[adastra22]

Thank you for you sympathy and empathetic response. Your son's in good hands.

As an ADHDer, I never understood what it was like for others until I got treatment with stimulants. It's like I can just take this magic pill and for 8 hours I'm "normal."

I wish there was an opposite pill, one which made people inattentive and impulsive. Then everyone else could try it for a day or two and see how debilitating it is. Regular, everyday life is like being falling-down drunk in terms of mental incapacitation, and the pills for the first time let us experience life sober.

Edit: how old is your son now? One thing I worry about as a parent of an ADHDer as well is her eating. I've so far avoided treatment for her because I'm worried she'll eat less and her growth will be stunted. We're cautiously waiting on medication until post-puberty.

[citilife]

> I wish there was an opposite pill, one which made people inattentive and impulsive.

I suggest you have someone sleep 4 hours a night for a week. You'll often see the same symptoms as someone with ADHD.

[Taywee]

My son is 9 now. We only started him on medication this year (we were trying so hard to get it under control without medication, and his doctor was worried about his weight if we put him on the stimulants). Getting him to eat is a challenge, but it always was anyway and he's always been pretty skinny. Fortunately, he loves milk, so we can always get some calories and protein in him that way. We get a low-carb full-fat milk so his sugar intake isn't crazy high.

[adastra22]

Thanks for replying. Which meds? Do you have off days?

[Taywee]

Dextroamphetamine. Worked great for a few months, but have lessened in effectiveness. Now it still works for focus, but the impulsiveness came back (he was actually able to explain to me that he was having trouble controlling his actions), so he's now on guanfacine too, for impulse control.

We do a couple off days now and then, but not a lot because he feels like it's a wasted day because he can't focus on anything he really wants to. I suggested that he could take weekends off the stimulant, but he says he'd rather be able to operate mostly every day than to have a more focused week and completely wasted weekend, and I feel like he's capable of making that decision for himself.

[Auracle]

Ironically, the opposite pill for me is Adderall. I take stimulants for idiopathic hypersomnia and if I take too high of a dose I have a hard time concentrating on just one thing.

I don’t think it gets as bad as ADHD but I definitely get a taste of it.