Well, huh.
I finally talked to an MD about the symptoms I’d had my entire life, and they diagnosed me with a quite intense version of ADHD. I started taking meds for it and it was revelatory, like a nearsighted person putting on glasses for the first time. What, is this what it’s like for everyone else?! They can just, like, decide what they want to do today and then do it?
My life would have been so, so different if I would have done this earlier. It’s not that I decided to catch the ADHD a couple years ago because it was trendy. More like, because it was trendy, I became aware that the problems I’ve suffered through my entire life are a common thing that lots of people have and is treatable.
Sorry. I didn’t mean to take your meds. It’s just that a physician and I found that I have the same thing you do, and now I’m also getting the treatment I should’ve been getting all along.
Like what? There are only three subtypes. ADHD-C, ADHD-PI, ADHD-PH (Combined, Primarily Inattentive, Primarily Hyperactive). There are no "intensive versions."
> started taking meds for it and it was revelatory, like a nearsighted person putting on glasses for the first time.
Now you understand why these powerful psychoactive substances are Schedule II controlled substances with a high potential for abuse, commonly misused across academic and industry settings, outright banned in some countries, etc..
I won't gatekeep you or declare you do or do not have ADHD. I do not even think it matters at the end of the day. Hell, there is no definitive way to determine if someone has ADHD anyway. No blood biomarkers, no genes, fMRI scans, etc.. One has ADHD only if a medical professional says so. Nothing more and nothing less. One doctor says you have ADHD, and another doesn't. Which one is right? How can it be proven?
I'm not the GP of this comment chain, but you didn't take my/our meds. You took something that helped you, and that is all that matters. I find this false dichotomy of having ADHD or not to be ridiculous. Every professional diagnosis is of equal until science progresses.
Perhaps on some kind of deeper level, we might not even have the same disorder, and what we call ADHD could be multiple separate disorders. Until then, we have to work with what we have.
Congratulations on finding relief. I don't care if people have some kind of arbitrary made-up acronym to describe a set of symptoms that are heuristically diagnosed or not. I just want people to not struggle with what I had to go through and still go through. ADHD is my obstacle, it is not my identity.
They certainly meant more intense representation of symptoms, of which there is a broad range.
> I won't gatekeep you or declare you do or do not have ADHD. I do not even think it matters at the end of the day. Hell, there is no definitive way to determine if someone has ADHD anyway. No blood biomarkers, no genes, fMRI scans, etc.. One has ADHD only if a medical professional says so. Nothing more and nothing less. One doctor says you have ADHD, and another doesn't. Which one is right? How can it be proven?
I’m not going to nitpick on whatever standard of “proof” you need here but you’re wrong in that there aren’t any tests for it. There have been CPT’s around for over 20 years now such as the IVA-2 test that tests a broad swath of things like reaction times, fidgetiness, and attention span that can differentiate with very reasonable accuracy ADHD groups vs non ADHD groups, and differentiate between ADHD sub-types (which you mentioned). I know this because I didn’t have any relief in symptoms until I took a few types of these and learned that my symptoms are far more of inattentative type than hyperactive and I had been completely mistreated for a long time. We also targeted different therapies that have been far more effective for me now that I would not have even been able to try before I took them - so I know there is something to it.
There are many types of these that have been around and used for a while, it isn’t necessarily a doctor just saying “yup you’re adhd” after a 7 question survey (although overdiagnosis in this way is for sure common).
I suggest you brush up a little on the subject before speaking so condescendingly about it. We know way more about ADHD now than we did 15 years ago which sounds like where maybe your opinions are sort of coming from.
These tests and studies are extraordinarily expensive and not covered by insurance typically which is why I think people think they just don’t exist.
Perhaps, and hopefully so.
> you need here but you’re wrong in that there aren’t any tests for it.
I've taken the CPT test, WAIS-IV, etc. and I am aware of the others to some degree. I never said there was no way to test for it. I said there was no definitive way to prove someone has ADHD beyond a reasonable doubt by means of any known biomarker. No blood test, fMRI, etc..
> I know this because I didn’t have any relief in symptoms until I took a few types of these and learned that my symptoms are far more of inattentative type than hyperactive and I had been completely mistreated for a long time.
You have piqued my interest. What changed for you for I have seen no research about different subtypes being treated differently (I do not doubt its legitimacy though)? I am -C, but more likely on the -PH side of things. Stimulants have always been rather... less than effective to say the least.
Similar experience for me, particularly the relationships one stings a little bit reading about it. I'm obviously not your doctor but I got off of stims years ago and have found a lot of success with bupropion (wellbutrin). It's not narcotic and has shown success in dealing with ADHD symptoms + depression from ADHD.
What data do you have to support this? Based on some of the research I read coupled with anecdotal experiences I have witnessed in others, ADHD is not that difficult to fake.
I do not think a majority of people with ADHD are faking anything either. I just don't think the diagnostic process is as robust as people want to believe.
Before anyone gets up in arms, I have ADHD too. However, I imagine these test to be something like a diagnostic test to determine if an animal is a fish or not. Does the creature live in water? Does the creature have fins? Etc..
So, if a creature checks all the boxes, then is it a fish? What if I analyze a dolphin? Dolphins have fins, dolphins live in water, etc..
My point is that we cannot prove one has ADHD beyond a reasonable doubt. No biomarkers, no scans, or anything of the like. Thus, how can we claim the diagnostic tests are accurate when we can't even definitively find what they are supposed to diagnose? It seems to me that science has the "tail," but still can't find the "donkey" to pin it on.
