The most difficult problem that anyone faces with these disorders is that there are so many people out there trying to make a buck, so it is difficult to know which advice to follow.

I have found that ADD, depression, anxiety, sleep apnoea and hyperglycaemia are all linked.

Depression is often the result of living with undiagnosed ADD, sleep apnoea and anxiety are nearly always present as well. (There is a high prevalence of bulimia, IBS and skin irritations as well.)

Basically it is the dopamine neurotransmitter that is deficient in all these cases. Psycho stimulants are the quickest most effective treatment. SSRI are far less successful and Prozac and Zoloft both have a secondary affect on dopamine and are the more successful of the SSRI. The biggest selling anti-depressant in the US is Wellbutrin—a dopamine agonist. Often psychiatrist use antipsychotics as augmentation strategies, these again are dopamine agonist that are weak and have limited success.

Often people with ADD are diagnosed as bipolar or bipolar 2, which is a real wank. Bipolar 2 means they show some elevated symptoms, when in fact its the scattered nature of ADD they are observing.

Most psychiatrists are conservative dunderheads that are frightened to use psycho stimulants because of stupid fear campaigns initiated against them. Yet I have read hundreds of cases where people have been depressed for 20, 30, 40 years that have used psychostimulants and immediately gone into full remission using psycho-stimulants

I went through 12 years of miss diagnosis and absurd treatments that I knew where wrong. I was telling my doctors I am not bipolar if I was I would tell you, I do want to get better you know. It was I who realized I had ADD and went and sought the help of a specialist. I have only just started treatment I am improving already.

The depletion of dopamine changes your reward system. Not enough glucose is released into the brain so you start craving sugars and carbs which temporarily alleviate the impulse and anxiety, but leads to major problems with hyperglycaemia, which also causes anxiety, depression, agitation, blurred vision and skin irritations.

When you start medication it readjusts you chemical balance and these cravings should dissipate, but stop all sugar, caffeine and only eat complex carbs until you achieve a normal body weight.

If your treatments are failing, insist that psychostimulants be tried, its your life, they do help.

NB One of the most idiotic scare campaigns that I read is that the use of psychostimulants in childhood causes depression in later life. What is happening is that the condition has persisted into adult hood and has not been treated.

All aberrant behaviour is the cause of something being out of wack. CBT and psychotherapy a bloody useless, I personally haven’t met a psychologist that has been anything else but a nutter. They try to make all sorts of absurd tenuous links to child hood problems that didn’t happen or the lack of financial goals I had when I am not interested in money. A friend of mine was told he couldn’t be put on psychostimulants because they has a bad trip on MDMA. These people are dangerous, they get people to believe you can retrain your mind, yeh sure, I decided I wanted to be miserable, stay inside all day and watch life pass me by. All I need is for someone to teach me to be happy.

Medication is essential, as is diet and exercise, which you be able to do when you can focus and think clearly. You level of strength and stamina also improve. Imbalances in neurochemistry affect so many different areas.

Why is the help so lousy, so backward and underfunded? Because of the stupid capitalist system. If the richest 10% of the world population have 69% of the wealth, the top 20% have 75% of the wealth and the bottom 40% have less the 5% of the wealth, where do you think the problem is? Of course the logical thing to do is to hand over trillions of dollars to the richest 10% of the population??

These guys with three step plans are either snake oil salesmen or people with ADHD that just don’t want to take medication—this is not uncommon. I would prefer not to take medication, but it is not an option.

Always use science as your guide. Many clinical tests that are conducted give good clear results that you can use to question your doctor. Don’t ever let them tell you what to do. Take this and come back in a month—three years later you are still at square one.

Very well said Doric and stated in a most articulate way Welcome to the board

Doric, welcome.

I agree with you on the meds and our commonly having a mix of dx's.

I feel a little fear on The part about the money.  I think it is best left in non add topics.  There I'd give an additional perspective.

shall we meet there?