Ask HN: Senior Engineers with ADHD, any mental/physical structures for work?

Re:Ask HN: Senior Engineers with ADHD, any mental/physical s... by bin_bash on Sunday May 15, 2022 @04:34PM (#31390844)

I had to quit Adderall, it made me an awful dad and husband too anxious to do anything other than work and I was only able to work on specific things. I was never able to focus generally on any particular thing with it. I’m on Strattera but it’s only 10 days in and it takes several weeks to kick in.

I go to the coffee shop and do 3 15-minute Pomodoros every morning. The combination of being at a dedicated place, limiting the work I have to do, and having a stimulant works reasonably well for me.

It’s amazing what you can get done in 45 minutes if you really focus. I struggle to write much—if any—code outside of that window. The rest of my day is chat, email, docs (reading or writing), or making simple one or two line fixes.

I was diagnosed in like the second grade and have struggled throughout my life. I’m in my mid-30s now.

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Re:Ask HN: Senior Engineers with ADHD, any mental/physical s... by maxpowersage on Monday May 16, 2022 @09:43AM (#31397046)

Thanks to the farm bill, you can look into using cbd gummies to offset the anxiety from dopamine agonists and sdris like adderol/Concerta respectively at a very small iq cost. Find a DO since they are more open to alternative medicine.

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Re:Ask HN: Senior Engineers with ADHD, any mental/physical s... by bin_bash on Monday May 16, 2022 @09:54AM (#31397212)

I appreciate the tip but CBD didn't do anything for my anxiety. I tried several formulations including some with THC.

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Re:Ask HN: Senior Engineers with ADHD, any mental/physical s... by maxpowersage on Monday May 16, 2022 @10:12AM (#31397505)

It's like hens teeth now, but piracetam helped me immensely with anxiety but it doesn't mix well with adderol, I hear. I keep my GP informed about it but you can't get it prescribed unless you are outside of the US. Thanks FDA. Also tryptophan and theanine might help. The prescription anxiety meds all sucked for me because they nuked my short term memory making it impossible to do technical work, but the stimulants are the only thing that worked. Strattera almost killed me. Forebrain gummies are cool, but they don't replace methylphenidate or dextro/levo-amphetamine, unfortunately. It's the card we have been dealt.

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Re:Ask HN: Senior Engineers with ADHD, any mental/physical s... by _4570 on Tuesday May 17, 2022 @11:21AM (#31412047)

What do you mean by 'Strattera' almost killed me? I was prescribed this and might have developed a liver issue from it although I'm not sure. Just curious if you found yourself in a similar situation.

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Re:Ask HN: Senior Engineers with ADHD, any mental/physical s... by maxpowersage on Thursday May 26, 2022 @08:28AM (#31517470)

It had really bad side effects.

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