it
| for my basic survival needs.
|
| >> As such we see more: single parent homes, abundance of
| medication, reduction in religion and adult social clubs,
| etc.
|
| Reduction in religion is not a negitive, I personally
| experienced it as mental and shaming child abuse within a
| roman catholic/protestant home. Even now I experience it as
| other people overstepping themselves by trying to insert
| and force their righteous will onto my personhood and that
| of my nieces/nephews. I have a difficult time understanding
| how this is still allowed and even valued. Of course my
| family also doesn't see or remember any of this the way I
| do.
| greesil wrote:
| "People who are diagnosed with ADHD at a younger age likely
| have parents who just don't want / know how to deal with
| issues."
|
| Once you have a child with ADHD, or if you are someone with
| ADHD, you will understand just how wrong you are. Until
| then, enjoy your bliss.
| citilife wrote:
| I formed this opinion from knowing many and seeing the
| way they are being / were raised. There's quite a bit of
| evidence to support this btw (outside of my
| observations).
|
| https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/1471-2431-12-50
|
| > Approximately 10% of the sample was classified as
| having ADHD. We found depression, anxiety, healthcare
| coverage, and male sex of child to have increased odds of
| being diagnosed with ADHD. One of the salient features of
| this study was observing a significant association
| between ADHD and variables such as TV usage,
| participation in sports, two-parent family structure, and
| family members' smoking status. Obesity was not found to
| be significantly associated with ADHD, contrary to some
| previous studies.
|
| https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S221133
| 551...
|
| > Youth with ADD/ADHD engaged in screen time with an
| average of 149.1 min/weekday and 59% had a TV in their
| bedroom. Adjusting for child and family characteristics,
| having a TV in the bedroom was associated with 25 minute
| higher daily screen time (95% CI: 12.8-37.4 min/day). A
| bedroom TV was associated with 32% higher odds of
| engaging in screen time for over 2 h/day (OR = 1.3; 95%
| CI: 1.0-1.7).
|
| https://journals.lww.com/jrnldbp/Abstract/2018/04000/Slee
| pin...
|
| > A shorter sleep duration and less time spent in
| cognitively stimulating activities were associated with
| an increased risk of developing ADHD symptoms and
| behavior problems.
|
| There's plenty more, but the gist is pretty clear. Get
| your kids outside, give them a supportive and safe
| environment, teach them how to behave like adults, give
| them plenty of sleep, and provide them plenty of
| opportunities to learn. All those reduce risk of
| depression and ADHD (hence the correlation above).
| Taywee wrote:
| None of those studies establish a causal relationship.
| Correlation is not causation. Even the first study says
| "Longer time spent in cognitively stimulating activities
| (>1 hours per day) was associated with lower scores of
| both ADHD symptoms (0.96, 0.94-0.98) and behavior
| problems (0.89, 0.83-0.97). Time spent watching TV and
| engaging in physical activity were not associated with
| either outcomes."
|
| I have a child with ADHD (age 9) and a child without (age
| 6). They are both highly intelligent, but compared to
| each other:
|
| * My ADHD child is significantly more attracted to
| screens, video games, and quick stimulation in general.
| If he doesn't have a screen, he's much more likely to
| engage in simple, lower-focus activities like simply
| spinning and running in circles or just hitting things
| against each other. When given the choice, he will always
| choose screen stimulation.
|
| * My non-ADHD child is more likely to play with clay and
| building materials, read, write, and draw. He likes TV
| and video games, but will very often decide to do other,
| lower-stimulation activities without being prompted. When
| outside, he explores and examines things, and will play
| more structured, imaginative games with rules.
|
| * My ADHD child sleeps much less than the non-ADHD child.
| He has trouble falling asleep, and wakes up very early
| every morning on his own. It is impossible to "give them
| plenty of sleep" when they literally can not sleep.
|
| * My ADHD child exercises much more than the non-ADHD
| child. He is more interested in going outside in general.
|
| * My ADHD child does not like studying and can not focus
| on learning things. He learns less, he learns slower, he
| is disruptive in class. He acts more immaturely even when
| we take much time teaching him to behave like an adult.
