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November 19, 2012 at 5:53 am in reply to: How do I eliminate the heightened sexual desires side effect? #117372
When I first started taking Adderall, it was very quickly obvious that I could focus on whatever I wanted to, and that without some direction this might not be good. I’ve read that a lot of people make sure that they launch into their “to do” list straight away after taking their medication for that reason.
I think this is why many people would benefit from either therapy and guidance from an ADHD therapist, or to focus on a better understanding of the disorder, and how they might use medication effectively. It’s crazy that so many doctors will make the diagnosis, prescribe stimulant medication and say “see ya”.
When you first start using stimulants for ADHD, you have a chance to make changes. If the medication is working, you can tackle those task that have been so hard to do. Make the list, and act on it before you get distracted.
REPORT ABUSENovember 16, 2012 at 7:38 pm in reply to: Amphetamine Tolerance, specialist wants to try concerta or similar #117363After taking Adderall for three months I found it was no longer having the same effect. I was also getting palpitations, and my blood pressure was increasing. In fact my ADHD symptoms were even worse. It now appears that I was magnesium deficient. Two months of Mg supplements, switching to drinking hard water, diet changes, and taking a high B6 multivitamin have made all the difference. Even so, my blood serum Mg is only just at the bottom of the normal range.
I believe I had been Mg deficient before; I had started to suffer some pseudogout after being on a diuretic for hypertension. I have read that stimulants do cause the body to use up more Mg.
REPORT ABUSEDefinitely talk to your doctor. The dose may be too high, and I think some drs start people on higher doses, rather than working up to a the therapeutic dose.
Some form of relaxation response exercises/therapy can help with the blood pressure. Despite doing RR exercises, I had problems with BP, and after a few months of taking Adderall. It now appears that I was magnesium deficient. Several weeks of Mg supplements and vitamins (esp B6) have taken care of the problem. People with ADHD are Mg deficient as a baseline. Stimulants, diuretics, and some other drugs can make this worse.
REPORT ABUSEI’m beginning to realize how lucky I have been over the years. Mostly I have been the person in charge and have had free reign.
Being a union electrician is probably a good job for someone with ADHD. Most foremen give the electricians smaller projects within the greater project. Within the specifications the electricians are generally allowed to do their own thing. The level of competency of union electricians allows this to work. Micro managing is frowned upon. Some industrial projects are micro managed for safety reasons, and I always avoid them.
REPORT ABUSEAs I understand it, magnesium stearate is just a binder in many pills and is not very bio available. Some worry that it reduces the bio availability of whatever else is the pill.
REPORT ABUSEChewing gum is an accommodation that schools in the US allow for kids with ADHD.
On another note, PICA is normally associated with iron deficiency, but can also be an indication of mineral deficiency.
REPORT ABUSEOne possible link is magnesium deficiency. Studies have found Mg deficiency in most children with ADHD. I think it’s assumed adults are the same. So far there is only one study looking at Mg/B6 supplementation for kids with ADHD, but the results were promising.
Mg deficiency is common with asthma and migraine sufferers.
Ali, do you live in a soft water area like Cornwall.
REPORT ABUSEA word on posture. Saying “sit with good posture” is really only half the story. It’s a chicken and egg problem. Good posture requires little effort. The skeletal frame hold you up. The body’s muscles simply work to maintain balance, and are really quite relaxed.
I think it’s hard to have true good posture until you know what relaxed muscles feel like. It’s an alien concept to most of us because we are never taught to relax. This is another reason why I like PMR. It teaches you how to relax muscles, and what relaxed muscles feel like. With practice, you begin to notice very quickly if there are tensions in your body throughout the day. When we sit or stand with poor posture, there are always muscles working hard somewhere in your body.
Being aware of, and having control over the muscular tensions in your body not only helps with posture. More importantly, the mind body connection means that stress in the mind causes stress in the body, and vice versa. In a stressful situation, it may be hard to clear the racing thoughts in your mind, but you can more easily relax the tensions in you body. The mind then tends to follow the body’s lead and becomes calmer.
