I've had fantastic experiences with donefirst.com, but also chadd.org is a great website with tons of resources.
Don't give up on the medication; finding the right one and right dosage is extremely helpful for many people with ADHD, myself included.
The most important part is: find an expert. Child psychologists/psychiatrists often have a ton of experience with ADHD, and also often treat adults. Someone without experience treating ADHD is almost worse than leaving it untreated, because some of the 'solutions' proposed by folks who don't understand the syndrome serve to only make life worse for ADHD people (negative reinforcement, talk therapy, etc.). Talk therapy, or CBT, for example, can be helpful, but coaching is much more useful.
I was fortunate to have a local medical school with a psychiatry department that has an Adult ADHD clinic where I could seek a diagnosis at the age of 42. Unlike many adults who suspect they have ADHD, I was taken seriously and did not encounter any skepticism on the part of my healthcare providers. I even expressed concern that my problem could be anxiety or depression instead, and my psychiatrist said "If you have undiagnosed ADHD, of course you're going to be anxious and depressed." Find the most expert ADHD person you can for diagnosis and prescribing medication, I really think this is key.
I also agree on not giving up on medication, I had to try three before I found one that worked without also having negative side effects. There's at least one other one I'd like to try, mostly out of curiosity.
I've worked with both a therapist with ADHD expertise and an ADHD coach. My therapist helps me accept my ADHD brain, my coach helps me figure out how to work with it instead of against it. I agree coaching is more helpful but it works best if you can accept the way your brain works instead of trying to fight or change it, so seeing a therapist first to work through that might be a good idea.
I've been listening to a lot of ADHD audiobooks lately. The one I've liked best so far is Nancy Ratey's _The Disorganized Mind_ -- she has ADHD herself and she's the wife of John Ratey, co-author of Driven to Distraction. She kind of invented ADHD coaching and the book is about how to coach yourself.
Also, this post is spot-on. 100.
After the first two weeks or so, things evened out and I felt much more normal but all of the good things Lexapro brought to me remained. This, from my understanding, is normal and you simply did not give your body/mind enough time to adjust to the dosage.
I was also told that the effects only trigger after 2-3 weeks, so to not stop during the first.
Neither helped with attention and focus though. I still get distracted by the next thing easily. Although I've never had a diagnosis of ADD or ADHD, I've suspected it for a while now, as it had been suggested off-handedly by a former therapist back in college. This article might be the push I need to get some confirmation.
It hasn't impacted my professional life, but my hobbies have certainly fallen by the wayside because of my difficulties with attention.
What they really meant is that their business is optimized for prescribing certain medications with the same diagnosis and same spiel given to every patent conversation.
There are several types of professionals who typically diagnose ADHD. These include: physicians (especially psychiatrists, pediatricians, neurologists), psychologists, social workers, nurse practitioners, and other licensed counselors or therapists (e.g. professional counselors, marriage and family therapists, etc.). [1]
Some examples of professionals who are capable of diagnosing ADHD include: pediatricians, psychiatrists, family physicians, nurse practitioners, psychologists, psychotherapists. [2]
Also, diagnoses for disability accommodations (e.g., in education) are a whole different and complicated thing.
I guess that's why they'll all eventually send you to a "specialist," which is another way of saying "someone authorized to medicate you for this."
I'm not sure though - physicians can prescribe Ritalin, but at least here, they always send you off to be checked out by a psychiatrist first.
Years ago I had a different doctor and she gave me a prescription for Lexapro. My god what an experience that was. I suddenly lost all random thoughts and boredom. Its like I became a robot, got my work done on time, without any distraction and a kind of concentration I had never had before. I wasn't sad or happy for that matter, I just felt neutral all the time. It was such an interesting feeling.
However Lexapro had severe side effects. Outside of a few hours of relative alertness, I was extremely exhausted and sleepy. I tried sleeping for 24 hours and was still extremely exhausted. It also made me feel extremely nauseous, like I felt like I was being poisoned. Finally there were other side effects of an ahem...sexual nature.
All in all I threw the pills away after a week and never perused the issue again until I saw the video above. Man I'll never forget that week though. The productivity was life changing.
[1]:https://old.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/newcvd/what_adhd_fe...