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How do you deal with ADD?

LogicSoDeveloped said:
My major is chemistry, I'm doing my first year of college at a local community college then hoping to transfer to a larger state school on the other side of my state. I was thinking that there, I'd be away from negative voices and really just focus and stuff. For me, chemistry would allow me to be both creative and analytical. For math, it is very hard for me to understand real world application and so that is another reason I have trouble motivating myself to do it.
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Start working on a lot of math, is my sincere recommendation... for a Chem BS you have to take math up through Cal 3, and some schools require you to take differential equations and linear algebra as well. Plus you'll have to take physics & physical chemistry, both of which are really motherfuckers when it comes to mathematical intensity. You don't have to be an incredible mathematician or anything, lord knows I'm not, but you really have to be fairly adept at using math to solve problems.
 
Roger&Me said:
I know this sounds weird, but I find that smoking pot drastically increases my attention span and that's one of the main reasons I continue to smoke it. That being said, most people find that pot makes them lazier; I'm the exact opposite in that it gives me motivation to to do schoolwork.
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This has also been my experience.

ADHD is one (of several) reasons I use medicinal marijuana.

My overall advice to the OP: I personally found dexedrine IR worked well for me, although I never used it every day for a prolonged period of time. I find it doesn't cause serious tachyphylaxis as adderall IR has for me. Consequentially, keeping up with food, liquids, vitamins, minerals, exercise, and sleep all helps considerably.

Don't focus on the anxiety that not doing something can cause you, just start doing that thing fearlessly, knowing it will be over soon enough, and you will feel great when it's done.

No matter how you feel, sometimes you just have to keep it together and keep going on, sometimes when we are feeling our worse it is most critical.
 
I've likely had something like ADD forever..... probably the first clue was my ability as a kid to build whole worlds with thousands of legos, for 6-8hrs straight, if my folks let me be. Or I'd spend a day watching a spider build a web, reading awesome Carl Sagan science books for kids, or ripping apart a junk lawnmower just to see how all the components work individually.

Usually, I'd end up either fixing junked things, or turning them into contraptions designed to make a specific activity easier..... as with the lawnmower, laundry cord, and old farm tackle-blocks which I turned into a sledding zip-line winch. It came in handy for when we needed to get our sleds & toboggans to the top of the hill fast.
Until some adult came along and demolished it for being dangerous, even though I had even put guards over everything which I thought could possibly hurt me.

In grade school, I'd finish reading entire school texts by the time my class was only on chapter 3. And when I got yelled at for reading ahead (which was treated as cheating). So after a final punishment for "cheating" in 5th grade and being yelled at for making other somehow making other students around me feel "slow"..... I started reading every dictionary, thesaurus, encyclopedia, periodical, and book that I could find... yet I was still able to pass all my tests, projects, exams in the A-B range. Yet my scores for classwork & homework were consistently D-F.... because I never did them. It was a complete waste of time.

So when I hit high-school, I stayed just long enough to keep up appearances, then I'd skip and head off to the college to smoke pot and hang out in a *real* library. As soon as I could, I dropped out and grabbed my GED with no sweat or studying.
Yet I completely suck at math. Numbers in my head never want to cooperate, and act like wiggly squid when I try to manipulate them for a problem.

How do I deal with it? I don't. I go with the flow. My brain works the way it does for a reason, and tinkering with it long-term strikes me as incredibly unhealthy. I know what my limits & eccentricities are and while it makes life hard in some areas, I prefer my own methods of coping, and my own clarity of thought over the control of a drug.

Before I started high-school, my mom and all her doctors attempted to put me on ADD meds, and I hated those things. I couldn't focus on what important tasks or things I was really interested in, and I'd tweak out on something completely inane or repetitive instead and get nothing accomplished. And there was the crash afterwards where I'd get depressed and mean.

So I started taking my morning ADD med dose, and threw those suckers into the ditch on my way to school. My grades never improved while I was on them, and in fact got worse. I'd get caught up designing a maglev motorcycle in my head, and before I knew it school was over. I certainly wasn't going to lug textbooks home to read, so I'd go home and tweak out on the Nintendo instead.

