the end of the line | ADHD Information
[QUOTE=6shooter]These ADD medications, do they really help? Are they curative, or just supportive? What about other medications along side the stimulants, like anti-anxiety or SSRIs? Can anyone relate to my first post? In retrospect, I see ADD through out my life, but these days, I don't know what wrong with me. Some of my symptoms I talked about, I just aint sure they aren't a little extreme for ADD? Is it suppose to be this dang bad? I just feel so brain damaged and hopeless and figure I'm not ever going to be able to function 100%.
-6shooter ( Insecure, Neurotic, and Emotional)
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They help most people. Get on meds!
I've finally reached my wit's end. It happened two months ago, after a lifetime of mayhem. Lying on my couch, I flung my laptop into the floor and grabbed my forehead and spit and cussed and rolled around. I had a feeling of fuzziness, lightheadedness, almost like an electrical storm taking place in my lower forehead, it was downright irritating.
From my begining days I've been ADD in the flesh. In my young years, mom was always screaming at me for leaving the faucets running. I would use them, and walk off. Or come into a room to find them running, hours gone by. I left school, I just refused to do anything that required cognitive function. I would sit in class for hours..months.. just staring.. doodling..maintaing an average below 50 in all my general high school studies. Yet, when it came time to take state-mandated assessment testing, I always received some form of academic recognition. Teacher's were concerned. By chance, I developed a heart condition and used that as my scapegoat, leaving public highschool, and enrolled in a local a charter school program. I took my entire junior and senior year as "credit by exam" and completed two years worth of work in about three months. In my young adult years I began having greater difficulties. I would be in the midst of a heated conversation and open my mouth and I would just go blank, unable to get out what I wanted to say, and really not even being able to form the thoughts in my head. Just a black void. The object of my frustrations was able to string together their rebuttles fluentley and really put me in my place. So I started getting a little nervous.
Recently, I yet again left my headlights running on my truck. It's an every-other-day sort of thing. I had to call someone to drive 20 miles in the ice to boost me. I'm glad they left me their battery charger, I left them on again a few hours later and did it again. The longest I've been employed is six months. I just wake up one morning and decide I hate this job and if I can just make it "one more paycheck" then I can leave and sit on my ass and spend my cash until I run out and become dependent on personal loans while I "put out applications".
In the begining I thought of myself as intelligent, as all my instructors and teachers and test administrators had reinforced this belief in me unyieldingly in my childhood. Now, employers speak to me like I'm mentally imparied, slowly, loudly, while other's tell me I'm "scatter-brained" and let me go.
I finally told my doctor what I thinks wrong with me. She hesitated, and sent me for a MRI of the brain. I've got the unremarkabley clear results sitting here in front of me. Cranial nerves 2-12 are intact. Blood work is a-ok.
Somewhere along the way, I began to fear I had some sort of dementia or early-onset Alzheimers in my 20s. I still leave the faucets running, I go to town to get some bread three or four days in a row, and never bring it home. I leave the house and leave everything I need behind. I tell myself five minutes before I leave "remember to take this" and sit it in the path separating me from the door, but somehow manage to neglect it. I read a paragraph, or article, and can't recall what it was about. So I say "Ok, focus" and read it agian, still nothing. I get angry and say "Understand it this time" but can't recall the subject material. When I can read, I skip or miss entire words or phrases or completely misread them. I forget how to pronounce words I've spoken all my life, same goes for spelling. I can't remember all the names of people I see almost daily. I feel overwhelmed so easily, wether it's sorting a few papers of mine or getting out of my truck and ensuring that I get everything out that I need to take with me. Some times unloading the dishwasher seems like a monumental task requiring every ounce of energy and cognitive function I have in me. Cooking leaves me exhausted. I've got bad memory loss. I can't immediately remember how to adjust the water tempature in the shower to make it hotter or colder when I'm in it, it's trial and error. Deciding on what to get to eat on my way home requires me to pull over in a parking lot and aguish to myself for an hour over the choice, but most the time I just sit there and watch the cars whiz by until I remember I have a choice to make. I reverse my words, saying things such as "gas of tank" instead of "tank of gas". I sleep 12 plus hours a day and during my waking hours, sit and stare and think about my problems, eyes out of focus. I'm worn out and I'm getting anxious, and maybe even a little neurotic.
