I was so happy when I started with meds, just for the 4 hours before I crashed. Got more done than in a whole day.

Then the doc explained that crashing is not a must: I just have to eat by clock and calorie count rather than relying on appetite, not exercise / cleaning-frenzy more than I usually could, and take rests.

Now, the benefits last for an entire day.

Definitely at that dose! I started with a 5 mg tolerance test at 80 kg, was at 15 mg for a while and slowly worked up to 50 mg over 9 months.

How it affected me is quite different, but just as stunning! Especially in the first 2 - 3 months, I was in a constant state of euphoria; it felt like a recreational stimulant drug you’d get at a rave. But the main ADHD symptom that was gone immediately was that I couldn’t get myself to start on a task.

Other advantages came slowly and more subtle at higher doses. It’s still mostly that I finally do what needs to be done. But I do that in a very confused, easily distracted way. I’m basically Joe Biden on speed.

Very much life changing, as the anxiety from missed deadlines and built-up problems is gone.

Most absurd thing with dentists: They do this thing where they check the depth of the little pockets in the gums. It seems to have 0 medical value. Just to be like: “Watch out, it’s 2.5 mm now! Two years ago, it was at 2.3 mm. Just so you know what’s up.”

Ironically, it takes a long time for the whole mouth and is very painful, worse than fixing actual problems, e. g. by drilling.

Mostly for that, I left my reputable high-tech dentist of two decades for a small practice with old equipment that specialises in anxiety.

Thank you! That is encouraging.

It can be a nightmare. Without the extra stress of a child, we were very functional and undiagnosed, and things were going well. But the difference between Captain Picard and The Joker is 3 hours less sleep.

The only way this could ever have worked would have been with intensive individual counseling plus couple counseling.

Now I’m in a great place, as a single parent on peak treatment and with a good job. But the old person died in that struggle, broke completely and didn’t make it through. I’m something new, inhabiting the old body, someone who can do this.

Not sure if related, but I need to see everything I need for a task on the computer. alt+tab or virtual desktops don’t do it for me - I need 3 or more physical screens.

Just upped my productivity a lot by having a dedicated screen that always only shows the mindmap with the todos & plan.

Interesting insight! I travelled the same road in the other direction. As someone who loves science, I always saw my role as a patient to just report symptoms and let the doctors do their thing. And I’m sure this would be the ideal approach if everybody had the House M.D. team on their case.

But after decades of this failing, I realised that this method does not work with a real-world medical system where doctors have more bias than they should, work with methods from their studying days that assumed they had more time and resources per case, and wrong monetary incentives.

So Method 1: I say I have X, and make it clear that I’ll be a PITA if their test doesn’t confirm it. If there were no bias, there would be no harm to this, but if there is, it’s working to my advantage now.

Method 2: Just think of them as the idiot who is clueless but gatekeeper of the much wanted prescription.

Nobody wants to hear this, but a layman’s web research, LLM and 1000 hours of thinking often beats 10 years of medical training if the doctor interrupts the patient after 20 seconds and only thinks about the case for 5 minutes. (With 30 minutes, my money would be back on the trained professional, but nobody has 30 minutes.) A patient can also fixate on a premature assumption just like a doctor can, but my very subjective experience is that doctors are more prone to that.

What I do then is to observe myself making the list, or to observe the thoughts involved in making the list as they swim past me.

This could lead to an infinite chain, where I then observe myself observing and so on. But with practice and methods beyond normal thought and expression, that can fade into nothingness.

Sometimes I wonder if my “advanced” meditation skills from a decade of training is just what neurotypicals always experience when they meditate, even with just like 10 times of “practice”.

I know it’s not what you asked, but for when size does not matter (e. g. nap at home), I just use the big over-ear things for construction workers. Very cheap and very effective.

I recurring problem is that I keep thinking “It’s just 3 things, plus that other one that happens on the way to #2 anyway, no need to write a list”. Then I keep wondering why I fall behind.

Only when I make a list, I realise how much there is to do, and that my plan is entirely impossible for one day!

On the other hand, it’s surprising how even the biggest “backlog” melts away like snow when I really do one backlog thing per day. In addition to “the dailies”, of course.

Well, overall, I’m glad about the hoarding, because on treatment, I actually work through that 4 year stack of put off tasks, and it’s very satisfying.

Wow, so different for everybody! For me, it went from the feeling of giving myself a cigarette burn to “eager to start”.

Yes, essential. I like to do it in an electronic mindmap, so in order to have it always visible, I needed to attach an extra screen where it’s always visible.

