I am a 57 year old male and have just been diagnosed with ADHD. So I have lived like this my entire life.
My psychologist is suggesting I explore medication and he assured me that 100s of his patients saw a noticeable improvement with drug treatments… but my question, as someone who has lived their entire life as an ADHD person, so knows no difference is what does he mean by ‘improvement’? What is improved? How does this improvement maninfest itself? How does this improvement feel? I still want to be my quirky odd self (as do my family)
I would love to hear people’s stories and experiences before and after medication
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IvorTE
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Hello IvorTE & Presbyyoga,I am a coach, I have not taken ADHD meds, this is what I hear from clients.
I'm sure others will chime in with personal experiences.
The stimulants quiet the mind - I know not what you would expect - and allow you to better focus on what you want when you want.
Many with ADHD self medicate with caffeine not realizing that's what they are doing.
It's a meme/trope that ADHDers can take a nap right after their triple latte😀
Caffeine impacts ADHDers much differently.
There are many different medications to choose from and they work for 85% - 90% of ADHDers.
There are stimulant and non-stimulant medications.
Stimulants are fast acting and you can generally tell within a day or two if they are working &/or you like what they do. It doesn't take a month+ like it does with antidepressants and other meds.
Stimulants are out of your system really quickly - like within 24 hours - so you can try one and if it doesn't work you can try another in short order. And yes different stimulants effect you differently even though they are all stimulants, even name brand & generics can feel different.
It is a different experience as a mature adult so be sure your prescriber knows what else you are taking and understands ADHD and the meds pretty well.
Advocate for yourself with the dr. Don't let them tell you what you are feeling or should be feeling. You know you best.
You may find you like the meds and take them regularly or you may decide to take them for particular situations or projects.
You have figured out ways to deal with your ADHD and the meds should be a support for challenge areas.
Changes I've seen are: better working memory allowing for following complex conversations or stories, better time awareness resulting in being on time more often, more motivation to get things done, less procrastination and better emotional regulation.
Learn all you can about ADHD it will really shed light on why you have done and do certain things in certain ways.
Dr Hallowell's and Ratey's book "ADHD 2.0" is a great book. Written by fellow ADHDers it is designed so you can jump around, it gets into the latest brain science and has a section on the differences of ADHD in females vs males.
Welcome to the club, you are in great company! This site, in particular, has super supportive folks and tons of info.
ADDitudemag.com and ADD.org are also great resources.
ADD.org (ADDA) also has virtual support groups that are fantastic.
Thanks for the advice, I am starting to understand why I drink so much tea! I don’t tolerant coffee well, I can have one or two a day but then end up with the shakes and unable to focus on anything, tea however…gallons and gallons.
I personally think the thing with the manufacturers is bs. I've seen those comments online and I have noticed no difference, myself. I think it's paranoia & panic, personally. I'm on Adderall so it's always a big search to find each month, so the way the pill looks is always changing. You also still need to take care of your body and I suspect these people don't.
Many thanks BLC89! As I sit here and drink my tea, I'm laughing about the self-medicate part. Your explanation about how the different meds work was excellent. As a 63 yo newly diagnosed person, I'm still grieving lost opportunities due to ADHD. But I do feel part of a new club now with your welcome spirit.
Before I was diagnosed at age 71, I was infamous for drinking more than 120 ounces of diet soda every day, sometimes with a few coffees thrown in. It was self-medication although i didn't realize it.
With the help of medication, I might drink 12 ounces of diet soda in a day. The only time I drink coffee is on a day without meds - what my primary care physician called a drug holiday I have to live through once each week. I say that because I feel like I am slogging through the day in a daze or fog plus experiencing the emotional overreactions and distractibility which is significantly abated on medicated days.
Quick answer. Improvement as I both understand and experience it, is a calming of some things, and a sharpening or focus around others. I too was concerned at my partner’s change in personality, losing the quirks, but this has not been the case. We’re both similar age to you.
What my improvement is after being diagnosed at 70 is the anxiety that has been plaguing me almost all my life is gone. My head feels quiet. I realize I wasn’t less than others, just different. I wonder what I could have accomplished if I had been diagnosed when I was younger.
IvorTE, I started taking Ritalin in my early 50's (I am now 73) and my response to taking adhd meds was transformative. My adhd is mostly inattentive but with impulsive social interactions. For me to get approximately the same mental state change with exercise would require 1 hour swimming (or running) in the morning and another hour in the afternoon.
For example of my inattentiveness, without taking any meds ( or intense exercise) I felt compelled to change my focus (if you could call it that) about every 1 to 1 1/2 seconds, and the compulsion to change was intense. One of the first things I noticed about the meds is this compulsion to change focus of attention was now just something that might be of interest and the time span for this interest to arise increased to around 4 sec.
