[sph]

Same. I've had a low-grade depression for all my adult life, which has worsened in the past 5 years.

I got diagnosed with ADHD 5 months ago, started medication 2 months ago, and last week I told my therapist I'm pretty sure my life-long depression is in remission. There's a definite feeling that my life is now in a slight upwards trajectory, even on the worst of days.

Life tends to become pretty sad when you have no control over your executive function and action.

[FollowingTheDao]

Why is it so strange that an amphetamine would get rid of depression?

[sph]

Who said it's strange? I didn't know I had ADHD, and if I hadn't and still was depressed, probably an anti-depressive would have been more suitable.

My point is, of course AMPH helps depression from ADHD, because ADHD is a debilitating disorder. But AMPH probably doesn't help in other types of depression not caused by executive function disorders.

[Jiocus]

Amphetamines has an established history in depression treatment, with some emphasis on light depression. They fell out of favor with the introduction of then state-of-the-art SSRI's (1980s I think).

Somewhat before that – US context late 1970s – there was political pushback against the largely unrestrained (but legal) amphetamine production by the pharma industry, which supplied more than enough to saturate all the recreational and abuse cases.

DEA brought amphetamines into the Scheduled drugs, manufacturing became quota limited. Incidently, the medical community found that psychostimulants does not have any medical value in treating depression.

Some studies have found them beneficial, some not. The pharma industry has since transitioned into opioids but stimulants have been making a comeback for 20 years with record numbers in ADHD,ADD diagnoses.

[hombre_fatal]

Well, a dose doesn’t last forever. It wouldn’t be surprising if it was a net negative. You tend to feel worse on the comedown for example.

[sph]

My come down is only feeling a little more tired. I suspect you are not talking from experience but hearsay.

> Well, a dose doesn’t last forever. It wouldn’t be surprising if it was a net negative.

My near-sightedness returns as soon as I put down my prescription glasses. I've had to wear them every single day to be able to function decently. Imagine that.

[331c8c71]

I almost didn't have a comedown when I started taking Ritalin. Few years later it became a nightmare. I was becoming extremely annoyed every afternoon and was pretty much useless in the evening as a result.

I also started having very annoying anxiety in the morning after taking meds. And all that with a reduced effectiveness of the drug - clear slowdown in the afternoon after lunch which I didn't have in the beginning of treatment (the dosage was more or less constant from the start after initial titration).

Ritalin clearly affects my sleep patterns. On it I never feel rested and wake up with a feeling I haven't slept at all. There was no change, the effect was present from the start. It takes at least three days without meds for it to be gone.

Finally, Ritalin is definitely bad for my creativity. For instance, I have a habit to play piano or guitar as a way to relax since I was a kid. Composing or improvising at least 50% of the time. This invariably stops when I am on meds - it feels like the activity becomes dull and stops being pleasurable.

All in all, I think it is great that the meds exist and work for a large number of people. That being said I can't stand when someone praises stimulants alluding the consequences of taking them are invariably positive and the side-effects are trivial (if they are acknowledged).

Sadly, most internet discussions on ADHD meds (among people who don't deny it) are infected with overly simplistic toxic positivity: "get diagnosed and treated and your life will be fixed while you'll be happy". The first part I agree with but there is no need to trivialize - the life is more nuanced than that.

[anotherman554]

I'm near-sighted but when I wear glasses my brain doesn't attempt to achieve homeostasis by altering the way I see with glasses on in order to make my sight closer to how it was before I wore glasses.

I'm not saying you shouldn't be on drugs or that you'll find the drugs stop working. I'm just saying the effects on the brain are pretty complex and shouldn't be compared to wearing glasses.

[FollowingTheDao]

As someone who’s been institutionalized in a psychiatric hospital four times in a still living with bipolar schizoaffective disorder I can tell you being nearsighted is no comparison to having a mood disorder. If people were not ignorant enough to ignore all the nutritional facts that go around the production of catecholamines there would be no need for medication.