| He is often depressed because he feels like there's
| something wrong with him because he has a significantly
| harder time just having fun doing things that other kids
| his age do. He feels depressed because he wants to learn
| things that he simply can not make himself sit long
| enough to focus on. He feels depressed because he knows
| he is being immature and disruptive and feels like he
| literally can not control it.
|
| Given the same opportunities and treatment, my ADHD child
| has more screen time, more time exercising, less time
| sleeping, learns less, is less mature, and is more
| depressed. He is on medication now, but I felt the way
| you do for years, and it set him back severely in school
| and life, including his friendships and relationships
| with family. On medication, he is doing much better in
| every single respect, but he still struggles, and the
| medications become less effective over time (we're still
| trying to find something that works better long-term).
|
| I'm going to be frank here. You are taking studies that
| show correlation, ignorantly assuming causation, and
| making judgements and giving advice about an area that
| you clearly do not have any personal connection to. ADHD
| may be overdiagnosed, it may have been underdiagnosed in
| the past (note that ADHD is strongly correlated with
| self-medication and addiction, which has always existed),
| but it's not something that you can really easily cause
| or prevent, and dealing with ADHD in a child is stressful
| and challenging for both the parent and the child.
| Assuming neglect among parents of children with ADHD is
| absolutely uncalled for, and contrary to my experience,
| where parents of children with ADHD are absolutely run
| ragged from years of trying to fight to keep their kids
| healthy, sane, and educated.
| citilife wrote:
| > Assuming neglect among parents of children with ADHD is
| absolutely uncalled for, and contrary to my experience,
| where parents of children with ADHD are absolutely run
| ragged from years of trying to fight to keep their kids
| healthy, sane, and educated.
|
| I never once suggested the parents were being neglectful
| in the sense they weren't giving it their all or trying
| their hardest. To your point, they're ragged, the ADHD
| children clearly need more work, etc. Further, I'm sure
| the "mental health professionals" recommended it to them.
|
| I'm not going to share my personal experiences, but I
| truly do understand all of this and the struggle. I agree
| we have no proof about what causes ADHD, and those were
| all correlations. That said, I can say that in the past
| 100+ years our entire environment as a species has
| changed. We have some pretty unreasonable expectations on
| children and not all of them will want to build, some
| will want / need to lasso cattle, ride horses, hunt, etc
| (as we did for tens of thousands of years). They may not
| learn the way we structure our society, they may not
| respond well to the chemicals, the change in diet, what
| have you. It could simply be genetics.
|
| The point I was trying to make was it's clear why
| depression is often correlated (there was no causation in
| this paper btw) with ADHD and ADHD drugs. Societal and
| family support is weaker than it was 80 years ago,
| there's lack of community, less dual-parent households,
| constantly being told "the world will end", etc That's
| kind of my point.
|
| ADHD and depression are a disease, meaning they are a
| variety of symptoms that when presented together are
| diagnosed as impeding normal function. Those symptoms can
| have various causes and unless careful observation is
| made, it's possible to conflate or miss the cause, there
| may also be a multitude of causes. Treating the cause
| will "cure" the disease, much like you can cure (or at
| least dramatically reduce the risk of) type 2 diabetes
| with diet and exercise (the issue being your bodies
| ability to process glucose -- often due weight); but not
| Type 1 diabetes.
|
| What I want to clarify is that I think this is a societal
| issue, but expressed it through personal observations.
| Having one parent clearly has an impact (less energy and
| capability to give to an ADHD child), having structured
| education, having screens, etc.
|
| Give the example you stated around screen time; would
| your son be better off trying to learn to focus or
| playing outside? I honestly don't know for sure, but what
| is clear is that you care. I'm 100% sure you're doing
| your best to make that judgement call. My point, was that
| many times the parents don't care, they just want their
| kids out of their hair.
|
| My general point was never to assign blame, it was to
| point out that diseases such as ADHD, Autism, depression,
| anxiety, etc to be diagnosed together. Further, that
| those diseases often correlate with some of the issues I
| highlighted. That doesn't mean it's all cases, but to
| ignore reality isn't going to help either. If we don't
| examine the causes and we just medicate -- it wont work
| well for the children. Medicate as needed, but if we can,
| we should try to cure the disease.