In short, I felt that I had much more sense of control over my actions throughout the day. I was now deciding how to drive the train instead of being thrown around in all different directions as the train was hurtling down the tracks.
But please note that changes in externally generated anxiety would also likely change the medication effectiveness.
Hi Tigger4me, I find what you say interesting. I'm here to learn about ADHD because I feel certain my sister, age 78, has it. I determined that a few years ago and have talked to her about it, but she doesn't seem to get it, or it goes over her head. I believe she may have a learning disorder and did not do well in school. My reason for believing that is she has trouble reading and learns from watching videos. Her behaviors that led me to believe she has ADHD are not managing money well, not keeping up her home (she is a hoarder, and it is a mess), being a compulsive buyer, interrupting when someone is speaking. It has affected me because I've bailed her out of situations - financial and otherwise - and I'm burnt out feeling she will never change. Do you feel medication helps the behaviors I mentioned. I'd like to bring it up again and suggest she discuss it with her doctor. I do have concerns about her age and medications. Thank you.
Dear Home-body, It seems like your sister does exhibit a number of atypical behaviors and that many of these behaviors clearly cause you discomfort and personal difficulties. I think that she is fortunate to have you as a sister and that it is wonderful of you to seek out information and advice that would certainly help both of you.
I also certainly would advise you to seek professional medical opinions about your sister's behaviors. Please be aware however that while your sister's PCP should be where you should initially seek advice and help, going to specialists might be necessary.
I say this because persons with ADHD derived traits of forgetfulness, impulsivity, attraction to all things new, and distractability, could certainly lead to some of the difficulties you describe but there might be other medical causes at work.
For example, someone with ADHD, who is easily distracted, might have a messy house but the messiness may be because when the person starts to clean/straighten they then see a book they wanted to read or sees something else that needs to be cleaned before cleaning the first area or spot, then... so that nothing gets cleaned or straightened. Or it might be that there is so much to clean/straighten that the ADHD person becomes paralyzed with not knowing where to start or what to do first. The disorder builds up and the paralysis gets stronger.
These same ADHD traits might lead an ADHD person to have money management difficulties. A person writes a check buts gets distracted and doesn't record what the check was written for. Or a person may keep receipts with the intention to enter the money amounts later then forgets or gets distracted by something to do that is less tedious.
However, it may come down to the degree or extent of the money management, messiness, hoarding issues, or other issues. If these issues are severe and way outside the bounds of typical behaviors, the cause might not be ADHD or ADHD alone. If your sister does go see her PCP, you might want to ask to go along so that you might describe your impressions of these behaviors. Also photographs of evidence of hoarding or extreme messiness might be useful to have.
All the other replies to your post are excellent descriptions of possible behavioral changes, and I've had similar responses. But I'm a technical kind of person and wanted to see what physiological changes were the result of my taking meds.
I wasn’t diagnosed until3 years ago at 38. I had similar feelings, but because of my racing ADHD thoughts I had trouble thinking before I talked. My rsd got me in so much trouble at work because I would react out of emotion most of the time instead of thinking “that would be a bad thing to say”. Growing up in a home that wasn’t school friendly, but working in school, made my social quirks lower my chances for work.
When I tried stimulants, it raised my anxiety. IT sped up my thoughts so I could make better decisions. They are better for my partner’s anxiety because he is more aloof and drowsy, or just has trouble getting the gumption to do things. His “light switch” is off too much and mine is on too much. Non stimulants work better for my type of ADHD because it helps me not wallow in my anxiety or make as many bad social decisions in the moment that could create tension with the people around me. It allows me to be more vanilla for my students, but then I can be silly with my coworkers that I feel comfortable with. I couldn’t make those decisions before my meds, even thought I learned all of the strategies in therapy. My meds allow me to actually use my therapy coping strategies.
As long as you don’t have too high of a dose, you will still have your odd self. In the 80s the boys were so highly medicated they became zombies, but as long as you discuss your symptoms as you try meds, you should be fine.
Finding the right med and dose allows us to have dimmer switches on the light switches of our attention; to help us have attention to things we want to rather than being on autopilot. It takes time to find the right med. improvement doesn’t change personality, but helps you use in your wise mind instead of your autopilot or emotional mind.
Things are just easier. I actually got very angry at my mother for not ever trying meds with me. I am able to stay on task more and get more things done which in turn gives me more self confidence and yes, I am still my quirky self. 🙃
I was diagnosed early this year, I'm 40 yo man. Discovered also that I have GAD, AVPD and I got MDD in 2021. What I can say is that knowing what I have was life changing. I'm still struggling to get back the autonomy of my life that I lost since 2021, without the medication would be impossible. Therapy is also important to me.
For me those 10 moths in medication, have been life changing.
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