Your doctors are probably doing more harm than good by not treating an underlying metabolic disorder. It’s quite possible you have an underlying B6 deficiency.

Why don’t you go get your B6 levels tested and ping me when you get them back OK?

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16846100/

[danShumway]

I don't know what everyone else's experiences are, but my psychiatrist definitely ordered blood tests for me before prescribing medication, and I was able to look through the results myself as well. I'm happy for you if you managed to fix your own problems by getting your B6 checked, but vitamin deficiency is not the reason I have ADHD.

[mrtranscendence]

This is prime kook right here. You don’t see it every day.

Most psychiatric problems are not due to a nutritional deficiency. My B6 levels aren’t causing my adhd.

[FollowingTheDao]

Kook huh? Nice.

Is that why I’ve been able to get off all of my medications? Because I’m a kook and I don’t know anything about neurobiology? Or anything about immunology? Or genetics?

You say your B6 levels are not causing your ADHD, but have you ever had them tested?

Yeah it’s so "kooky" that they keep finding B6 defieicny over and over in children with ADHD.

https://hrcak.srce.hr/file/303406

And heck, you might try to take it with your meds, it might help: http://sjh.umsha.ac.ir/download.php?mod=a_atch&atch_id=253&a...

And I suppose it is nothing that polymorphisms in a gene that makes dopamine (DDC) is implicated in ADHD and also needs B6 as a cofactor.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4946061/

But I am the kook I guess. No, it’s not crazy at all to take an amphetamine. It’s not crazy to never wonder why they don’t try to find out why you’re not producing enough amphetamines on your own. It's not crazy we give these drugs endlessly yet ADHD keeps rising.

My Schizoaffective Bipolar Disorder is caused by nutrition. Ask me how!

[danShumway]

Concerta is a long-release drug that's designed to produce a (roughly) steady effect throughout the day rather than a single "high".

[engineeringwoke]

So, a "high" for the whole day then?

[zrail]

It's not a high. If you're getting high off of ADHD meds you either don't have ADHD or your dose is way too much. It's more like an assist for task initiation and follow through, as well giving a boost to staying on task, for people who find those things incredibly difficult _even if they want to do those things_.

[danShumway]

No, speaking personally I don't consciously notice the effects of Concerta. Far from being a high that I crave, I actually have to set myself reminders in the morning and make a ritual/checklist, and I set my medication out on a visible shelf in the bathroom, otherwise I'll forget to take it.

I'm not sure how many people with addictions are regularly forgetting to take their drugs without a phone reminder.

The point of the delay release is that you don't have the same kind of ramp up to extreme effects and then come-down. Instead the goal is to get a (roughly) consistent dose that helps with executive dysfunction, and doesn't do much else. As always, that's something you work out with the help of a psychiatrist, not everyone reacts to methylphenidate the same way.

[andybak]

The come-down for me is predictable, short-lived and manageable. Less than an hour of mild deflation and a desire to sit quietly away from company.

[smeagull]

Weirdest thing to me is that it helped me with my sleep issues. 8 hours at regular times, all of a sudden.

[Sinidir]

How much did you sleep before. I'm reading these kinds of threads and finding lots of similarities with my life. I generally sleep 10 hours a day and have trouble getting out of bed.

[smeagull]

I would delay sleeping to 3am, and then need to get up for real life. Over time it became a real sleep debt. So around 6 hours typically. Delaying going to sleep and getting out of bed are signs (but you need to collect many signs of ADHD to be diagnosed). Some people keep pills by their bed so they can do that even if they can't get out of bed.

Apologies for the late reply, HN doesn't really notify me

[solarkraft]

What were your sleep issues like?

[smeagull]

I would delay sleeping to 3am, and then need to get up for real life. Over time it became a real sleep debt.

Apologies for the late reply, HN doesn't really notify me

[eurasiantiger]

Methylphenidate is not an amphetamine derivative.

[solarkraft]

Very closely related though, is it not?