When I was a young kid I was treated for adhd cause I wouldn't sit still very fidgety , distributing class and never did good in school and very unorganized so my parents took me to a docter and proscribed something not sure just memeber they were small blue round pills but my parents didn't like how they made me although it made me focus and did better in school they said it made me a zombie so they took me off and struggled through school for years and life in general.
I am now 32 years old and been thinking about it and symptoms associated with adhd seem l still have it.
I'm very scatter brained , can be overstimulated and specific sounds like chewing or noises and work around me and feel on edge the list can go on
anyways just wondering is it possible I do have it and if so it explain a lot
I don't want to have to take meds if I do have it I rather try and treat it with lifestyle changes
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Andernez
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No, not really .... and in my experience, certainly NOT by 32. Which is still pretty young. News: you ain't all that old. I got diagnosed at 46 ... many people on this forum get diagnosed in their 50s and the condition is very much wreaking havoc on their lives. Otherwise, we wouldn't be doing the work to get diagnosed. And we are old enough to not reject any diagnosis that doesn't totally make sense to us, huge sense!
Back up: you're reporting ADHD symptoms and you say you were diagnosed as a child. You're reporting the symptoms affecting you now and asking if you grew out of the condition. Your question answers itself. You're still suffering from the condition!
I say do not trust that feeling of not wanting to go on meds. Who really wants to go on meds?! For any condition?! Well actually most people take meds because the alternative is worse.
Lifestyle changes. Exercise can help ... has to be really consistent .Good sleep can help ... meditation can help. Walks in the park and outdoors can help. Having a job that doesn't tax your executive function (which is low in ADHD) into exhaustion.
Keeping your mood up, minimizing depression and anxiety (which are high in people with ADHD) also can help.
But we get to the problem. People with ADHD have trouble exercising regularly, meditating regularly, planning schedules and time in detail (to allow for "lifestyle" changes). So most of us need the help of medication. Meanwhile the condition creates tensions in relationships, leads to higher car accidents, higher rates of falls, injuries, addictions of all kinds, missed appointments. None of those help us with the "lifestyle" changes you're referring to.
I'll share a quick story about my brother, who had severe ADHD but who never got diagnosed. His house was often just chaos. And then he retired. Well in retirement, when not work, he could, after years of work, keep his house neat. He couldn't keep his house neat while working full time. He ultimately suffered a devastating stroke, which was the result of his failure to attend aggressively to the high blood pressure that runs in our family.
If you don't want to do meds, one key lifestyle change in my view is to get to some seriously Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, which helps us address the pattern of failure in our lives. And hiring an ADHD coach can be excellent. But who among us has the money to hire a coach?
Things I've looked up to learn about the condition and I've just thought I was an anxious neurotic person and been stuck in this fog and lost like my interest.
Plus I stopped trying to use alcohol/drugs to self medicate I guess / chase that high that i assumed normal ppl feel like
So all those anxious feelings and racing thought along with sleepless nights came back and got me thinking
Since ADHD is developmental, it is a neurological condition that doesn't go away. It is actually a misconception that people "outgrow" ADHD. There are actually a lot of misconceptions about ADHD (such as "ADHD isn't real" or "only boys have ADHD"), but the actual research disproves them.
From what I've learned, the belief that people can "outgrow" ADHD comes from the approximately 10% of people diagnosed with ADHD as children whose symptoms lessen (but don't fully go away) to the point that they don't meet the qualifications for an ADHD diagnosis anymore.
• That doesn't mean that they don't have ADHD, but that they have subclinical ADHD (still having traits, but not prominently enough to keep the diagnosis).
• Some people also find ways to accommodate their own ADHD traits well enough to the point that they don't consider themselves to have ADHD anymore. However, since ADHD is highly inheritable, their children might develop ADHD.
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While 10% might have a decrease in symptoms and am improvement in overall experience of life, the majority continue to struggle as much, or possibly more.
Also, many people like me have ADHD but didn't get diagnosed in childhood. I was finally diagnosed at 45 with the Inattentive presentation of ADHD. (Like you, I've often called myself "scatterbrained".)
The numbers of people diagnosed in adulthood have been going up in recent years.
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The reaction that you had to medication as a kid, when your parents said you were like a "zombie", might have been due to the dosage being too high.
• You were most likely on a stimulant medication, such as Ritalin (methylphenidate) or Adderall (amphetamine and dextroamphetamine).
Many doctors now start their ADHD patients at a low dosage, and step up the dosage in steps until a good therapeutic level is reached. (This process of increasing dosage is called titration.)
Idk why but it's like I forgot I had it or was treated for it as a kid and silly that I thought I just out grew it cause as an adult I'm very melllow but at my core I'm a yapper especially at work I've researched it a bit and I guess i just been masking it
You probably grew up hearing it said that people outgrow ADHD.
The early research done on ADHD (previously known as ADD) was only done on young boys. Somehow, that let to the idea that ADHD only affected young boys.
Also, with the name change from ADD to ADHD (Attention Deficit Disorder to Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder), the presumption became that a person had to have both Hyperactive-Impulsive and Inattentive traits to warrant a diagnosis.
...I have no hyperactivity, which is one reason I long delayed seeking a diagnosis.
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Part of the problem is that there are even doctors who don't know enough about ADHD to diagnose and treat it properly. I've heard some doctors (and even a couple of psychiatrists) say online that they didn't learn anything about ADHD in medical school.
The only solution to bad information or lack of information is to spread awareness with good information.
Not in my experience. I am 83 now and still have as full blown symptoms as when younger. My problem is that it didn't "exist" as a condition in the 1950's and so I was just inattentive and a poor student. So things are better now, believe me! No it does not go away but medication is absolutely wonderful!
It seems the public view of ADHD is that it is a behavioral problem that magically disappears when you leave school. It is a neurological condition that lasts a lifetime. Some people do learn how to work around the symptoms and it appears to something you can out grow. As life changes the effects of being a person with ADHD changes.
There are some cases, in which the symptoms of ADHD/ADD lessen to the point that they do not interfere with a persons life. Usually though, as time goes on we get worse with age. Medication does help, if things are bad enough the meds will make some parts more managable. Trick is to monitor your reactions to the meds and how you feel while on them.
Routine is helpful. Exercise, walking in nature, or just simply walking outdoors. Sleep, meditation, things that will decrease stress. are also helpful. Coaching, and therapy also help.
Bottom line, try things, see what helps YOU. everyone is different and wired differently.
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