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by 121789 42 days ago
interesting. the meds help me in many ways, but often I still need that activation energy to kick things off
1 comments

>interesting. the meds help me in many ways, but often I still need that activation energy to kick things off

Similar problem here. ADHD meds have different thresholds for allievation of ADHD symptoms and for negative effects.

Usually the bigger the dose, the more symptoms allievated, but the higher the chance of side effects.

In my specific case, methylphenidate had too much side effects, but was the one that helped the most with focus/task prioritization/task recall.

Lisdextroamphetamine on the other hand has much less side effects (sweating, emotional detachment), but doesn't help that much with task recall and prioritization. But still helps with anxiety, emotional deregulation (being too emotional, too fast, over non issues and taking long to calm down) and general focus/working memory.

Funny that people talk here about looking at ADHD more like executive function disorder. Because I first came upon that idea in Thomas E. Browns video seminars. And he wrote a book on that in 2005 - Attention Deficit Disorder: The Unfocused Mind in Children and Adults.

I actually used material from his book, Outside the Box: Rethinking ADD/ADHD in Children and Adults, to help get diagnosed. I already had one negative diagnosis behind me. And in that book Brown has a lot on clinical requirements for diagnosis) and how research data shows that it's wrong.

He also has books on high functioning ADHD+ASD, like Smart but Stuck and ADHD and Asperger Syndrome in Smart Kids and Adults: Twelve Stories of Struggle, Support, and Treatment. Tho the last two are more about using specific cases as examples of how you don't have to be "stupid" to have ADHD. Because to quote the first diagnostician, "you sure do have a lot of ADHD symptoms, but I've never seen anybody with ADHD who has such high scores on the iq tests". Too bad that being good at guessing a pattern in a picture doesn't correspond to life success.