The lighter side of ADHD
At least my Adhd Doctor believes me when I tell him that I'm forgetting to take the pills all the time. My previous Gynecologist insisted that the birth control pill is perfect for me and that "Remembering to take it every day isn't that hard ☺️". I did a month of that shit (forgot a good fourth of the pills) and switched doctors to one who was willing to immediately put in a bc implant :')
It's no sickness, there's no cure. You mean treatment.
So mental illness is not a sickness? English isn't my first language, but that doesn't sound right. Is sickness meant to mean things that pass?
Pfft you think that's bad, what about having to remember to contact your doctor for refills?
Every fucking month.
Now I've got a kid who is on stimulants too. Bad enough I gotta remember to call my doc, now I have to remember to call his, too.
And worse, I'm on Vyvanse 40mg and he's on Adderall ER 10mg. These are both blue-and-white capsules. I freak out every time I give him meds that I'm accidentally giving him mine.
He has one left. I need to call his doctor. But instead I'm thinking of making a meme about it.
But if either (or god forbid, both) of us go unmedicated, we set each other completely off. We are so alike it's uncanny, and I have no idea how to deal with myself from the outside. I was handled with verbal abuse so I learned to internalize everything. That's something I try very, very hard to not pass down.
Update: I called the doctor, they are submitting a refill. Thanks op for reminding me, kinda.
ADHD: When you use social media as a scheduler
And gosh forbid they are "out", cause you can only check 3 days before you run out. Nothing like being treated like a criminal because of a medical condition.
Nothing like being treated like a criminal because of a medical condition.
I swear to god. This is the part that makes me really angry. Sorry I can't help my invisible medical condition.
Oh I know. Especially with Vyvanse. It's better now but between the generic shortage and then the precursor "shortage", it was bumpy.
God damnit I need to message my doctor. I've been trying to remember for like a week.
Edit: thank you for the reminder, now maybe I won't run out of meds. Maybe.
If it helps: I asked my pharmacy and they now send me a text asking if I would like to refill the prescription explicitly shortly before it's out, so the scheduling is (mostly) no longer my problem. Might be worth seeing if they can do that for you. Good luck!
That's what my pharmacy does. They're a locally-owned joint, too, which is really nice.
Oh! And the pill is highly controlled and has constant shortages, so it takes quite a bit of effort to get refills.
Oh, you can only get it two days before it runs out?
Have fun scheduling vacations around pill shortages!
Sometimes I can’t even get it then. The pharmacy has some how gotten dates wrong due to how the doctor sent in the prescription so when I refill it, I have to wait color then to confirm I can get it
Oh, and once a year the insurance requires me to call them to tell them I need to keep taking the meds I have taken for over a decade because the other options don't work. This isn't very consistently timed diring the year and I only find out when trying to fill a prescription and there is an 'error'
"cure" my ass
I'd say change that to treatment rather than cure.
And add the fact that it's nearly impossible to get regularly due to what is now obviously intentional shortages and the strict controls combined with PBMs restricting the ability to shop around for places with it in stock. So you can't set up a regular reminder to take it or even actually take it regularly even with a reminder.
And some of them i hear you have to take in the morning, but very specifically after eating breakfast. Like we're some miracle being that eats every meal
It would be my kind of humor, if half the effect was actually just getting folks to regularly eat breakfast.
And after the effects of the previous pill has expired, usually!
Tbh that’s one of the most consistent frustrations - that fucking rollercoaster every damn day. And I try to time things so my long-acting stretches into the evening, so I can have some productive time for myself instead of just my job getting it, but that’s actually harder than it sounds. And also I try not to give myself horrible insomnia, because popping even a short-acting too late in the day just makes me wired.
But I’m completely insensitive to coffee in terms of wakefulness, so idk maybe I just need to pound more coffee and give myself arrhythmia or something?
Concerta Crash was one of the main reasons I decided meds are not for me. Made it to 40 without knowing I had ADD. Then realized as much as meds helped with work they didn't help with the RSD and emotional regulation and when I crashed every night I was a goddamn wreck
It’s really wild the amount of shit that most providers DON’T tell or make clear to people
For instance, this is the first time I’ve seen the term “Concerta Crash”; I’m in my late 30s; I took concerta from about 10 until about a month ago (though I was off meds completely for over a decade until the Rona times), and started Vyvanse last month.