I have a question. Does anyone here having problems remembering their own symptoms? I can't ever remember my symptoms when my doctor asks me. I kick myself after I leave and recall them later. I can't even remember most of them to type here, yet they are the very things that are destroying my quality of life. I'm unemployed again and disappointing all the people I care about, though I have gone back to school. I'm in my second semsester of four, and feel so f**ked up that I can't function well enough to sit through those treacherous four hours a day. These days, anything requring any real mental effort, such as homework, leaves me feeling foggy, lightheaded, detached, and unable to comply. I just shut down.
Insecure in Texas,
6shooter
6shooter39102.86875 Hi ,try to keep a diary of each day of your actions,this will help you to see yourself and help the doctor make a diagnosis.Have a paper and pen handy at all times.
go on web and print off adult check lists ,fill out and give to Dr.
Yes do an online test for ADHD, then do like my husband did....take it and a loved one with you to help explain to the doctor the things that you forget to mention...when he stopped talking, I would prompt him with something else, and that wourl remind him enough to explain it to the doctor. Web MD has a test and there are several others...do a google search.
Good Luck!
Is your doctor a specialist? Howdy,It sure is good to know I'm not entirely alone. My doctor is not a specialist, she is family practice. I've got an HMO so I need referrals to specialists. I explained my ADD concerns to her and left her office with a neurologist referral to evaluate for epilepsy and now an ENT refferal as they found Sphenoid sinus disease and a mucous retention cyst on my MRI. My brain was normal.
Sandra, I'm going to have to make lists. I already make lists about everything, but even when I do, I forget I have them.
Chasesmom, I wish I had a wife, I lost my fiancee in part due to this. +5 for being so supportive to him. I took the WebMD test and scored a 47 or 48.
KIDD.. that makes two of us. If you find someone, hook me up.
Lost, no she's family practice. It's an act of congress to get a psych referral right now.
These ADD medications, do they really help? Are they curative, or just supportive? What about other medications along side the stimulants, like anti-anxiety or SSRIs? Can anyone relate to my first post? In retrospect, I see ADD through out my life, but these days, I don't know what wrong with me. Some of my symptoms I talked about, I just aint sure they aren't a little extreme for ADD? Is it suppose to be this dang bad? I just feel so brain damaged and hopeless and figure I'm not ever going to be able to function 100%.
-6shooter ( Insecure, Neurotic, and Emotional)
ms.mom39103.857037037
[QUOTE=sandradee] Hi ,try to keep a diary of each day of your actions,this will help you to see yourself and help the doctor make a diagnosis.Have a paper and pen handy at all times.
go on web and print off adult check lists ,fill out and give to Dr.
[/QUOTE]
sandradee has a good idea. Thats what I had to do. I saw this dr for several years, and every time I left his office I would realize I forgot to tell him stuff. One time I got so angry I started writing. I kept a pad handy and wrote things down I needed to talk about it. After 3 months I went for my usual 3 month visit to get perscriptions and was able to explain things in a way that made sense even to him. I've since addapted this method to other areas of my life.
PS
if your at your wits end, see if you know anybody thaqt knits them.
HEY!! ANYBODY HERE KNIT-WITS?
[QUOTE=Chach]6Shooter, I'm on these boards trying to understand ADHD and your first post really makes me more sympathetic to my friend with it. I just wanted to thank you for that-you painted a window I otherwise wouldn't have understood, and I send you best wishes and prayers that the meds put your life back on track. [/QUOTE]The greatest enemy for us as ADHD'ers in my opinion, is ignorance. Ignorance leads to all sorts of consequences, because people think we act the way we do out of spite.
6 shooter...it looks like the meds are working. lol
if that is not clear say sao and i'll add.
also, we're kin. i got it like you. hallowell says in book delivered from distraction: we adders make the same mistakes over and over without learning from them. he gives lots of hard earned advice
keep posting pls.
kidd: lol. good on you
Awesome, be patient and track your symptoms.
6Shooter, I'm on these boards trying to understand ADHD and your first post really makes me more sympathetic to my friend with it. I just wanted to thank you for that-you painted a window I otherwise wouldn't have understood, and I send you best wishes and prayers that the meds put your life back on track. Saw doctor, on strattera 60mg and provigil 200mg.Patience!? Heck, sitting at red lights send me into a rage. Doc said Blue Cross Blue Shield won't pay for stimulants or psych. Doc is a neuropsych. Don't know about all that and ain't sure she was being honest or just didn't want to get me hooked. But Strattera is what I got and I plan on making the best of it. Just waitin. I figured ADD has got to be more neuro related than psych. Bullspit.
Happier,
-6shooter
Have you called Blue Cross about your meds? They pay for my generic Adderall.
