Re: Taking Adderall, seems to help, but have questions

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As I have stated in previous posts, Adderall seems to have been tailor made for my brain. Life is so much better with it than with out it. Everyone who knows me, will say the same thing.

My psychiatrist prescribed a number of different medications, before we found the one that worked. This took patience, which is not something ADD people are known for. There were several “traits” I needed to work around. Any medication I took, was successful if it reduced these symptoms to a level where I could recognize them for what they were and take steps to correct.

Impulse control: I constantly interrupted people in conversation, because I had the answer and had moved on to the next 5 problems, nobody was looking at. Very frustrating to all of us because most of the time nobody had a clue what I was talking about.

Hyperfocus: I would work on one thing to the exclusion of everything else, and resurface wondering where the last 3 days went. Sometimes my work would wonder where **I** went the last 3 days.

Lack of focus: I would start projects both at work and at home and not complete them. frustrating my wife, but causing real performance problems in the workplace.

Inattentiveness: I would “zone” out after getting bored to tears in meetings and conversations, and miss key information that would help me later on in the workday or carry on a coherent conversation in a social situation.

Forgetfullness: Working memory is what we use like a computer uses RAM. If a computer runs out of RAM, it pages out inactive memory to cache. When we run out of “RAM”, things go missing, things get forgotten, and things have to be repeated until they sink in. I have a hard time remembering small things and things people have told me in conversation. It is nice, when I am watching a movie, because I enjoy it now, and in a couple weeks, I can see the movie again and enjoy it all over again, because I don’t remember seeing Large portions of the movie. This drives myself and those around me crazy, when the missing bits of information are the bits I need to complete a task.

When I was trying medications, I looked at these symptoms as being the worst of the worst. Each drug and each formulation, I took, I compared against the symptoms, and how well the drug would help me work through them. I would take detailed notes and have my wife do the same. Each medication would work on some of the symptoms to varying degrees. Adderall worked on the most with the smallest dosage and experienced side effects.

We were very scientific about it and blew the Psycaitrist away when we would present our findings. How does this fit your situation?

GET SPECIFIC WITH YOUR DOCTOR. Take notes. Discuss what you want to accomplish with the meds and show the doc how they are or are not working for your situation. Talk to the doc and let them know what is going on with you.

I fired two doctors, before finding one that was willing to listen to me and how I wanted to be treated for ADD. We went through 7 different drugs and many different dosages and formulations.

Hope this helps

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