If anything..... ADD medication *worsened* my ability to get anything done. Sure, I had more energy and ideas; the problem was then I'd have entirely too much of both, and I couldn't prioritize them at all. At least before those meds, I could focus on a single project until completion.

Every psych doc who ever examined me, without fail, wanted to put me on one or more psych meds. Dexies, adderal, ritalin, prozac, lithium, valium...... you name it, and they wanted to try them out on me.
But the one thing that they couldn't do much about, was my stubbornness and innate distrust of anything I couldn't see for myself.
Unless I felt real pain or a doctor came up with x-rays or blood tests that left no question as to how sick/injured I was, as far as I was concerned there wasn't a damn thing wrong.
That meant psych docs were completely full of shit, especially when they started telling me that my own thought processes and how I emote were abnormal.
According to what? A questionnaire? That never struck me as being rational or very scientific.

I spent my entire life figuring out my own headspace & timing, so I had a pretty good idea of what was normal and abnormal for me. I had keen sense of how my peers acted & how to fit in when needed. If they were "normal", I never wanted to be like them..... but i learned how to operate within society's logical constraints and keep to myself.

Being put on smart-drugs made me abnormal..... which is now somehow considered acceptable and encouraged by the medical community and our educational system. Hell, I even got *punished* by my schools, simply because i learn differently and its "not fair" to other kids that I do.
I'm not surprised our educational system is failing.

What I don't see is how drug guesswork, "professional opinion", and reducing kids to having the thorazine-shuffle is in line with the Hippocratic Oath..... and normally just because they're different from their peers or act out in some way. I even knew kids who's parents put them on ritalin/prozac; both parents worked or were divorced, and they didn't want to (or couldn't) handle with their attention-starved children after work/school.
 
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I need addys bad and am about to go see a doc soon. I know we can't discuss the details but I am praying that he can help me.
 
Thank you all for your replies, it definitely makes me feel better knowing I'm not alone.

For my ADD related medical history:

I've seen, if I remember correctly 5-6 psychologists, 1 psychiatrist, and 5-6 MD's.

Its been almost 2 years since I've been on any medication. The medications I was prescribed (not all at the same time) were in order: Zoloft, Strattera, Vyvanse, Focalin, Wellbutrin

The Zoloft, Wellbutrin, and Strattera just made me feel horribly depressed. I became zombie like and was content to lay in bed all day.

Along with the Vyvanse and Focalin, I tried Ritalin on its own as well as Adderall on its own. All of this use was in a 4 month period. I had the best grades I've ever had in those 4 months but I eventually started getting really bad anxiety until I had my first panic attack and swore off of them. I haven't taken them but Adderall once to stay awake to do a 4 hour drive after a concert late at night which was I'm not sure how long ago.

Basically, the amphs worked but I had horrible crashes and couldn't focus because of the anxiety.

What sort of diet can you guys recommend? I'm trying to make a date where I switch to making soda drinking maybe a once a week thing at most, I don't think the caffeine or sugar helps my focus in the long term.

I know I need to exercise but fitting it into my schedule is going be tough. No excuses of course, just going to take a lot of planning which I will start off an on inevitably.
 
I've been there and done that, but I'm still very resentful toward my condition of having adhd (they're looking to do away with the inattention/hyperactivity distinction, because the thought is that they're both flip sides of the same coin). For those of you who don't have adhd and who wish to know more about it, I'd recommend watching http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3d1SwUXMc0 .

I don't agree with everything in the video, but I agree with most of the current understanding that is summarized in the video. Long story short, the crux of it is that people with adhd have deficits in working memory. For a practical demonstration, check out: http://cognitivefun.net/test/4

Other than that, or perhaps related to that, people with adhd have a very bad time with time management, planning, organizing, coordinating, completing tasks, sustaining behavior, avoiding distractions, getting back on task, and other associated responsibilities. People who have adhd have trouble projecting into the future. They have trouble dealing with matters that are not urgent and compelling; they live in the moment and go with whatever takes up their attention at a given time. I have learned all these things through personal experience. I am pretty perceptual to my own level of intelligence, and while it's above average, that merely concealed the difficulties that I would face in adult life. I never took a drug to treat adhd until I was 17-18, at which point I had began noticing that I had a harder time of "simple" things than ordinary people. But if I was less intelligent, others would have probably made the determination that I had adhd much earlier on. I could write about my findings with regard to adhd for a long time, but suffice it to say, my general advice to those who have not yet been able to learn about it for those who have it:

You will have a tough time dealing with abstract math, chemistry, biology, physics, engineering and so on. Don't get me wrong, it's not that you can't learn these things, but it's much harder to assimilate the way of thinking. Drugs can help in the short term, but they won't help develop a talent/affinity for these things. At best, they'll level the playing field. You might have a much tougher time of stability in life, and this extends to all aspects including relationships, career, etc.

At the end of the day, people with adhd will not be as effective in implementing their knowledge and putting it into practice, as they would have been able if they didn't have adhd. Adhd is a performance problem, simply put, which is fucking sad.

Drugs that I have found useful include the amphetamines (as needed... take this very seriously, because they can fuck with your life), modafinil (mood-brightening and uplifting effects and modest improvement in some symptoms), weed (to fall asleep or shift mentality). I take modafinil on half of days when I'm not taking amphetamines for study purposes and I smoke weed most days. One rule I have is never take amphetamine on the weekend or more than twice a week and avoid benzos at all costs. I might add more later.
 
I think the hardest part for me with having adhd (besides the depression) is not being able to just sit down and learn the information. There are many things i want to learn how to do, or study up on and i just can't. I was on tons of different adhd medications from the time i was 6 or 7 til 18. After 18 i just kinda (like always) stopped taking them. Amphetamines made me lose too much weight, eating is still a problem i have.

Weed has helped my Adhd, but it's a sacrifice. It's the closest to a medication for it in which Im not out of it, or having tics or some shit, but i get pretty depressed unless im using it daily, and information retention becomes a problem, so it works, and it doesn't. Kinda fights against itself.

Right now im 22 and still not medicated, im going to school and i keep taking tolerance breaks from grass. It also makes me anti social, but not as bad of a personality loss as some other past medications.

What really sucks, is they could be doing alot more research on marijuana and adhd medication benefits, but for legality no real results come from it. I would love to see a weed prescription, "take two drags in the morning, noon and night." even certain strain information on which would be best used for medication :)
 
Every psych doc who ever examined me, without fail, wanted to put me on one or more psych meds. Dexies, adderal, ritalin, prozac, lithium, valium...... you name it, and they wanted to try them out on me.
But the one thing that they couldn't do much about, was my stubbornness and innate distrust of anything I couldn't see for myself.
Unless I felt real pain or a doctor came up with x-rays or blood tests that left no question as to how sick/injured I was, as far as I was concerned there wasn't a damn thing wrong.
That meant psych docs were completely full of shit, especially when they started telling me that my own thought processes and how I emote were abnormal.
According to what? A questionnaire? That never struck me as being rational or very scientific.

I spent my entire life figuring out my own headspace & timing, so I had a pretty good idea of what was normal and abnormal for me. I had keen sense of how my peers acted & how to fit in when needed.
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Amen!!! Where I work I see really young kids being put on stimulants (and the parents made to feel guilty if they won't BTW). What those kids aren't being allowed to do is to figure themselves out like you did. Big Pharma = Big Brother in this case.
 
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Also curious about what kind of diet you guys recommend, like what foods to eat, what foods to avoid, stuff like that.
 
^----- I used to take welbutrin. Great for quitting smoking, and improved my mood a little.... but it was hell for the jitters and falling asleep.

I used to drink lots of coffee, carbonated soft drinks, and beer. When I replaced those with tea, simple electrolyte/rehydration drinks, and cut out booze, I found myself operating on a more level playing field at least.
I also stopped eating fast foods and frozen/microwave ones. Instead, I walk down to the market to buy just enough fresh food for the day. I love cooking, so the process of making a special trip daily, and then deciding what my meals for the day will be, helps keep me focused.
As for what kind of food; I only pick up fresh greens, fruits, nuts, breads, and meats.
Again, I try to get food that isn't frozen/freeze-dried or pre-cooked. Spending crazy money on fancy "whole/organic" food doesn't make sense, because the fresh stuff I get is far better & comes in smaller packaging.
 