| jamal-kumar wrote:
| I can see very clearly from the facility of your
| statements that you don't have children of your own.
| Djvacto wrote:
| > Youth with ADD/ADHD engaged in screen time with an
| average of 149.1 min/weekday and 59% had a TV in their
| bedroom. Adjusting for child and family characteristics,
| having a TV in the bedroom was associated with 25 minute
| higher daily screen time (95% CI: 12.8-37.4 min/day). A
| bedroom TV was associated with 32% higher odds of
| engaging in screen time for over 2 h/day (OR = 1.3; 95%
| CI: 1.0-1.7).
|
| This does not imply causation. Someone with ADHD is more
| likely to give in to distraction and dopamine. This study
| was done with a sample of people who already have ADHD.
| Nothing in it indicates that television time is going to
| cause ADHD.
|
| Someone who has a better relationship with exercise,
| screens, or whatever, doesn't mean they don't have ADHD
| anymore. Medicated or not. They just have better support
| and lifestyle habits that minimize how much it might
| impact them.
| lettergram wrote:
| > Medicated or not. They just have better support and
| lifestyle habits that minimize how much it might impact
| them.
|
| If a disease can be resolved through changes in lifestyle
| is it a disease needing medication?
|
| I think that is kind of the point, is it not? We can give
| the kids anti-depressants for being depressed or we can
| help them change their lifestyles. We can give the kids
| ADHD drugs or we can change their lifestyles. We can let
| the kids get diabetes, put them on drugs, or help them
| lose weight.
|
| This is a ridiculous discussion. Yes, drugs can help and
| we may need to use them in extreme cases to aid in
| lifestyle changes, but shouldn't the goal be improved
| life style
| [deleted]
| Djvacto wrote:
| They're not mutually exclusive, and ideally you mix and
| match. Being on medication is a bit too polarizing, as
| there are people who vilify it, or otherwise shame people
| who need to be on life-long or long-term medication, but
| there is also a problem with over- or mis-prescribing.
|
| I don't really have much to do with the prescribing part
| of it (besides my personal medication decisions, and
| doing my part to not ignore the problem), so I'll leave
| that to my friends in the medical industry. Though
| especially having held some uninformed opinions on people
| who need medication earlier in life, I think it's
| important to not make people question whether they should
| take life-changing medication because of stigma or social
| pressure.
|
| I will say my personal experiences have exposed me to
| people who need medication but have trouble accepting it
| a lot more than the latter, so I don't want to pretend my
| experience is universal.
| dwallin wrote:
| The links you provided don't support your argument in the
| way you think it does, but does reveal a gap in your
| understanding of ADHD.
|
| ADHD has strong correlations with motor control and sleep
| issues, and is notoriously under-diagnosed amongst girls
| as they tend to present and be perceived differently.
|
| ADHD is also understood to be hereditary and therefore
| given that the divorce rate for adults with ADHD is much
| higher than normal you should expect a higher incidence
| of children with ADHD growing up in a single family
| household. -
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4071160/
|
| Your second source is ridiculous, if you actually read
| the study they looked only at kids diagnosed with ADHD
| and then found that kids with tvs in their rooms watched
| more tv. It should seem obvious that this would be the
| case and im fairly certain you would get the same results
| if you looked at non-diagnosed kids (which again, they
| didn't)
| ihsw wrote:
| terracatta wrote:
| > Every child I know diagnosed with ADHD had parents who
| didn't want to deal with them
|
| You must not know many parents then.
|
| Parents I know that have children with ADHD recognize their
| children are struggling beyond simple hyperactivity. These
| are children that are markedly behind their peers in
| childhood milestones regardless of their family upbringing,
| education, and socio-economic status. These are children
| that have a deficiency in the executive function of their
| brains where hyperactivity is one of many symptoms, and is
| not even necessarily the most worrying.
|
| These are children that struggle with simple tasks that
| other children do not.
|
| Parents of these children are no less loving, caring, or
| capable than parents without ADHD children. Parents should
| not be shamed for using effective medications (like MDH) so
| their children can have positive outcomes in their
| development and adult-life.
