> I do not believe stimulant medications affect people with ADHD and without ADHD differently.

Then why do you think stimulant medications were ever approved for adhd treatment?

Of course they were work differently for people with and without adhd. For people without adhd the stimulant medications do not treat the adhd. If you try to sort of isolate out that part of it... what are you expecting to find?

Stimulants dont treat ADHD they merely help to manage the symptoms/deficiencies. I get frustrated with the anecdata about stims affecting people with ADHD differently, this was not the case for me, I was just as susceptable to the typical stimulant effects of my meds as much as I felt they provided a much needed boost in areas I feel Ive always been deficient in which relate to my ADHD diagnosis. I think my annoyance stems from thinking its people justifying their stimulant use, desperste to legitimise it. I have an inattentive variety, which might explain why those with the more compulsive type find the meds appear to induce almost depressive/calming response. This is still one of the normal range of effects of stimulants, ADHD or not. The calming effects and drowsiness are not unique to ADHD sufferers, but they are paradoxical resonses. Most drugs have these.

This is like saying “for people without hypertension blood thinners don’t treat the hypertension”.

Stimulants will help anyone focus, ADHD diagnosis or not.

To refocus the conversation, the specific trope I see again and again is “stimulants will make a person with ADHD calm and a person without ADHD hyper”, which I do not believe is true. If there’s a paper that provides evidence for that I’d still love to see it.

This is a furphy. None of the comments here containing the word "calm" have, on review, made that claim. They are all personal anecdotal observations. Indeed there are also dissimilar observations. This is consistent with my experience of discussion within ADHD-specific forums, at least in part because people aren't generally so stupid as to generalise their personal experience to a universal ambit claim.

Neither is such a statement made on the product labels.

I have seen such absolute statements along such lines made in the popular press and their online equivalent, but I'd rather leave toilet paper out of the discussion.

So by all means, do not believe the statement is true, but understand that there is, in fact, no broad acceptance or community belief of such an absolute statement being true, and furthermore, rather crucially, that what you may believe has no bearing whatsoever on the veracity of individual experiences.

Consequently, even the anecdotal reports have continuing clinical relevance, because:

* Medicine is the field of treating a patient, and if the result is a better adjusted, rested, and socially engaged individual, then any such observed effect for the individual patient calls for psychiatric consideration. What such effects are not, is diagnostic, or the basis for a product claim; and,

* Science is the field of explaining phenomena, and the reports are not adequately explained by the research, in large part because the wide gamut of behaviours, symptoms, mechanisms, measures, and outcomes collectively labelled "ADHD" are themselves a very poorly explained and haphazardly classified selection of neurological variations from the population majority. This being, of course, a very common circumstance in the young field of psychiatry.

All of which means there is no such paper, and besides, no-one is even writing one.

> Stimulants will help anyone focus, ADHD diagnosis or not. ADHD patients suffer from hyperfocus and in some cases _need_ stimulants to snap out of this state. It is also about the ability when and which topic to focus on.

> specific trope I see again and again is “stimulants will make a person with ADHD calm and a person without ADHD hyper”, which I do not believe is true This statement is compacted and leaves out some things. I have a bad case of the inattentive adhd variant. With that came that I am really bad at filtering out sensory stimuli of any kind, sound, light, touch. They feel "loud" and prevent me from focusing for example on a conversation with a person. However stimulants increase my ability to tune out these distractions. For me stimulations were such a relieve after over 35 years to not be bombarded with sensory stimuli and finally being able to quieten this noisy mess, that made me a lot calmer - even when I am pausing medication for a few days. So believe what you want, me and others who take the medication are glad for the relieve it provides. However many websites use tropes you mentioned in a way that makes ADHD seem not very credible. It is important to differentiate between medical facts and for example websites that try to make people seek treatment by a healthcare professional. With such deseases often come secondary psychological problems that may cause a suffering person not to seek treatment. So some websites try to break through this barrier.

>I see this repeated often and I've never been able to find a source for it. I do not believe stimulant medications affect people with ADHD and without ADHD differently.

I'm sorry but you clearly haven't even tried to research the subject, so I'm not surprised you don't believe it. People with ADHD have been scientifically proven to have deficiencies in specific neurotransmitters, namely norepinephrine and dopamine. There's multiple studies on ADHD and reward pathways you could find with a simple google search.

If you understand how amphetamine based stimulants such as adderall work, you'll know these are 2 of the major neurotransmitters that they target along with serotonin.

The entire reason for using these types of medications is to improve availability of neurotransmitters to those with abnormal production that impedes cognitive function. Sure people with normal levels can take stimulants and see effects, since these drugs don't balance levels, they just increase them. In a person with normal dopamine production it's just going to lead to an imbalance, and result in the euphoria feeling they're seeking, whether they want to admit it or not.

Edit: the article you posted doesn't even support your argument. It seems in people without ADHD, the medication resulted in increased impulsivity and distractibility.Most likely as a result of abnormal levels of norepinephrine. This is evidence of the drug having literally the opposite of it's intended effect when taken by people without ADHD.