What sort of food do you like to cook? I just wondered if you had an example of a dish that you enjoy as I'm not really much of a cook yet though I'd like to start.

Today, I picked up the following foods: Smoked salmon, onion, cream cheese, french bread, pears, strawberries, caramel apples-I know probably not the best selection but I'm not sure that I would want to do a drastic change overnight though I feel like I'm making some good steps, Orange Juice. I believe that is all that I got this evening.

I instinctively went for frozen stuff and soda but walked away from them without making any purchases of that sort of stuff.

By electrolyte drinks, do you mean gatorade? Or something else, just making sure as this is very important to me.

By the way, I don't have a weight issue but I don't eat healthy either. I'm not saying this as an excuse but I figured that it would be important to note that my unhealthy diet affects my ADD more than my weight. I weight around 130lbs. but my height is 5 foot 9 inches.

I also ordered a book on ADD to learn more about it.
 
Hi,

At first I used to take 30mg Ritaline, much too powerfull. would stay up all night, be hungry all the time but couldn't eat and basicly depressed and anti-social.

Now I'm at 10mg and that's just fine :)
I actually feel the ritaline find my mind to concentrate, great :)
 
LogDev- my favorite dish is a chicken one that I came up with. it pretty much covers all the bases, is cheap, and sticks with yeh. :)

Gingerchili Chicken

4-6 boneless chicken breasts
1 cup water & 1 cup white wine vinegar
1/2 cup ev olive oil
1 cup honey (manuka honey recommended)
1 whole grated ginger rhizome (med size)
1 tbsp dried & crushed red chili pepper
1 tsp salt, pepper
1 pkg brown or wild rice (or substitute rice noodles)
2 cans drained mandarin oranges

Marinade chicken 12hrs in a clear, covered bowl, in a sunny spot, but don't let it get too warm.
Pan or wok fry the chicken until done, frequently basting with marinade. Bring leftover sauce to a low boil in separate saucepot and then leave on warm.
Serve chicken on bed of rice or noodles with oranges on top. Sauce to taste. :)

All ingredients are flexible, but the main focus is the ginger/honey/orange. I just happen to like my ginger & chilis =D

For electrolyte drinks, I pretty much stick to gatorade. Otherwise, I make my own. The WHO website has good directions for a basic electrolyte/rehydration drink; water, salt, and sugar. I just add a bit of fresh lime juice to mine..... sorta like a virgin margarita. But its vital that the sugar and salt are in the right proportions.

I think that having a regular, balanced, fresh diet is more effective at helping my ADD than special ones or exotic ingredients. I figure if I have a deficiency in a nutrient, my mind & body let's me know by going all out of wack. But having a structure of collecting & cooking everything daily definitely helps keep me focused. Just going to the cupboard or fridge whenever I get hungry leaves a lot of time to be distracted from other tasks.
 
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bigben202 said:
What really sucks, is they could be doing alot more research on marijuana and adhd medication benefits, but for legality no real results come from it. I would love to see a weed prescription, "take two drags in the morning, noon and night." even certain strain information on which would be best used for medication :)
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One of many reasons I was prescribed medical. Marijuana is ADHD.

It definitely helps,so I would recommend moving to a state with medicinal marijuana.
 
I just try my hardest to focus, it doesnt always work, but at least I can say I try. I havent been on meds for a long time, because the ritalin and concerta I was on was messing with my heart. But I wouldnt mind trying to get on another medicine again, to see if it would make things easier
 
I'd love to move to a medical state which is realistic several years down the line. First, I have to take care of my bachelors which will take the next 4 years. I was thinking of doing graduate school somewhere in california if I can afford it then. I've visited to Cali twice and loved it, I just hear cost of living is pretty high there.

@Ixcheillian, thanks man! I appreciate your time and help. I've definitely done a decent job thus far of avoiding soda. I've only had it once in the last 60 hours or so. I have had some arizona tea which I enjoy for the taste. I might cut that out and just go for juices and water though.
 
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