“Mental effort” to get on the task that needs to be done is a different matter. I still needed to push through the pain to star. That got much better with treatment.

Like the whiteboard though; not as easy to shift things around and make changes, but advantages might outweigh that.

afaik, 25µg D3 in combination with 20µg K2 should cover it in theory, even when there is hardly any natural source. Some supplement nerds have some reasoning for 100µg, which is near the upper bound of “harmless”.

Much more than that can be quite dangerous, though! One drop of the stuff I have is 25, so it’s not just theoretical.

EDEKA are the ones where too much is harmful.

Magnesium, D and Omega 3 are, as far as I know, all things where you gain a lot if you have a deficit that they compensate, otherwise nothing.

I too took shots in the dark, as I didn’t find a doc who was willing to do some more tests. But recently I found out that in some countries, you can just go to a lab directly and they’ll draw the blood.

Currently on Magnesium, too (Carbonate though), paused the D due to long times in the sun recently, Omega 3 currently through engineered staple foods & rape oil.

Doesn’t seem to be that much evidence, but I’m in the mood for a new supplement obsession - on it!

p.s.: argh, typed this over 12 hours ago and just found this open page. It’s clearly not working. But here we go anyway:

• Guarana, for example in a capsule. Effectively a mild stimulant, basically extended release coffee.
• Get out of the slow cycle of: symptom -> doctor -> check for specific deficiency -> supplement. Check for everything proactively. In many countries, you can go directly to a lab and have your blood taken there, if your doctor doesn’t play along.

That is smart! Could also do a reverse-challenge: The goal is to write something worse than anything that has has ever been turned in to that teacher. “teecha has a stoopit” (but don’t forget to delete)

Brian Tracy mentioned a similar trick for his shady cold calls business: A reward to the first employee who gets a rejection every morning, with a bell and everything.

On top of what’s been said: People will suddenly spawn right next to you and start talking, seemingly mid-sentence. Your thoughts will be interrupted, errors will increase, and on top of all that, they expect the right response.

It’s hell, at least for me. Try it if you want.

Great advice that works for many, including myself!

Even if you don’t get into the flow and do a single pomodoro session per day, a lot will be gained over 1 year, 5 years, 10 years. A degree 3 or 5 years later is much better than no degree.

The time put in is a huge factor, even when it’s done “all wrong”.

I achieved a lot in terms of studying and failed a lot in other areas.

Ask yourself: Counting only focussed, undistracted studying, do you achieve significantly less IN THE SAME STUDYING TIME than your peers? If the answer is “no”, improve your method. If “yes”, you will need to put in a few extra years, but do keep going!

Hit that problem with methods. There are tons of methods that work for some, don’t work for others. Pomodoro, X-effect, habit building, Leitner system etc.

Some things are completely uneffected by ADHD, for example building habits. The prefrontal cortex is not involved in that.

I use pomodoro, and I’m super strict about it. Here is my old comment: https://lemmy.ml/post/24026788/15853247

It’s good that you have that method in the library! I’d say keep it as it is, don’t water it down. Those special focussed sessions will help you a lot. But it should not be an excuse like “I can’t do the library thing today, so I do nothing”.

Instead, for situations where you can’t, maybe try my method. Think of it like squid game: Players have 10 minutes to study as hard as they can, then the ones with the lowest relative gain are culled. You’d rather pee in your pants than go to the toilet, and you’d not look at your phone when it makes a noise during that time. Maybe you can start with 25 instead of 10 right away, up to you.

Don’t get put off by false perfectionism. There was a group fight in the barracks last night, you haven’t showered in days, you didn’t drink enough, you got hit on the head and feel dizzy - better put those 10 minutes to good use anyway and survive another game!

I show up to appointments with a structured list only. Downside: Every GP thought that, whatever I have, it’s certainly NOT ADHD.

I always have the feeling that there is “no time” to start in the beginning. “I SHOULD know that already”, “I’ll pick it up on the way”, “It’d take too long to start there” and other excuses.

But experience tells a different story: When I dare to start at the very beginning, no matter how small, it often lead to great success, while jumping into the middle never got me anywhere.

In your concrete situation with programming: After getting a grasp with BASIC and Pascal in the late 80s, I wanted to learn Assembly and really understand it. And so I did. And it was not wasted time. (Except for macro assembler, aimed at really using it for big projects; could have skipped through that and just used the old MS-DOS debug tool.) Some of my most fond memories with the PC were not fancy UIs I developed, but how I wrote a 10 byte long program directly into the MBR of a floppy disc and booted from it to execute it, without loading any OS.

