Ritalin and the adventures of PigMonkey

[pigmonkey]

I. Don’t. Like. Pills.

I grew up with a hippy for a mom and got most of my medicine from our food or the garden.  Growing up hospital trips were reserved for severe bleeding and broken limbs.  It had given me a hardy immune system, and more than a few wicked childhood scars.  It has also make me strongly distrust pills.  I have been watching the pill world for some time now.  It seems to me that pills are made to pound an illness into submission.  Like using a 15 lb sledgehammer to mount a picture nail.  It will work, but there is going to be a lot of fall out.

So what does this have to do with this?  About two weeks ago, I got Ritalin.  Here it is, I’ll rattle the bottle for you.  You will have to take my word for it.  This bottle of amphetamines remains unopened.  It’s really irritating to admit, but I am really unnerved by this bottle of blue pharmaceutical grade attention.

It has been… hard to be me. I am not whining, and honestly I am pretty sure everyone ADHD or not feels it is hard to be them. That I am sure is the human condition, however as I have only ever been one human I cannot confirm or deny that hypothesis.  Regardless, I spent the last 40 years of my life justifying who I was and how I was to the world.  Constantly fighting people who just could not understand that as much as I would like to be washing dishes in an efficient and speedy manner for an 8 hour shift, I cannot.  Not for lack of trying, but hey, everyone gets their weights to carry around.  I got mine at the start of life, so I have a lot of practice carrying it.  I have had to defend aspects of my personality from friends and family.  That is the hardest bit, when the people who care about you and support you make friendly suggestions on how you can cope.  I know they mean well, but it is like suggesting that you can stop coughing fits by not breathing.  In theory, a solid solution, in practice fundamentally flawed.  I don’t blame people, they can’t know.

So I have a Ritalin bottle, filled with happy, welcoming blue pills.  It says “take one tablet twice daily.”  I would have liked to have more choices in medication (see sledgehammer) but when you have no medical plan your choices are somewhat limited.

It is going to happen, today probably.  I have to clean the house…. like, badly.  Its spring too, good time to all the hairballs the cat left in dark little corners.  I doubt the medication does anything to curb my overdeveloped sensitivity of reverse peristalsis.

I suppose the crux is, I have fought long and hard to be me all this time, and taking medication seems like giving up.  Saying the world was right I am broken, and this will fix me.  I have two issues with that: I am not broken I’m different, and nothing will ‘fix’ me even if I were.

We’ll see what happens.  Cause in the end, that is all we can do.

 

PigMonkey

“Don’t let reality dictate your ability, Let your ability dictate reality.”

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[MarieAngell]

So, @PigMonkey, I get it. I’m on the other side of the pill hill and glad I climbed that mountain. You’ve had 40 years of trying. So you know high you have to climb and you just. Haven’t.  Quite. Made. It. You need some oomph. Ritalin might be the oomph. Not magic, but oomph. An aid.

You’re 40. Pretty soon, if not already, you’re going to need reading glasses. You won’t want to. But you’ll do it so you can see.

Take the damn Ritalin.

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[Robbo]

Really good post @pigmonkey, and I’m with you in how you feel about taking the Ritalin. In fact I was taking it something like a year and a half ago. Stopped, and I’m really suffering now because I stopped. I won’t blame the failed relationship I recently gave up on, on my ADD, or the fact that I stopped taking the Ritalin. But it’s a big factor.

I guess it’s really a matter of weighing the negative side effects against the positive.  I would have to say that it’s not likely the gal I’ve been hanging out with would want to hang out with me if I did go back on the Methylphenidate (generic Ritalin). But it’s likely that I would handle all the negative crap I say about me inside my head better. I noticed the stuff did slow down my fast moving brain quite a bit. It was big a relief.

It just messed with my pride problem a lot, needing to take psyche meds… It’s possibly the same thing you’re going through. I feel like I’m a flawed human being. But we all are.  Not just us ADDers, but humanity as a whole.

Fortunately for the folks in this camp. TotallyADD. An important piece of our puzzle has been found. I’ve been saying the “meds are about 15% of the solution” for quite some time, but I know it can be much more for some folks.

I hope you decide to give it a try. Consider it guinea pig duty. Or maybe guineapigmonkey duty better yet!. The stuff does wear of in about 2 to 5 hours depending on lot’s of other things. So it’s really not a huge gamble to eat one a couple times a day for a while. Till you have a chance to really look at it from more than just a couple of the perspectives that come along in your ADD brain.

Let us know how it works out for you. There’s not a lot of dudes in this forum, so I’m gonna just encourage you to keep on coming around. I got helped by your sharing, so thanks.

Now that I’m back into the fast track of single-hood. I’ll have more time to come back and probably goof off too much here.

fair warning you guys… :-D~

Peace.

R-

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[pigmonkey]

So I took one today.  Around 10:30.  Just one 10 mg pill.  I must have stared at it for a good five minutes before I washed it back with a mouthful of cold tea.  Not iced tea mind you, just the stuff that was left in the pot from the morning.

Things I noticed.