Now do understand, I do not doubt that ADHD exists. ADHD has damn near ruined my life. However, I do question the accuracy of our understanding of it. We know stimulants help a select group of people, perhaps somewhat more than others, but even then, our understand of why stimulants are effective are still merely hypothetical. Stimulants are also not effective for everyone with ADHD.
I am glad we are willing to help people prior to having all the answers for it's been beneficial to my life. I understand our condition has faced a lot of stigma, and research has tried it's best to combat the stigma and false perceptions, but I feel like the trust in research can sometimes swing too far in the opposite direction. There are plenty of unknowns, and I truly think we have long, long way to go.
Seems like an easy choice.
That is a lot of people.
So it is probably more that a lot of people didn't realize they had it, until it became more widely known, and then they started connecting dots.
It used to be a small percent of the population got the symptoms - they were either those particularly predisposed to it, or in particularly bad situations.
As it becomes more prevalent across the population, more and more folks are showing problematic symptoms.
Notably, anyone who even glances at the news, social media, or politics is getting a ton of narcissistic abuse every day. As are many people at work.
And the symptoms of narcissistic abuse line up very strongly with certain ADHD symptoms - and issues we’re seeing across the entire population.
What do you mean by this? I am not agreeing nor disagreeing, I genuinely find this ambiguous.
NPD is all about extracting ‘supply’ and control - supply usually being attention, and control via desired emotional responses. The enemy of NPD is on the ground reality and having to produce fair/equitable results.
In the industry case, the goal is control of supply (attention) and spending (aka buy our stuff, donate money), and votes/power.
For one random venue from my list - walk down it and tell me any of those listed that aren’t doing several of those simultaneously and in an escalating fashion.
https://www.choosingtherapy.com/narcissistic-manipulation-ta...
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/adderall-shortage-ad...
I'm sure you're very well established with a medication I've taken for over 30 years.
If I'm going to "blame the DEA/Gov" about anything it's obviously going to start at "Why is this scheduled what it is, why the hell do I have to renew my script every 30 days like I'm selling it in high school when I've had it for 30+ years?"
This makes it easier for those that are gaming the telemed system to get access to stimulants they likely don't need. Pretty lame.
You should look into using bupropion immediate release to cover the times you can't get get access to your medication. It's better than going without.
You sound like you were hyperactive. I am solidly inattentive-type, I went through school before diagnoses were a thing, and my mother actively fought to keep me away from psychiatrists when teachers suggested it (for the best reasons - it was a different time). So all I ever got was "that boy's not right". I always assumed I was on the autism spectrum, and there's not much that can be done about that, so I just got on with things as best I could.
A 5% increase in diagnoses wouldn't result in month-long delays in the sales channel. Something else is going on. In Europe, the factory in Ireland is "having manufacturing issues", which seems incredibly opaque and has been going on for nearly a year. They say it will be sorted by April, but that date keeps rolling back. Given that it's world-wide, I am wondering if the problem is with sourcing a precursor.
For those of us who have been ADHD our entire lives and have been acutely aware of every single thing that ADHD has affected IN our lives. Like losing relationships, partnerships, making people think we don't care about them, disinterest, spiraling into depression because we can't keep things orderly for more than a week, having to write down literally everything lest we immediately forget the next question we need to ask, getting panic attack level anxiety frustrated when we can't find something we've lost 10000 times like our keys but we KNOW we put in the same exact spot because we trained ourselves to do it, getting put down and told we were incredibly smart but didn't apply in school..
I have never, ever, once since I was probably 7-8 wondered if I did or didn't have ADHD. Nor has anyone in my entire life. And it absolutely obvious to me, as someone who has ADHD, who also has ADHD. It's absolutely a spectrum but we can 100% hear ourselves caged inside of someone elses heads.
And now, 2024, with 80% of HN now thinking they need stims because at 42 after having 3 kids running around they find it hard to focus, so now I can't get my prescriptions because they're out of stock and I pretty much can't function on weekends now because I have to limit my intake to save extra pills in case I can't get it next month and I have to get tested more frequently because now it's even FURTHER on everyones radar as a narcotic.
And I'm aware that some people just literally have no idea what some mental thing is. I have 40+ yo friends who don't know that some feeling they felt 3 days ago was panic attack level anxiety.
Well, it's time to learn about your feelings and how to identify and work with them, big boys!
Delay fun https://imgur.com/a/BVQkKOV !
Edit: I'm not gatekeeping diagnosis at all, get one if you need one and it helps. I'm just explaining what the situation is like from this perspective. It's incredibly troubling to see an illness you have blow up in popularity because there are so many things that can come with that, like the gov cutting it off for us completely, us running out of medication, etc. Although, this is ADHD. If this was cancer and it started growing exponentially i'm sure they'd do more medication creation and research, instead we're treated like coke addicts.
edit2: And I should mention, just because I was dx'd as a kid doesn't mean anything in that huge list at the top was evident to me that it was caused by ADHD and not anything else in my life. It took decades of going through the same cycles and loops and seeing the ways my adhd would cause things to be different from others and cause issues. A lot of people think "Wow if I'd gotten dx'd at 8 instead of 38 my life would be amazing."
Unfortunately not.
I didn't really figure out the interpersonal relationship issues were hugely ADHD until my 30s. ADHD when I was a kid was a "he's super hyper and can't focus" and was supposed to go aaway by "adulthood." No psychiatrist has ever given me a good understanding of ADHD that took all my own research.
Turns out it's a lifelong thing. Psychiatrists in the past were awful.