Hi, trackgirl 166 and welcome. You have found a good site! First, just wanted to let you know that I'm a mom of older children, so I'm really not at the same place as you in life/just an "onlooker" as a mom of young people, but if you don't mind, I can make a few suggestions.
You said you talked to your parents about a psychologist, which is good, and hopefully, you can get an appointment in the near future, just so you can explore what's going on (you're a smart young woman). Second, if you have not already, be sure to express to your parents what you're telling us about the medications. As you probably know, your prescribing physician would be able to help to determine if you need medication adjustments.
I empathize with you and other young people. There are a lot of pressures and demands and it can be overwhelming to juggle everything. not to mention to just deal with the changes you face as a teenager! My son, ADHD, 16, is facing a lot of challenges and I do feel for him. Lots of times he goes one step ahead and two steps behind and that is said not to be critical of him but just as an observation of how his life is going! You are one step ahead of the game by behind educated about ADHD, insightful, and willing to make changes! Kudos to you, and I really wish you luck with finding a medication regimen that works. Keep us posted.
I am going to be a high school senior and in general my concerta has worked for me. I take a 54mg dose of concerta in the mornings before school and whenever i wake up on the weekends and an optional 15mg dose of ritalin at night (i take one 10mg pill of ritalin and then break another one in half so its not exactly 15). sometimes if i wake up too late i will just take ritalin and skip concerta, some nights i skip ritalin all together but other nights i will take a second dose of 15mg of ritalin after my first one wears off. It is rare but occasionally i will forget to take my concerta.
i've been on my meds since 6th grade and on this dosage since 7th. In general my meds have helped me TREMENDOUSLY. but lately i've felt as if they've been starting to where off. it's not that i don't still need them- i deffinitly do. but sometimes i feel kind of out of it even if i'm on them. This is not all the time, some days they are great, but this year i have deffinitly been noticing a change in how helpful they are.
I was a junior this past year so part of me wonders if this is just lack of sleep and extra stress, but then again through out high school i've always been pretty stressed and never gotten enough sleep haha.
because it is the summer i have been taking my concerta at irregular times so I wonder if this has an effect?
I want to be perfectly honest because I want to get to the bottom of my problem so i will admit that from time to time i do drink alcohol so i don't know wether or not this has had an effect on my meds.
my biggest problem is that i am constantly unaware of what i am doing. this is extremly frustrating and time consuming because i end up loosing EVERYTHING. it becomes very problamtic for example when i need to be somewhere on time but i have misplaced my cell phone, or when i'm in the mood to do work (which is a pretty rare occasion) but i don't know where my summer reading book or common application is. I have tried certain tactics such as having a specific place that i put each of my belongings but this hasn't really helped as i often zone out and put things down in improper places and walk away from them before they can reach there intended destination. My organizational issues have gotten a lot better so the issue really is just about me being unaware of what i'm doing.
another sort of related problem is that i'm having a difficult time switching from one task to another. Once i'm focused on a task i can stay focused on it but it's hard for me for example to switch from cleaning my room to filling out college applications. For some reason i struggle with KNOWING what i need to do to switch tasks. like its hard for me to tell myself.. okay, go find your college binder, grab a pencil, and sit at your desk. and even after i tell myself to do these things i often get distracted when i'm attempting to do them. The thing is once i have done all of them, i don't have much difficulty filling out the application, its just the steps that come before it that side track me.
In general, when i have finally sat down to do my work, I don't run into problems unless there is a question where i have to rely on outside recourses for the answer. For example, if i'm doing frenchh homework and i forget what a word means, it takes me a while to figure out where i should go looking for the meaning of the word. Whether I should consult the internet, or a worksheet, or my textbook, my brain just kind of puts on this mental block. I don't even think to do any of those things, i just kind of sit there staring into space because of the mental wall my brain puts up- occasionally i'll end up just completely walking away from my homeowrking and going downstairs and watching tv, without thinking about what i'm doing (this happens pretty rarely but it has happened before). The majority of the time though i'll just skip the question and come back to it later (at which point i will figure out how to solve the problem of my not knowing an answer) or my the mental block will finally let up and i'll think oh yeah! maybe i should look in an online dictionary or check my worksheets. But it still results in me taking twenty or thirty minutes to do things that should really only take ten.
I get distracted pretty easily too. Like when I was looking for my cell phone the other day I completely forgot what I had set out to do and ended up sitting down at my computer and just playing around on it. Something finaly jogged my memory and i rememberd why I had been wondering around my house, but by the time i remembered I only had ten minutes left to find it before it was time to go out.
What's disconcerting to me is that this all happens while i'm on my meds!
I have also been expereincing some weird emotional ups and downs lately too and i'm not sure what that can be attributed too.
I know this is a long post and i really really really appreciate anyone who took the time to read it and answer! i wanted to make it shorter but i didn'twant to leave anything out or be misleading because i really need help! i have asked my parents for a sphycologist to talk to and although they said yes they havn't followed through, and to be honest i feel more comfortable talking to people who can relate to what i'm feeling! So thank you very much if you've read this and have any insight into what I should do!
Hi trackgirl66
My daughter is about to turn 18 and is in her final year of high school in Australia. When I started reading your post, I had to check it wasn't her as the story is so similar!!
We have found that as the stress and difficulty of academic work increases the effectiveness of the meds decrease. Does this make sense? Without meds our daughter is hopeless. I think she can feel it but we can definitley see it.
Routine and setting up organisational systems seems so so boring but it the way to cope with it all. Your main med is concerta so have that when you wake up each morning. If our daughter wakes up at 10;30 am then she'll just have the concerta and nothing else. Put it beside your bed ready with a glass of water for the morning. Alcohol is a tricky one ... maybe that's something that you need to discuss with your doctor.
I would also talk about having a medication review. Maybe this is not best for you any more. Maybe the dosage is too much. Your body and metabolism has altered greatly since 7th grade so a review is not such a bad idea. Make a note of how you feel on the hour for a day when meds are at the right times etc. This will give your doctor a better idea of what is going on. Focus on the points of attention and attention focus. On the hour ask is it better, the same or worse. Make a note of how you are feeling. We use this is classroom situations with teachers evaluating the effectiveness of meds. You can see what is going on easily if this is put into a table format.
All the best and make sure you talk to your doctor
Wow thank you all so much, its really reassuring to here all your advice and to hear that i'm not totally going crazy or anything! Happyrock thats funny that your daughter's story is so similar to mine! After reading what you all said I sat down with my parents and told them I really wanted to talk to my doctor again and have a "meds review," and convinced them to set up an appointment for me! I have also been making sure to be consistent about meds and to eat and sleep right and even though it's annoying to not sleep in everday it's been worth it because it's helped me a lot. I still loose things but I've had a much better time keeping focus when i'm working. Thank you all so much for your advice and i'll let you know how the appointment goes.