Chills- probably psychosomatic though, but I did get the chills several times today.

Nausea- Only slightly, but I know the feeling of needing to blow my gut horn and I have been swallowing it all day.

Aside from that, Nothing, Zip, Zilch, Nada, Nil….. eh… some other word that escapes me.  Now some of the things may have mitigating circumstances.  One, I practiced Kung Fu for two hours immediately after taking the pill.  As for the nausea, I have not eaten anything today.  It only occurred to me about an hour ago.  I am hoping that settles my stomach.

and I still need to clean the house. Stupid house.

PigMonkey

“Madness is best consumed in small doses”

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[Mary]

Things that make me go _____ !

“But it’s likely that I would handle all the negative crap I say about me inside my head better.”
Yes

“Stupid House”
HELL Yes

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[allan wallace]

G’day pigmonkey!

I hope that your meds were helpful! They’re not a magical formula that will dramatically transform your life, they’re just another tool to give you some respite from the chaos 🙂 Good luck with the process, and I’ve really enjoyed reading your posts! Your observations are delicious 🙂

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[pigmonkey]

Day 2… pill 3

First thanks for responding and reading, I appreciate it.  I know I am not the most grammatically correct person in the world so I appreciate your patience.

Pill went down (with a mouth full of gourmet cola this time… fancy shit)  Honestly I have not noticed a huge difference.  Now, I am not a small guy and these are 10 mg pills.  That said I am not going to screw around with the dosage.  Ill let the doctors do the screwing (wording brain, bad bad bad).    Again I exercise in the morning (after the pillocalypse) so that may have some effect.  Mostly I notice how it makes me the littlest bit nauseous, right now I am chalking that up to nerves.

The second one I took around 1pm, about an hour before I had an important meeting with a potential venue for my show.  Thank god I have surrounded my self with people more competent than I.  John kept me on track, but the venue inspired me with a litany of ideas. Which promptly became vocalized ideas.  Not really helpful, but the booking agent took it well.  When you are used to dealing with Bands and crazy artists, a PigMonkey and a short attention span probably just goes to brain voicemail.

Any how, Day three tomorrow.  However I have to day, have not really noticed a difference.

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[Patte Rosebank]

@Pigmonkey, it sounds like you have the extra hurdle of trying to change the beliefs that you’ve held for a lifetime.  That’s really a tricky one.

It helps me to try to think of it as a case of just another organ that needs a little help to produce & use the hormones that it should be able to produce & use on its own, but can’t.

I have Type-2 Diabetes.  My pancreas can’t produce enough insulin on its own for my body to function properly, so I need to take Metformin & Gliclazide to help it to do that.

I also have ADHD.  My brain can’t produce enough dopamine (and some other hormones) on its own for my brain & body to function properly, so I need to take Concerta to help it to do that.

It’s not a failure or a weakness to need that extra help.  It’s just the way things are.  You do what you have to do, so your body can function better.  It’s not good; it’s not bad; it just IS.

(At least, that’s what works for me.)

 

There’s some great information in the “Medications” videos in the Video section: http://totallyadd.com/medications.  Maybe they’ll reassure you, by answering your questions.

And Attention Talk Video has  a video called “How Do You Know If Your ADHD Meds Are Working?” (http://youtu.be/ob21D16FeNA).  In it, Dr. Charles Parker explains what meds can and can’t do, and the criteria for you and your doctor to determine the right med & dose for you.

It’s answered a lot of my own questions!

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[Scattybird]

Hey  Pigmonkey – thanks for sharing your journey into medication.

I presume it’s the fast acting, short duration pills you’re on?

It took me about a year to get the dose right.  In the end I decided that a 10 mg pill every 2 hours was best for me (with a maximum dose of 60 mg per 24 h, so think about optimising the timings). That keeps me levelled and less impulsive and fiery. If I want to really focus I take 20 mg three times a day.

Sometimes I don’t think it’s doing anything. I don’t feel a real difference – it’s not like a lightening bolt and I’m suddenly a different person.  The difference built up over time as I performed at work better the benefits started to build, so the benefits were additive. But it took me a while to work that out.

Over the last couple of weeks my blood pressure has shot up and as a result I am not taking my Ritalin. This is where I notice that the meds were actually doing something good. So whilst on it, I didn’t particularly see what it did, but now I am off it, I most certainly do see what it did.

I had forgotten how before Ritalin I fidgeted,  how I feel like there’s a volcano in my gut when I sit still but when I move to do something I can’t be bothered, how my brain buzzes non stop…….but you know, I quite like having my free-flowing brain back again. There’s something ‘alive’ about having a brain that bounces.  Also, my memory is better when off the meds  – not  in terms of remembering my keys or appointments (forget all that!), but in terms of remembering stuff that I can use to develop ideas.

On saying that, my work productivity has gone down since I stopped the Ritalin, I misread an email and turned up to an important meeting two days late……and on it goes……so I am just praying my BP goes down so I can take it again.

So……stick with it Pigmonkey and give it a few weeks before you make a judgement.

