[fsociety]

I guarantee that you took Adderall IR, and a higher dose than those typically prescribed by a doctor. It’s like slamming back 10 cups of espresso instead of sipping one over a day. And then judging people who drink a coffee a day.

Slow release and a therapeutic dose is significantly different than slamming back meds in school like that. Therapeutic dose means you can’t even tell you took the med, until you either stop or look back at the day and record how much you were able to achieve.

Yes, some doctors are bad and calculate a dosage based on weight or other arbitrary means. Good doctors and psychiatrists start you on the lowest dose and slowly titrate you up based on DSM guidelines.

Lastly, medication for ADHD is something that makes all the actual effective treatments do-able. It’s a first step not a crux.

[samtho]

> Lastly, medication for ADHD is something that makes all the actual effective treatments do-able. It’s a first step not a crux.

This is a nuance that is lost on a lot of people. Medication needs to be taken in conjunction with re-learning how to study/organize/prioritize. This actually allows for new neuro-pathways to be forged and reinforced in the brain, which actually fixes many of the negative effects of ADHD, lessening the need for medication over time for many people. This effect is easy to observe in children because their brains are still extremely very plastic, but it also causes people to question why we need to prescribe medication if kids just end up “growing out of it”.