When I'm using ADD meds, I have to set a clock or I forget to eat, because I don't feel hunger. I feel every other symptom surrounding hunger, like becoming light-headed due to low blood sugar, or getting more sluggish when working out problems. However, it all happens without feeling a desire to eat (which is what hunger is, no?)

I have to make a rational decision to act on the signals and put nutrients in my stomach. And I chose that description for a reason: once I do eat, I taste the food just like I normally would, but it doesn't trigger any emotional response. The satisfaction of eating something tasty, or filling up an empty stomach is absent. To be clear: the medication does not make me a robot, I still feel emotions in general at this stage and I do expect them to be there. Normally, not enjoying food that you like is basically the body's signal that you've eaten enough, just before feeling nauseous due to overeating. Except that I'm starving. So eating a meal is like forcing food down my throat. It also means that I have to guestimate the proper meal size, because the normal cues for having had enough food are absent.

My emotional workaround is focusing on the the fact that after eating, I will have energy again. So I try to find emotional joy in anticipating the consequence of eating a healthy meal rather than the taste of the meal itself.

Is that the same phenomenon, or something different?

As someone who also has ADHD, I too have to remind myself to eat because stimulants supress my appetite.

I have read that people who have damage to their ventromedial prefrontal cortex can have greatly reduced ability to experience emotions but otherwise have normal cognitive functions. This can be incredibly debilitating because these people end up having to rely on “rational” thinking only and can take incredible amounts of time to make what seems to be a simple decision.

I wonder how much of hunger is an emotion, but regardless, having surprised hunger can be incredibly draining mentally because you are manually micromanaging something that should be handled “automatically.”

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ventromedial_prefrontal_cort...

> I wonder how much of hunger is an emotion

I don't know what the scientific definition of emotion is (wikipedia seems to suggest there is no real consensus), but I am inclined to believe that at least part of the hunger process is an emotion, as it calls one to action, and it involves a desire for food. Rational thinking, typically seen as a contrast to emotions, does not do involve either.

And to phrase myself differently: I've noticed that I do sense hunger, as in all the sensory aspects of hunger (an empty stomach, consequences of low-blood sugar), but I don't feel hunger (the discomfort of having an empty stomach or low blood sugar, the craving for food). The latter feels more like an emotional aspect to me.

Interesting link to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex - it's not like my experience, but it reminds me of a few people I know.

> This can be incredibly debilitating because these people end up having to rely on “rational” thinking only and can take incredible amounts of time to make what seems to be a simple decision.

This makes a lot of sense to me for a number of reasons. There is nothing in rational thought that immediately calls to action. Yes, you can use it to reason and figure out truths and what you really want to do, but underlying all that is an emotional foundation of what you want. Without emotion, without wanting, rationality can give truths without leading to conclusions of what to do with those truths. There also is probably less of a sense of urgency without emotions, so one can take their time to weigh all the options (even though there might not be any time).

Out of curiosity, can I ask which ADD meds you use? I find Dexedrine incredibly useful, and I expected it to lower hunger as a side effect, but didn't really find it did anything in that regard.

I'm not the person you asked, but I figured I'd add my two cents. I have tried two different medications, with very different results in the side-effects department.

The first one I tried for about a year was Adderall (the regular release one, not the XR). With Adderall I noticed significant loss of appetite, to the point that I had to actively remind myself to eat, like other people here have mentioned. It was interesting, because I would feel my stomach sending the "I'm hungry" signal, but it was trivial to ignore it. It wasn't until I would go 12 hours without eating and start to feel light headed that I would realize, "oh... I need to eat something." However, I still enjoyed food very much. Unlike someone else in these comments said, I didn't feel like I was merely ingesting sustenance vs. enjoying my meal. Whether a few hours or 12 since my last meal, as soon as I started eating I would think "oh wow, I was really hungry. and this is tasty."

Currently I am taking Vyvanse. All other things aside, one of the very noticeable differences between Vyvanse and Adderall (for me) is the loss of appetite. With the Vyvanse, although I am able to go without eating for much longer than without, I still get hungry. With no meds I might say I feel like I'm starving after 4 hours. With Vyvanse I might say that after 5-6, though I will usually eat before that, because it is definitely noticeable in a normal time frame. With Adderall, I had to actively remind myself to eat, otherwise I might get dizzy and light headed first.

I started out with methylphenidate, but that gave me extremely high blood pressure and anxiety. It also completely removed my appetite Since about half a year I'm on lisdexamphetamine and it works a lot better, except for the hunger bit (although that also is a bit better).

Also, I can't drink coffee, not even a single cup in the morning, or I will end up skipping an entire night of sleep. That part is supposedly fairly unusual for AD(H)D so I'm wondering if I might be slightly misdiagnosed or something

EDIT: adderall = ritalin, vivanse = lisdexamphetamine, so my story has similarities to awsedrftg except my appetite is affected differently.

Re: your edit, you meant methylphenidate = ritalin, of course.

Ooops... yes, thank you.

It's quite a different thing. Sensory information like the limits of your body, vision and sound input.

http://carlysvoice.com/home/aboutcarly/

I believe the woman above described that she does not feel the limits of her body and needs constant jerking and slamming of the body parts on the walls to find comfort.