 

 

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[pigmonkey]

Thank you all for your encouragement.

I have very good friends.  You have to in order to survive. Mine have agreed to treat me as an experiment.  This is something that I am pretty sure they are taking secret (and in one case not so secret) glee in. I know I will not really notice the changes I undergo on medication, using my brain to observe my brain is at best subject to some seriously sewed results. So, my dear and helpful friends have volunteered been pressed into forced service to make sure I dont go normal. Really, normal is one of my greatest worries.  I am not taking meds to be normal, I am taking meds to be productive.  If I go normal, the meds go in the toilet. (muns are slow and so boring, I’d rather be dead than boring.) So there is the norm watch among my friends, if I start to act weird, which granted is probably the opposite of weird for me, they will intervene. Got to have friends, no man is an island, no woman is a peninsula.

Losing my brain bounce is precisely what I am afraid of. I love to watch the world, not in a biology kind of way, more like an old man on a bench. I am constantly looking around taking in the things going on around me, colours, shapes, movement, sounds, conversations (especially when they are not mine) are all so stimulating. It is difficult to focus sure, but it is FUN to be me.  Some times I wonder how people allow them selves to live in such tiny ideas.  There is a plethora of possibilities in the world, and even more in your imagination. the only thing I cant imagine is giving that up.  I want to be productive, I just refuse that it be at the expense of myself.

I dont know what kind of meds they are, save for 10mg ritalin.  I dont think they are working, which I’m not sure is a good or bad thing.  I am trying it, not daily cause, well honestly I forget, or I’m resistant.

I have long contended that there is nothing wrong with me, I dont need extra help, as a general rule, I need extra time.  I assume ADHD has been around as long as human kind. There was no ritalin in bronze age Europe, and if it is true and ADHD is genetic then I am living proof that early humans did all right.  Nothing is simple, except the stuff that is.

That is it for today, thank you all for your feed back and interest.  I apprecate your input, more brains are a better thing.

Cheers,

PigMonkey.

“When ever the world turns upside down, stand on your head.”

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[Patte Rosebank]

Ah, but in Bronze Age Europe, most people woke up with the sun, ate when they felt hungry, and went to bed when night fell.  And their work was all physical:  hunting, gathering, etc.

The imposition of an artificial (man-made) time-keeping system, and the rise of non-physical work, screwed us over.  And the Industrial Revolution, which made humans slaves to the clock and the machinery, REALLY screwed us over, because humans (and, indeed ALL animals) are organic creatures, who are governed by Nature’s clocks.

When you impose arbitrary, man-made systems (including trying to reduce productivity and creativity to mathematical formulae & criteria), you go completely against human nature.  It’s like trying to force cats to walk upright!

Boy, for a species that’s supposed to be the smartest one on the planet, humans sure are stupid!

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[Patte Rosebank]

(Present company excepted, of course!)

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[Wgreen]

Time. Now that’s an interesting subject. And the relationship between time and productivity is perhaps even more interesting. Time is not arbitrary. Productivity, like, say, velocity, is a function of time——how much work per hour; how many feet per second. Without some concrete notion of time, productivity could not even be defined. Nor gravity for that matter. Those of us in the “West” perfected the notion of productivity based upon a keen awareness of time. While people around the world have always used the sun and moon to give them some notion of time of day, month, and season, clocks have made it possible to synchronize our lives. Today we organize our daily routines around clocks——time to get up, time to take a medication, time to eat, time to work, time to watch a certain program(me) on TV, time for a meeting, time to catch a train or plane, etc. After accurate timekeeping became possible, punctuality became de rigueur in the West. Not so much in some other cultures. Is it not interesting that the West, which became enamoured of the clock centuries ago, also became extremely productive. And perhaps it’s no coincidence that ADDers’ inability to synchronize their lives with the time requirements of others (especially an inability to organize towards the future) lies at the root of so many of their problems.

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[Patte Rosebank]

For some people, “Time” is just a really crappy West End musical that Laurence Olivier was in.

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[creativeonein]

To PigMonkey and All,

The meds do not make you “normal” in the normal sense. They help you focus and keep track of life. My experience is that Adderall helped me tremendously! It did not just morph me into normal/boring. My artistic side actually went crazy wild. I created more art, more interesting art, more bold art than I ever have in my life! And I love it when my right brain takes over. That is who I REALLY am. The meds did help me at my 9-5 job. And the reality is since I need a regular paycheck, I need to be on my game at work as well. I am much more productive at work now and my communications skills have been elevated too. I’m sure my associates are not sure who they are talking to these days when they meet with me. And my right brain offers the most creative ideas for solving problems at work too. So I am happy, though exeriencing some sleep loss. But I love the REAL ME. I no longer like or want the OLD ME. I call this Pam 2.0.  Just keep trying to find a solution that works for you. It may take some time finding the right doctor and meds. There are several meds available and each works differently for everyone. Though I know it comes down to are you able/willing to stay where you have been for years or do you really want to discover something different about you and your life, and the possibility of an improved version of yourself? Good luck to you all as you make the decisions that are right for you.

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