|
| > What we really need is a strong emphasis on family
| development, courses built around it and support groups
|
| ADHD is generally a disorder that you are born with. No
| amount of family development can prevent the disease.
|
| Educate yourself by watching this:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUQu-OPrzUc&t=137s
| lettergram wrote:
| Couldn't the posters point about lack of parental
| engagement be the root cause for being behind their
| peers?
|
| I'm sorry, it doesn't seem like you're really challenging
| the argument.
| zrail wrote:
| > it doesn't seem like you're really challenging the
| argument.
|
| That's probably because it's an argument uninformed by
| even the slightest bit of research into how a brain with
| ADHD works.
|
| Also you're sealioning, so :reported:
| lettergram wrote:
| > sealioning
|
| huh hadn't heard that before -- good to know
| kevinpet wrote:
| Thanks, professor. Now how about you tell us your solution
| to peace in the middle east and renewable power.
| adastra22 wrote:
| As someone with ADHD, who has a kid with ADHD, this
| dismissive attitude is really unwelcome. Inattentiveness is
| a real symptom with drastic life-altering effects for which
| medication is a godsend. Studies have shown that exposure
| to screen time does not result in ADHD.
|
| To be told "you're just a bad parent who lets their kid
| watch an iPad too much" is infuriating. (I'm trying to keep
| things civil per the site rules, but my honest reaction
| begins with 'F' and ends with 'U', guy.)
| lettergram wrote:
| Sounds like you're not up to date on research, there's a
| few citations in later comments.
|
| Anyway, I don't think the poster was saying it doesn't
| exist. They appear to be saying there are correlations
| and often a diagnosis at a young age is a reflection more
| on a willingness to accept a hyper child vs not. That is
| to say, a child can have ADHD, but that doesn't mean you
| have to medicate them. Medicating them (again at a young
| age) for ADHD, indicates a willingness and potentially
| eagerness to medicate, as opposed to attempting to
| correct issues. Ie just give the drugs, don't try to
| figure out why they're depressed.
| fatbird wrote:
| _indicates a willingness and potentially eagerness to
| medicate, as opposed to attempting to correct issues. Ie
| just give the drugs, don't try to figure out why they're
| depressed._
|
| This is speculating on the motivations of a wide class of
| people without data, and is complete nonsense.
| adastra22 wrote:
| He pointed to a paper which I haven't had time to read
| yet. At risk of sounding like a general dismissal I'll
| say three outcomes are possible:
|
| 1) The study is right and every doctor and medical
| institution I've talked to is wrong.
|
| 2) The study's results are being generalized too far or
| misinterpreted. E.g. I've been told (and it's true in my
| experience) ADHD people tend to be attracted to screens
| for the dopamine hit and characteristically lack self-
| control, rather than the screens causing ADHD.
|
| 3) The study is cherry-picked and wrong. Either it is an
| abnormal result that doesn't replicate, or the study was
| badly constructed.
|
| Given the fact that my doctors gave me multiple studies
| to look at which showed the exact opposite conclusion, my
| prior leads me to believe (2) or (3) over the first
| possibility. I'll skim the study he posted later though
| when I have time.
|
| My anicdata doesn't constitute medical science, so it's
| entirely possible that this study is right and I am
| wrong, and I'm big enough to admit that. I wouldn't bet
| on that outcome though, in this case.
|
| EDIT: Also one point you may or may not be aware of is
| that non-medicative interventions for ADHD are at best a
| coping mechanism and never satisfactorily address the
| underlying issues. In the words of my doc: if you are
| diagnosed with ADHD and you can solve your problems
| completely with therapy and just going outside or
| whatever, you didn't have ADHD in the first place and the
| diagnosis was wrong. Actual ADHD is when your brain is
| wired up a different way, and general lifestyle
| interventions can't address the problems that causes.
|
| ADHD people have spent their entire lives feeling
| frustrated and powerless as the well-meaning people
| around them tell to simply "stop being so distracted!".