I have ADHD and am well-read on the subject. The passage I posted applies to both people with and without ADHD.

This is another passage from the same paper:

> As it remains unclear whether stimulant medication has the same effect on healthy individuals as for those with ADHD, it is possible that many reported effects of prescription stimulants in healthy individuals may stem from placebo effects.

If you have a citation that argues that stimulants affect people with and without ADHD differently I’d love to read it.

The passage you cited in the comment I am currently replying to doesn't say there is no difference. It says that it isn't clear either way. So right now we just have anecdotes until someone cites a study making an assertion either way.

Here's my anecdote which runs quite opposite yours: As another person with ADHD who has been prescribed a low dose of Adderall XR in the past, it's always been an unpleasant experience for me, to the extent that the prescription bottle said "as needed for academic work". It did help me focus for a few hours, although whether I focused on the important things or distractions was up to my non-medicinal coping strategies among other factors. Unfortunately, disruptive and uncomfortable side effects lasted far longer than the period of improved focus.

Nothing I just described matches my understanding of how neurotypical people enjoy Adderall as a recreational drug.I don't think I've ever once in my life actually wanted to take it or enjoyed the experience, not even on those occasions where I chose to take it (the last of which was almost a decade ago) because of the beneficial effects it was prescribed for.

Sounds like you just hadnt pushed past the physical side-effects and in to euphoric terratory...not suggesting you try. Just that I know non-adhd people who find stimulant side-effects unpleasant enough to conclude that they dont enjoy them.

Pretty poor effort response on my part, but whenever I see a claim about a drug doing anything along the lines of "balancing neurotransmitters" I think immediately that its bs. There are probably studies that confirm some people with ADHD symtoms have less dopamine or whatever, but how each of the stims result in increases of these things is simply not specific and targetted enough to make such a claim as 'balancing'.

As someone diagnosed with ADHD and taking medications for 2 years (started at age 30), but now trying to decide if it is worth it:

I believed the idea of imbalanced neurotransmitters readily, as you hear it from authoritative-sounding sources, until some reading made it clear that not only is it not true, that most serious practitioners know it is not true. I remember a talk by the author of "Mad in America" (obviously not an unbiased source) saying that when he discussed this with practitioners they said "of course we know the chemical imbalance hypothesis is not correct" and he said "well you forgot to tell the American public"... That really stuck with me.

Off topic to your comment, but germane to the thread: I keep wrestling with this, but as I move beyond just reading abstracts and summaries of the research, I have to question the idea that ADHD is easily explainable, has any single cause, or is even manageable long term with stimulants [1][2][others, but I am still reading the literature]. I am still trying to answer questions I thought were clear: Does ADHD exist in a meaningful way[3]? If so do stimulants treat it long term [4]? If so at what cost[5]? I thought these were settled questions but the more I read the less convinced I become (I know there are many studies showing different results or debating the results of studies I have linked)... I just put these thoughts out there for anyone on a similar journey. Not to undermine anyone's personal experience; I tried many meds, some helped significantly but side effects ultimately made me stop, I do not doubt people have these symptoms (I do) and that medications have an effect. Good luck to you all! I appreciate reading everyone's input.

[1]https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5510202/ [2]https://ww2.health.wa.gov.au/-/media/Files/Corporate/Reports... [3]https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.c547 [4]https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19318991/ [5]https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2670101/

Medications have an effect because they are drugs and drugs work. I wouldn't read much into it beyond that. Every person will have to decide if the overall results are worth whatever cost/benefit.

The idea that the drugs "cure" or "treat" is just a social construct to justify their usage.

From first hand experience, it doesn't take much to get an ADHD diagnosis, as long as you seem credible and not drug seeking. I could ask my psychiatrist for practically any drug I wanted. It does not seem like a viable long term solution for me.

Help me out with your superior Googling skills then please, as I've also tried to find evidence that for non-ADHD adults, taking ADHD medication in doses that it would have been prescribed, does something significantly different than it does to adults with ADHD. Happy to be shown I'm wrong, but my Googling skills had me coming up hands empty here.

Neurotransmitter reuptake behaves differently in ADHD and non-ADHD individuals. Medication affects the reuptake allowing the ADHD individual to function more normally. Transitioning from being a badly functioning individual to a normally functioning individual is not significant to you?

This describes some of the mechanics of certain medications, most obviously methylphenidate. Its a bit much to say it restores normal function. Theres not evidence of that. The other stimulants are also much more general and result in a cascade of effects accross multiple systems in the brain. If there is a normalizing effect it is coincidental and has not been adequetely proven. This doesnt stop drugs from being approved for use from what Ive observed. Its statistics based and less about neuroscience.

This doesn't seem at all like the

> evidence that for non-ADHD adults, taking ADHD medication in doses that it would have been prescribed, does something significantly different than it does to adults with ADHD

I was asking after.

This is not true.

> People with ADHD have been scientifically proven to have deficiencies in specific neurotransmitters, namely norepinephrine and dopamine

Please cite your specific evidence, and make sure it is not studies that do not replicate.