Damn and I learned about concerta Crash almost immediately because I was an emotional wreck once it wore off like I'm a grown ass dude and I was weeping every night as the emotions came flowing back in droves.
Maybe if I knew I was ADD as a kid and had the tools to manage it better things would be different but nah. I was never told how to manage as a kid just always loud and disruptive and always my fault.
I make damn good money but at the same time Jesus Christ I'm self destructive outside of my professional career. ADD Drugs may help but at 48 I am not going to risk that journey again. I actually found regular exercise helps a lot
Yep. We need some like insulin pump type shit
So I know Concerta is a much more controlled dosing, and apparently Vyvanse is engineered to be similar.
But instead I have to take one extended release Adderall in the morning and remember to take an immediate release in the afternoon.
I like your suggestion of an an insulin like pump. It would probably have to be hardware programmed with no external way to interface with it to prevent people from hacking it and dumping the whole dose in their body.
It would probably have to be hardware programmed with no external way to interface with it to prevent people from hacking it and dumping the whole dose in their body.
Good news, actual insulin pumps are already a proprietary nightmare! 🤗
Jokes aside, this sort of thinking about folks with ADHD is super harmful. Neurotypical people would love to do that, but folks with ADHD just want their brain to work normally. There's nothing stopping us from taking all our short-acting meds at once either, apart from the fact it would fluffing suck!
I am very aware of that. I design systems in the environment they intend to live in.
As much as I don't like it, we live in a world controlled by nuerotypicals and I don't see that changing anytime soon.
Should that environment change then I can design for that environment. Otherwise I end up with a product that is useful but not usable.
You find it hard to remember things and focus on doing things? You should do meth about it.
"Cure" yes, famously cures require you to pay for upkeep of them every day for the rest of your life. Like a subscription to being normal that you're required to pay in order to hold down a job. On top of the other subscriptions you have to pay to live and work.
Oh and it deadens your emotions, messes up your sex drive, makes you emotionally volatile as it wears off everyday, and makes you an insomniac.
"Cured!"
You are not cured if you have to regularly take medicine. The pills are a treatment.
We are not sick, we have mind that evolved for purposes that are a lot less useful in the present. Meds allow us to tone down our tendencies, to be able to cope better in current societies.
If your meds are zombifying you, dosage or medication are not right. Ideally I'd shoot for baseline plus a small amount of ADD
They didn't say zombifying. All the side effects they listed can still occur when you have found the effective dosage.
Also, "sick" when it comes to mental health is pretty much always measured against the cultural norm. That is why nuerodivergent is a better word. Cause it is divergent from the current norm. Even if that norm isn't actually the average.
Neurodivergent is also a word I dislike. Neurodivergent literally means that your brain has strayed.
No, I'm not divergent. I have a certain type of traits.
This is intertwined with "Neurotypical" . There is no such thing. I have a professional relationship with one of Europe's foremost Psychiatrists. Talking about this, he told me that the concept of the "normal", i.e. well adjusted, reasonable, even-keel person may be applicable to maybe 20% of the population. Everyone else has some form of mental issue, often undiagnosed.
Cultural norm is the term I used. That means perceived norm by a given culture. That is what we are divergent from. It is at least accurate in what it communicates. Most every other term is like sick. It specifically implies bad. Nuerodivergent is at least nuetral.
Any idea how you actually get those in Serbia?
After breakfast*
I got a pillbox with an alarm on it which yells at me until I take my meds. Works pretty well!
Yes. This is the way. Never trust your own willpower when you can use a (hopefully simple) device to put yourself into a routine!
I saw another post recently about advice for living with ADHD and a lot of people said “habit formation is impossible.” I didn’t have time to reply at the time and subsequently forgot about it until now. My number one hack for getting around the habit formation problem is setting reminders on my phone! I use them for everything and it always feels satisfying to complete a task and check off the box to finish the reminder!
That sounds more like a treatment than a cure.
Ah shit, I forgot to take my medication.