REPORT ABUSEThat’s a great tip Robbo. Google always works better than a web sites own search function.
Relaxation Response is the term that Herbert Benson applied to a state of deep relaxation brought about by a deliberate process. In that state, both the body and the mind are relaxed. It can be achieved via a mental process, a mostly physical process, or a combination.
The relaxation Response can be thought of as the opposite of a panic attack. The chemistry of the stressed body and mind is brought back to normal.
Meditation, yoga, and relaxation techniques like Progressive Muscle Relaxation require learning and practicing mental focus. The core practice is of focusing on something like the breath, becoming distracted by a thought, and then mindfully bringing the focus back to the breath. This can happen many times, and it’s thought that this is especially beneficial to people with ADHD.
Meditation takes a good deal of practice, but you don’t have to sit a funky position to do it. Sitting with good posture in a chair works just as well. Progressive Muscle Relaxation is best learned lying down, PMR is easier to learn because there is a physical reaction to each step, which helps to hold your focus.
Transcendental meditation is similar, but with a single focus.
There are long term changes in the brain that come with regular meditation.
Being determined to find twenty minutes a day quite time is the biggest hurdle.
REPORT ABUSESadly, most people believe what they want to believe. If people relied only on evidence, religion would be in tail spin decline, trickle down economics would only be found in history books, and ADHD would be an accepted fact.
It’s a weird world.
REPORT ABUSEIf he is giving you the try hard lecture, he has no clue about ADHD. You are right, go elsewhere.
REPORT ABUSENovember 3, 2012 at 3:37 am in reply to: how do you called a person who is seeing a number, but it is another one ? #117210I have suffered this problem over the years. As an electrician it’s almost stopped my heart sometimes when I’ve realized I’ve installed the wrong size conduit and now the proper size wire won’t fit in it. Most of the time I have been an electrical foreman running large projects. This gives me time to double check my calculations, or print reading. Even so, sometimes I get the wrong number in my head, and all the outside lights around a project are 6 inches lower than on the plan. then I’m in mad panic checking all the different prints to see if there is a coordination issue, and stressing over someone noticing.
No wonder we suffer from so much anxiety.
All I can suggest is accepting that you can not rush when reading drawings, and double checking as a matter of course . I find that it’s mainly when I’m rushing (on autopilot) that these mistakes occur.
REPORT ABUSEA conscientious doctor would want to rule out OSA with a sleep study. Obstructive Sleep Apnea can cause ADD like symptoms, or compound existing ADD symptoms. So I wouldn’t fault him for that.
Stimulant meds are just a part of improving quality of life for ADDers. There are therapies, and skills that can be learned. Perhaps if you explored these with your doctor, he might be more willing to prescribe a stimulant.
REPORT ABUSEForget your psychologist friend. It’s sad that people like that are in a position to screw with people’s lives professionally. If you have ADHD, there are physical differences between your brain and most other people’s brains. These differences make it harder for you to do certain things, or behave in a certain way. Your friend would have you believe, that this is all your fault, and if you just sorted your self out, everything will be fine. This is the reason so many of us with ADHD have issues with self esteem, and guilt. Doesn’t sound like a psychologist I would trust.
ALID, You have a lot of reading to do. If you are right, and you and your son do have ADHD, you will need to make informed decisions on diagnosis, medication, therapy, and lifestyle changes. Understand that ADHD is a spectrum disorder, or even part of a group of related disorders, and no two people present the same.
Unless there is some urgent need, I wouldn’t rush into anything. Once you start to understand all the issues, then look for a diagnosis. There is no definitive test (like a blood test). So as you will soon start to appreciate, even choosing where to get a diagnosis needs to be an informed decision.
Good luck.
REPORT ABUSEI don’t say that I never interrupt, but I’m generally good at reading the conversation. Having said that, I do have a new awareness of my impulse to speak since I started working on mindfulness. I find that there is definitely an emotion, or feeling associated with impulsiveness. Recognizing that feeling, helps to rein in the auto-pilot response to a thought.
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