| Believe me, if we could turn it off we would. It's not so
| simple. The poster above is making essentially the same
| critique: that it's not the kid's neural chemistry or
| wiring that is causing them issues; it's the parent's
| fault. Stop being a bad parent!
|
| That's worse than unhelpful.
| ericd wrote:
| Maybe don't take it personally, I think they're saying
| that much of society is doing it wrong.
|
| EDIT: But yes, they're also saying that many parents are
| doing it wrong, and they're assigning much of the blame
| to parenting. My point was that when a huge percentage of
| parents are "doing it wrong", maybe there's some wider
| systemic thing at play. Like economic forces that make
| people work harder than they should if they have kids,
| dissolution of support networks that would've normally
| cared for the kids in addition to the parents, etc. I'm
| not saying that this is a cause of ADHD, because I know
| little about it, but if you take their opinion as
| correct, then much of the blame could be laid at the
| societal structures we've created rather than the
| individual.
| MereInterest wrote:
| No, there's some incredibly broad brush strokes in the
| parent comment.
|
| * "Every child I know diagnosed with ADHD had parents who
| didn't want to deal with them."
|
| * "look at the people you know on medication (or ask),
| look at the troubled children, etc. I guarantee you'll
| see the same trend"
|
| * "likely have parents who just don't want / know how to
| deal with issues"
|
| There's only a single phrase "not always the case, but
| it's a trend" that frames it as a societal issue on
| average, but that doesn't counter the incredibly general
| conclusions made by the poster.
| lghh wrote:
| I can't believe the responder had the gall to take
| personal attacks personally. Have they tried going
| outside more? If they didn't sit on their butt all day
| they might not be inclined to take my directed insults
| personally.
| adastra22 wrote:
| I know these sorts of comments are more welcome on Reddit
| than HN, but I chuckled and thanks for that.
| lghh wrote:
| I realize that posting that comment wasn't too helpful on
| my part, but people being dismissive of ADHD is probably
| the quickest way to get a rise out of me.
|
| Sorry for being snarky. Not sorry for calling out
| destructive, unscientific bullshit.
| Djvacto wrote:
| Even if I wasn't someone with ADHD, the comment in
| question is dismissive of what ADHD actually is, as well
| as the very-valid treatment of getting medication.
|
| Like I said in my comment, they pointed out some real
| problems, but made sweeping generalizations, mostly
| negative, about the people in question.
|
| ADHD is not well understood by a lot of people, and
| someone with or without ADHD who is well-versed in the
| topic pointing out that their comment is not helpful to
| discussion about how to treat the disorder, shouldn't be
| dismissed as them "Taking it personally".
| ericd wrote:
| They said it was infuriating and they were very tempted
| to just say "fuck you", they're very clearly taking it
| personally, it's not meant as a dismissal. I'm just
| trying to help them not feel personally attacked, but
| clearly I did that poorly. Sorry about that.
| adastra22 wrote:
| As the person in question, I understood your intent and I
| didn't downvote you. But it's also hard to see how
| (paraphrased:) "Parents of so-called ADHD kids are bad
| parents and their kids have a made-up disease" is not
| meant as a personal attack: "You are a bad parent and
| should feel bad."
| citilife wrote:
| To be clear, I'm actually blaming therapists and "mental
| health experts".
|
| Parents are clearly doing their best and looking for
| support. The "experts" are paid (in many cases) through
| recurring attendance and kick-backs from pharma... why
| would we assume they'd want to resolve the issue any
| other way? Even the research is often funded by pharma...
| Note the NIH even receives revenue (and individual
| scientists) from creating patents associated with drugs.
|
| Here's something I posted in another comment, but ADHD /
| Depression is a "disease" is a bucket of symptoms that
| _impair an organisms normal function_.
|
| 1. I would argue that what you describe isn't impairing
| normal function. It's that we are attempting to make
| children do abnormal things (sit in a room all day and be
| lectured at. At the end you have an exam). Society is
| failing to raise children properly and expecting things
| that are abnormal for the human animal.
|
| 2. A disease is basically diagnosed from a bucket of
| symptoms. Those symptoms will have different causes.
