It’s crucial; you’ll have a short boost and then crash, otherwise. Personally, I also have to track the calories, because if I’d eat intuitively, it’d be nothing for 6 hours, then crash & crave fast food & sugar.

Edit: Same for rest, by the way. Can’t just rest when I feel like it, I have to time it. For household chores, I can either do 3 hours non-stop and crash, or I can alternate 20 minutes work, 10 minutes lying down, but then for pretty much the whole day.

Yes, it’s infuriating. Here in Germany, I have to pay ~EUR 1.1k per month, and it covers immediately life-threatening diseases completely and well, but a missed diagnosis can lead to a lot of suffering. A completely different life. Had to pay out-of-pocket eventually. Now that the diagnosis is there, there is a theoretical path to have meds covered, but it’s not worth the hassle to make it a priority.

I noticed that the way to go is always meds plus methods. Constantly checking out new methods and improving on making better use of them.

Can’t he hook you up with a non-stim?

Wish I had the diagnosis for my marriage. Would have been a real chance. So much pointless suffering everywhere due to missed ADHS/depression/trauma/autism/… All while the health systems cost a fortune.

surprisingly good advice

Good doc. Problem is that I overcompensate for things, so others perceive them as a strength.

For example, appointments. There are so many things in place to show up on time, and it involves panic, thresholds, time triggers etc.The “most relaxed” method is: Casually start to get ready early by putting required things in front of the door, so it would not open without taking them. Then, at a certain time, “panic mode” is triggered; at that point, I treat it like a building-on-fire kind of situation. But the thought that “panic mode” would still fix any slack in the preparation is what avoids panic for most of the process. Panic includes flashing images of ridiculous, unrealistic escalations and consequences of what could happen from being late.

What people see: He’s always on time.

Or to still get things done. I need a list of ridiculous granularity, like point 1: “create this list”. Check. Then use tricks, such as “just do ONE thing from the list now”, to bypass executive dysfunction.

Emotional regulation is something that my kid’s occupational therapist is totally aware of and working on. It would be really surprising if a child psychiatrist or child therapist were as “baffled” by it as the article seems to suggest.

But it’s an important topic, especially in his case, and I learned a lot from the article.

I completely disagree with the replies. Doctors DO tend to prescribe an insane starting dose!

At least with stims, start very low to check for intolerance. If it’s lisdexamfetamine, 5 mg is very safe, but that’d typically be 1/4 of the minimum 20.

It’s one of the few instances where I’d even say: Don’t listen to your doctor. Stims on someone with ADHD are a wildcard. Might have a calming effect, or might feel like way too strong coffee. My doctor agreed to doing it this way, though.

Did the psychologist provide an official diagnosis that a doctor is allowed to fully rely on? Is the appointment with a psychiatrist?

Tricks to keep a long duration are definitely a thing, and I want to find them all. One of the most important for me is to eat and rest as if I did NOT take meds, even though they suppress fatigue and hunger.

I can do a 3 hour cleaning spree and then collapse, or force regular rests even when I feel “full power”, just because the clock says so, and then keep doing 30 hour intervals all day long.

Thanks for pointing out the potential (?) link to protein! After 1.5 years on it, I fell into the mistake to binge-eat junk food in the evening, which will probably make anyone feel less fit, but I wrongly attributed the following fatigue it to the dose and duration. Others report problems with caffeine.

Can’t say anything about the legal consequences; typically, an ADHD diagnosis does not affect any rights and is confidential anyway.

Keeping your health situation very private is a good idea for any health issue.

As for not needing them: Per definition, you don’t have ADHD if it does not significantly impact your life negatively. It’s a “must”-criterion, no matter how many other indications there are.

But if you benefit from it, my experience is that it only changes the things about me I disliked. Everything is only better. Only thing to watch out for is not to use the medication boost to focus even more on unproductive things.

Fantastic - just like me, then. I used 5 mg to check for intolerance, then stayed around 10 - 15 mg for quite a while.

Initially, the “high” effect was dominant, so it was super easy to get on tasks and finish them, but I still did it in a “silly” or “demented” way, for lack of a better word. As I built tolerance and increased the dose, it started to fix that as well, but the “high” became less and less.

1 1/2 years in now experimenting between 50 mg and 70 mg, it is still fantastic. But I might start experimenting with alternatives. Who knows if the first drug tried is really the best for me?

I agree; it’s even easier than before to live a few months without meds, because there are no stacked up chores and missed deadlines when you start. I work systematically with lists, and one important list is for things that would improve things “permanently”, such as getting and installing a dishwasher, improve finances, delegate and so on.

I had a similar experience with Lisdexamphetamine: Started at a ridiculously low dose to make sure I can take it, which surprisingly already had a significant effect for a few hours! Then I worked up to the normal dose over the span 9 - 12 months.

Especially during that time, it felt “too good to be legal”, like you can constantly be on a fantastic recreational drug AND get shit done!

My view of separating “desired medical benefit” and “recreational drug euphoria” is certainly very simplified, and the “recreational” effect also boosts productivity. And it is hard to tell which is which. Maybe I have not even found the perfect medication for myself yet, but it sure is life-changing already.

It is my understanding that part of the effect, especially the medically desired effect, does not build (much) of a tolerance. The part that feels like a recreational drug does, but it’ll still regulate noradrenaline in the prefrontal cortex all the same with the starting dose.

These are hard to exactly tell apart, though; it’s a blurry line.