6shooter,
You asked if anyone could relate to your symptoms. I can relate. As a matter of fact I am very frustrated right now. I am trying to keep myself in order and I am struggling. I have tried to hide my symptoms all my life. My father had less than an ounce of patience and was always jumping down my throat. Most of the time I didn't even know why. In school, I didn't understand why the teachers would make me leave class. They did like me and were nice to me. But I was constantly being told to stop or to leave.
I became good at pretending I was so busy that I forgot things. People understand that. Even though the truth was that I had no excuse for forgetting things.
I relate to a lot of your symptoms but not all of them. I don't leave water running. But I have been known to leave the stove on, or the heater on when I leave the house (dangerous), I also lived in an apartment where the guy across from me would wake me up in the morning and hand me the keys because I kept leaving them on the door knob on the outside. I also forgot to close the garage door and people would come and remind me. I have forgotten my purse somewhere and usually got lucky. But once, someone stole all my credit cards and used them. When my daughter was a toddler I would arrive at work and see her in the back seat sitting in her car seat as I got out of the car...forgot to drop her off at daycare. I go to get something at the store and have to keep going for days because I forget. Honestly, my daughter is my other brain. When she was four, she would ask, "Did you pay the electric bill?" How pathetic is that?
But I also do the hyper focusing thing. I also can't sit still too long and feel wired all the time. But my brain is tired at the same time, or racing. I bite my nails, and it's hard to read without re-reading sentences over and over. If I read outloud, I can get through a paragraph, but I forget what I read, because my mind wanders. And I could go on.
Unfortunately, I finally got to see a psychiatrist and he barely heard me. He just gave me a phone number to call and set up a diagnosis appointment. It will be in March when I get tested. I don't even know what to expect on the testing.
I sure wish I didn't have to wait. Now that I am finally trying to get help, the process takes forever. Meanwhile, I risk all sorts of things.
I am glad that you are now a bit happier. I wish I felt some relief. I have been trying to get this diagnosed and treated since December.
I hope your medicine will help you. I read here that there are a lot of people it helps. I wish I could get help faster.
By the way, I like your name. 
Even'n. I'm going to call those people at my insurance company, but I figure I'll ride out Strattera for a few weeks and see how it does me.
Ricochet, that makes 2 of us. I do the heater, keys, wallet, but no kiddos. My thinkin is the all the stress I got on my back right now is just making my symptoms a whole lot worse. Know what I mean jelly bean? I didn't have to take a diagnosis test, just told the doc what's been going on and did a neurological exam. Hope you got good insurance. I guess we're all a little nuts.
-6shooter
I need off strattera, I'm having adverse psychiatric reactions to this dang pill. I'm in a rage I want to punch walls I've been hurting my loved ones emotionally I'm planning ways to kill myself and make it look like an accident, but it helps me focus, just enough to keep functioning in this rage. I called the neuro/psych and told her and she said just to take it with food and keep taking it so I called my family doctor, she had a panic attack and told me to breathe and go check myself into the psych ward and tell them I was losing it. That's it! f**k you new job, quit it. f**k school, quit that too, go get yourself locked up son. I called my other family doctor I saw once he wont see me until wednesday and he's a DO so I don't know what he'll be willing to do. I was fine, I couldn't focus, I had memory problems, I'm a young man, I took this sh*t and here I am like this.. I only wanted Adderall to begin with. SHe knew that. Now maybe I want Lexapro or prozac with some adderall to get me out of this funk and back into my life. THey pass out antidepressants like they are candy to tens of millions and I can't even get one. I'm was denied Adderall because the psych didn't like it and denied the treatment I needed, she had a responsibility to treat me, it is her duty to address a condition which she has diagnosed me with and not deny me the treatment I need based on her personal beliefs about a stimulant drug. Now I'm f**king ANGRY. My doctors are useless asses,, I drove around my county roads aimlessly teeth grinding eyes out of focus white knuckled thinking about jerking the wheel into every car I pass but I tell myself no one deserves death or injury because of me so I tell myself to wrap it around a utility pole. I'm getting worn the f**k out and tired of all the automated responses people give me like I suggest you talk to your healthcare provider. I don't want your automated suggestions I just want to f**king connect and communicate with another human being since I can't do it with my worthless healthcare providers. I don't need a f**king hotline. I was fine now I'm getting damn irritated and damn provoked and I'm just trying to get off this drug before I wind up like a dog in a ditch. 6shooter39118.902650463