| Without taking a measured approach at identifying the
| causes, you are likely going to see a plethora of
| factors. These can and do include things like
| hyperactivity from siting and watching TV (now they have
| energy and want to move). Things of that nature.
|
| Now to compound the issue, look at how all the parents
| are responding. There is no way they'd consider
| alternatives.
|
| One way I try to explain it to people: "We give people
| insulin because they have diabetes. Diabetes is the
| disease, but you can cure it through diet and exercise
| for Type 2 (it's environmental), Type 1 you cannot (it's
| genetic). Insulin treats the disease, but doesn't cure
| it".
|
| Why are we giving all the kids medication instead of
| trying to have them diet and exercise (or what ever
| equivalent)?
|
| Parents in this thread are taking it very personally, but
| in reality I'm trying to discuss ways to treat the
| underlying issue(s). And yes, I am saying that there are
| societal, family, etc expectations and management that
| can be employed to remove symptoms of the disease (which
| in effect would "cure" the disease).
| Djvacto wrote:
| Your diabetes analogy fails, because ADHD does not have
| an environmentally-caused Type 2.
|
| ADHD is hereditary, genetic, and has to do with how the
| brain tends to be wired in that individual. ADHD can be
| helped through environment and habit changes, and impacts
| can be reduced, but you cannot cure it.
|
| It seems that you think ADHD is not a real disease, given
| your quotes around the words "disease", "cure", etc. If
| some people are mis-diagnosed, it doesn't invalidate all
| the others.
| FollowingTheDao wrote:
| ADHD is caused by a mix off environment and genetics.
| That environment could include several inputs, like diet,
| air pollution, etc.
|
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31810593/
|
| And ADHD is not a disease, it is a disorder. There is no
| biological markers yet for a diagnosis either.
| zzen wrote:
| > " People who are diagnosed with ADHD at a younger age
| likely have parents who just don't want / know how to deal
| with issues."
|
| I have no idea where you take this opinion from or if you
| can back it up. From my anecdotal evidence exactly the
| opposite is true: kids from families who do realize there
| is such a thing as mental health and who care deeply about
| their kids - those get diagnosed. Kids from other families
| just get mostly slapped around and screamed at to get their
| shit together.
| eyelidlessness wrote:
| > Every child I know diagnosed with ADHD had parents who
| didn't want to deal with them.
|
| I was diagnosed as an adult. My parents kept me
| consistently active and engaged. Plenty of play outdoors,
| fishing, camping, riding bikes. They were involved in my
| education until, as a teen, I wanted more independence. I'm
| not saying I had an ideal upbringing, but I have very
| loving involved parents (dad and stepmom; relevant below).
|
| I don't know if that's why my diagnosis came later, but I
| seriously doubt it. My mom, unlike my dad and stepmom, was
| deeply skeptical (a) that ADHD even exists and (b) that
| ADHD medication is safe, effective, or necessary.
|
| That kind of bias is powerful, and easy for kids to pick up
| on. I was mortified of these meds before my diagnosis. Now
| I can't imagine how I lived without them (and I very well
| may not be alive today had I not sought treatment).
|
| I'm sure there's often some truth to _some of_ what you're
| saying, to be clear. One of the most difficult parts of
| _getting_ my diagnosis was that the diagnostic criteria are
| entirely external to the patient being diagnosed: they're
| framed around how parents and other adults perceive a
| child's behavior. It took a patient and understanding
| doctor to help me map those criteria to my internal
| experiences and my adult life.
|
| But I don't think I benefitted at all from waiting decades
| for a diagnosis.
| 0134340 wrote:
| I can sort of agree then you throw in loose correlations
| like less worshiping of gods = higher ADHD diagnosis, among
| others. If you look at the bible belt, there's lots of drug
| abuse, especially opiates among them. Do you have any data
| that positively proves more worshiping of gods = less drug
| use?
| mchanson wrote:
| This comment is BS and showing ugly judgement of others.
| Really old school thinking like how they used to blame
| mothers for autism.
| sha256sum wrote:
| > IMO from what I've seen of parents are that people who
| bring their children at a young-ish age to a therapist have
| a different issue.
|
| I see this with someone close to me.
|
| Diagnosed with ADHD as a child, medicated, later diagnosed
| with depression.
