Psychosomatic? | ADHD Information

I have been taking my meds for 51/2 weeks now and have noticed a vast improvement in myself, although for the first few days i noticed nothing but as my dose was increased it became better. What i would like to know is, are my meds actually working as they seem to be or is it psychosomatic on my behalf? I have noticed this last week or so that some of the behaviour and ......mannerisms(????) that i was originally diagnosed for arebeginning to happen again, although nowhere near to the same degree as before. Such as yesterday i drove all the way into town and by the time i got there i couldnt remember why i went (still dont,lol). but as i said this was almost atwice daily occurrence just a few short weeks ago. I have always expected not to have the "magic pill" but for a few weeks, for me at least it seemed that I had found one, I am just a bit concerned that maybe it is all in my mind . I'd appreciate any input and welcome your suggestions. Thanks

frootloop,

Is it possible that it felt so good to you to be able to focus that you were also trying a bit harder than you are now? Possibly even you were still putting the same strategies and the same amount of effort in to play which you had used before meds without realizing it.

Even people without ADD have to have strategies in place to remember things, etc. It may be as simple as learning new strategies to go with your new ability to focus. Subconsciously you may have realized you didn't need to fight constantly to stay on top of things and now you need to find the right balance.

There is also the possibility that you need to have your meds adjusted and you will remember better afterwards. My theory is that its a bit of both.

I know that the first time I went on a med for ADD (Concerta), the improvement was so great that I felt like I was walking on air! What it was is that I may have been functioning at 20% of my capacity and after popping a little pill I was functioning at 65% of my capacity (just arbitrary numbers for the sake of example).

But after a while I realized that at 65% of my capacity I still lost things and still forgot meetings, etc., just not as much.

So now I realize that the meds allow me to concentrate enough that I can start to work on coping strategies to help close the gap between the 65% and 100%. I don't know if I will ever get to 100%, but it is so much better than where I was at.

oh yes chaz..

i feel the same way. i'm very resistant to increasing my 20 mg. adderall xr..even though that is a low dose. i figure, for myself, that i must must learn as you say chaz, to decrease the gap btwn 64% to 100 % as you say...

when i first got on the wellbutrin and adderall i was like a whirlwind of productivity.

i set up this organization of shelves in my closet. i folded all my piles of clothes and laundry. (that is monumental) i organized out of season clothes in underbed storage. i raised my bed and my guest bedroom bed to maximize space... i cleaned everything in my house, baseboards, floors, walls, dusted, vacuumed , washed windows and cleaned the coffee pot for my husband( i never did the coffee stuff for him. i hated that.) it was as if all my despair over my inability to organize and clean my home to the state that i truly desired, now that i had some way of seeing my way through it i needed to do it ALL. i felt so gratified! it is so ridiculous..but i had struggled so much with my childhood perception of 'clean' and what i could actually do in real life. my mother is a clean freak and so am i. i remember getting in trouble for having dust underneath my bed..and feeling so horrible b/c when she asked me to clean my room all i could do was shove piles of stuff in my closet willy nilly. she would open the closet and all the stuff would fall out and she was awfully and angrily amazed at my inability to uphold her korean standards of cleaning. it must of been my american blood.

sumi

I think Barb's theory sounds good.  There is also the possibility that you may just need a bit higher dosage of the med you are on.  There have been several posts here that state they have great results for the first several weeks then the results slacken a bit.  Could just be your body getting used to the med.