Re: Undiagnosed ADHD and heart attacks……???

[Patte Rosebank]

Sounds a lot like my situation.

My mom and I are both Type-2 diabetic. We both feel strongly compelled to overeat, especially the wrong things like high-carb, high-fat junk food. She has many symptoms of ADHD, and so do I. Though I’ve at least acknowledged that I have it and am researching it and seeking treatment. She’s acknowledged that she thinks she has it, but is not pursuing any sort of treatment.

She’s on medication for diabetes (Metformin), high cholesterol (Cholestyremene), high blood pressure, and some other things. She had a triple bypass about 12 years ago.

She’s often said that certain that the stress of what she was going through in the years just before the bypass (and that includes radiation and surgery for breast cancer) contributed to both the cancer and the need for the bypass. Her mind has always been all over the place, and she shows signs of compulsiveness and impulsivity. I’ve also always been the same, but I seem to be more aware of it and more keen to get treatment.

Let’s face it, if you’re craving all the wrong foods, and under high stress (which causes your body to overproduce adrenaline and cortisol, which makes your body store a lot of fat in the abdomen), and this goes on for long enough, you’ll end up obese, with insulin resistance that develops into diabetes. Being obese, you’ll develop high blood pressure, blocked arteries, and other things that will require open-heart surgery to repair. It’s all related.

I must point out here that, just knowing all this isn’t enough to make most of us give up our unhealthy ways. In fact, it usually makes us feel worse, and the only way to fix that is to eat something high in carbs and/or fat to make ourselves feel better. Some scientists have even said it’s a true addiction because we feel compelled to eat things that cause the brain to release feel-good hormones like dopamine. And we crave that dopamine like a junkie craves his next fix.

REPORT ABUSE