|
| The real issue, however, was probably more related to brain
| development/executive function because their mother smoked
| a pack of cigarettes a day through pregnancy.
|
| You've struck a nerve with some commenters, but personally
| I think you're on to something.
| citilife wrote:
| It's hard for people to reason when they are fearful they
| are doing the wrong thing.
|
| I question the same thing everyday for my family.
|
| One way I try to explain it to people: "We give people
| insulin because they have diabetes. Diabetes is the
| disease, but you can cure it through diet and exercise
| for Type 2 (it's environmental), Type 1 you cannot (it's
| genetic). Giving insulin treats the disease, but doesnt'
| sure it"
|
| This is the same thing for ADHD or depression. Some
| people probably have Type 1, others (I think the vast
| majority) have Type 2.
|
| Sure you can mask the issue, somewhat. But you can't cure
| it through the medications today.
| lukas099 wrote:
| To counter your anecdote with my own:
|
| I grew up in a two-parent household. I had a doting,
| stay-home mom who spent lots of time with us. I lived in
| a safe neighborhood where I rode bikes with other kids
| for miles around during the summer. My family took long
| road trips to places like Yellowstone National Park for
| weeks and day trips to the zoo, the botanical gardens,
| the science museum, etc. I did not have a TV in my room
| and screen time was limited. I was involved in sports at
| school, summer swim team, and karate which my dad did
| with us.
|
| I have ADHD which resulted in crippling depression when I
| was in college. As soon as I got diagnosed and medicated,
| I was able to be like the normal people that I always
| wanted to be, and align my actions with my goals.
| mwigdahl wrote:
| Let's be very careful with attributing children's medical
| conditions to parental failure. This is the same line of
| thinking that brought us "refrigerator mothers", piling on
| loads of undeserved and unjust guilt on blameless parents
| of autistic children that were already trying their hardest
| to help their kids.
|
| Unless you have solid studies that establish _causation_,
| not correlation, to back up your assertions, your facile
| dismissal of all existing medical research in favor of your
| own personal social prescriptions deserves zero
| consideration.
| luckydata wrote:
| This is a very, very, very uninformed take. Please inform
| yourself.
|
| https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S01497634
| 2...
| jobu wrote:
| As the parent of a child with ADHD that is medicated, it
| seems completely plausible that it could cause depression.
| When my kid has had too high a dosage (or accidentally takes
| a double dose) she's like a zombie, completely flat affect,
| and very little motivation. It's like it drains her life
| away.
|
| Part of the problem is that it's very difficult to get the
| right dosage for any given day because diet, metabolism, and
| hormones seem to have a big impact on how effective it is.
| We've found it's better to go with a lower-dose extended
| release, and then let her self-medicate with 5mg regular
| tablets as needed. This works great now because she's a
| fairly responsible teenager (when medicated), but it was
| really hard when she was younger.
| swayvil wrote:
| If a double dose noticably zombifies then a single dose
| must zombify too, just unnoticably.
|
| Surely any zombie is too much zombie.
| mrtranscendence wrote:
| That's not true. For example, a lot of Benadryl will make
| you hallucinate, but that doesn't mean a normal dose will
| make you hallucinate a small amount.
|
| Getting horribly fall down drunk as a teenager caused me
| to shit my pants once. But I didn't so much as fart when
| I got tipsy on vacation recently.
| swayvil wrote:
| I wouldn't bet on that. It's far from a sure thing and
| the price of losing is too great.
| danShumway wrote:
| I would absolutely be willing to bet that a small dose of
| Benadryl won't make someone hallucinate "a small amount".
|
| Put it another way if makes you feel better -- a little
| bit of D3 via direct sunlight and D3 rich foods will
| improve your mood and health outcomes in a variety of
| ways. An excessive amount of D3 will give you kidney
| stones and harm your bones.
| swayvil wrote:
| Would you notice it if you became slowly, progressively,
| stupider over several years? Maybe, maybe not.
| krono wrote:
| I share this experience myself, in particular the dosage
| not providing a consistent effect day to day - every
| specialist I've spoken has told me this is weird and
| shouldn't be happening and yet it is so. Switching to
| staged release medication (Medikinet CR) has helped me too.
|
| Unfortunately extended release Methylphenidate of any
| kind/brand is only partially covered by Dutch health
| insurance[1], and I'm certain the cost is prohibitive for
| people who might be less well off.
|
| 1: In essence, the government has determined that all
| Methylphenidate variants are equal, and so you can just
| take the cheapest instant release variant or else pay the
| difference out of your own pocket.
| connicpu wrote:
| Extended release on the lower end of dosage + self-
| medicating with caffeine as a booster has been my go-to for
| about 15 years now. As an adult who's been taking it since
| middle school I can say that, while it's had its ups and
| downs, overall life is better with it than the times I've
| had to go without due to insurance disruptions or moving
| and having to find a new doctor who will prescribe it.
| mesh472 wrote:
| This has been my experience almost exactly. Low dose XR +
| controlled caffeine usage. Been about 3 years for me now.
| falcolas wrote:
| Extended release (XR) is very nice, since it avoids the
| dopamine peaks and valleys caused by individual doses. I
| will say, generic XR is usually pretty crappy, since it
| basically breaks the dose into two parts. Name brand XR is
| better because they construct the pill to where there is an
| actual extended release. Which sucks, because it's super
| expensive as a result.
|
| What I do instead is two lower-dose XR pills per day. The
| four hits over about 8 hours seems to work pretty well for
| me.
| adastra22 wrote:
| What is she taking?
| jobu wrote:
| It's changed a few times over the years because of
| insurance, but right now it's Focalin XR and 5mg Ritalin
| as needed up to 2 times a day.
| adastra22 wrote:
| Thanks!
| nobodyandproud wrote:
| I take phentermine (another legal amphetamine; partial
| doses), and this doesn't surprise me at all.
|
| The bipolar-level manic highs and depression/lows are very
| real.
|
| The feelings of suicide and hopelessness creep up; I have
| enough personal awareness and grit to ignore it but it
| feels awful.
|
| To avoid that creep-up, the best thing I found is to have
| "break" days at least once or twice a week. That is, no
| pills.
|
| I doubt your daughter or others with ADHD have that luxury
| though.
| andybak wrote:
| There's big differences between drugs in the same family.
| Personally speaking Methylphenidate is much less intense
| and easier to fit into my normal life than the
| Lisdexamfetamine (which are probably closer to
| phentermine)
| mrtranscendence wrote:
| I'll be honest, I've been on adderall (with occasional
| periods off the drug) for almost 20 years now, and I've
| never experienced anything remotely approaching mania or
| severe depression (as distinguished from rare bouts of
| sadness). And I've not always been the most careful taker
| of the medication, frequently alternating between taking
| too much or lowering my dose.
|
| I'm not saying it's not possible to have those side
| effects, I just haven't experienced them.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| Everyone is certainly different; I know people on
| Adderall (or Vyvanse, which is similar) that have great
| outcomes, but Adderall gives me manic episodes, raises my
| resting heart rate by 20bpm, prevents me from sleeping,
| and causes mild hallucinations. I took it exactly once.
| Vyvanse had the same side-effects, but much milder and it
| lasted longer. I ended up on Focalin, which works and the
| only side effect is mild interference with my sleep.
| jobu wrote:
| > _The bipolar-level manic highs and depression /lows are
| very real._
|
| I've had to be very careful about NOT using those terms
| when talking to doctors and psychiatrists. As a layperson
| that description seems to fit, but it causes huge red
| flags for medical professionals and they freak out,
| resulting unnecessary tests and evaluations for my kid.
|
| The key term for the "manic" phase after the meds wear
| off is "Rebound Effect". Also when the dose is too high
| the generally accepted term is "zombie mode" or "zombie-
| like". Calling it an "overdose" will really cause people
| to freak the fuck out.
| calvinmorrison wrote:
| Common brands: Quillivant XR, Daytrana, QuilliChew ER
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| It's marketed as Ritalin and Concerta in the US.
|
| Wikipedia has quite a lot of information on it:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methylphenidate
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2022-06-14 23:01 UTC)