Later with C, C++, Java, I also focussed on the core language and libraries, only then moved on to UIs and big frameworks. And it did me a great service once more. I notice people around me who skipped through the Java fundamentals in less than a week and got right into a big framework - even 10 years after, they have odd misconceptions and knowledge gaps that hinder their development.

But I also respect that there are different approaches that work better for other people.

You could also go a middle way, for example: Set a weekday that is for “core research”. But don’t try to “wing it”, won’t work. It needs to be an automated reminder on your calendar, a differently marked column on your habit tracker, whatever you use.

You are doing a great job, getting him diagnosed so early and making this decision responsibly!

I did NOT get medicated. The problem is that it resulted in a huge number of minor traumatic experiences: Isolated in class, because I don’t keep up with topics of conversation such as trading cards, games, sports. Less successful even with the things I’m passionate about, sometimes due to trivial things such as missing training day or forgetting my equipment. Delaying things until they become a huge problem, then doing them in a painful adrenaline-filled frenzy. Pain from forcing myself to just do something such as homework or cleaning.

You did a great thing getting your son diagnosed so early! I can’t even imagine where I would be if I had that asset in my life, to just know.

I suggest to go with the science rather than anecdotes of strangers. Is the diagnosis certain, and is the benefit of medication clear? Is it the best option? From what I read, it often is, but not always.

For my own child, as it so happens also 7 years old, I’m going to do it. There are significant problems at school that make the choice easier. But I’m also using other means such as fidget toys in class and a wobble cushion.

Not looking forward to that … I slowly increased the dose over 6 months as effects were fading, but I’m near the normal adult dose.

Would Modafinil work during the “holidays”? It has a very decent effect on me, although with huge side effects, but things get done and it should not (as I understand the matter) have cross-tolerance with a stimulant.

Nice! It worked out great in my case, but I had to lower my expectations regarding the timeline and how much I had to keep pushing for the next step. They’ll probably get you evaluated by a psychologist now and take care of the series of appointments, but you probably have to be quite pushy to get the formal diagnostic, either from a licensed psychological psychotherapist or a psychiatrist. Then, push again to get an appointment with the psychiatrist for the prescription. (Or find a local one yourself; it’s good profit for them when you are already diagnosed.) Would seem more efficient to me when the psychiatrist also does the diagnostic.

Still 100x easier than the “normal” method. It would be a great improvement when they take care of a series of appointments until you hold the prescription in your hands.

Sorry. This got way longer than I wanted it to lol

Same happened with my post …

Yes, the one thing that got better from meds alone is that I can just make the decision to start something, and I’ll do it. And that is fantastic! But my forgetfulness and “senile” behaviour is the same. I’m basically Joe Biden on speed. Mistakes happen, but things get done.

And it feels like I got “better” at doomscrolling. New trap, but I’m on it.

The thing with the spreadsheet is absolutely justified, keep it. I use my mail client to mark things as “todo”, “urgent” etc., but guess what happens … nothing.

There is a private clinic that is more streamlined: GAM Medical. You have to pay out of pocked, but honestly, even without a high paying job, it’s easier to get the money than it is to jump through all those hoops. My insurance (GKV) costs me € 1100 per month, but I still pay a few 100 out of pocket for meeting their psychiatrist once and paying for my meds.

It’s not perfect, though. They too seem to miss the point that it’s hard for us to keep pushing and prodding for the next step. I wish it were just a series of automatic appointments. It’s slow, you’ll have to keep pushing, mailing, calling them for the next and the next and the next step, but in like 6 months, there’s a good chance you got your diagnosis and your treatment, be it therapy, meds or both.

I got pretty frustrated with them, but unlike every other option I tried, they delivered - eventually.

You could, in theory, also use them just to get diagnosed. Then, it would be easier to find a psychiatrist for the prescription, because at that point, that’s a lot of money for very little effort for a doctor. Could even have insurance pay. Extra work, though.

Well 60 mg is still not stronger than a fat line of speed, which people usually survive, and you have the extra benefit that they checked you for heart and other problems that would change the odds.

Consider that the half-life is long, so 24h later, you’d still have the equivalent of 1/4 of the extra 30 mg, so you should take about 7 mg less, which would be about 23 mg. NAM (not a mathematician).

First test: 5 mg (~ 15% of 30 mg) at 8:30 am.

It kicked in really hard, like a thick line of quality speed. It didn’t feel like something that a doctor would prescribe. Got a lot done, then hard crash at 12:30, lying down and dozing off for 20 minutes. The mental effect was at least as good as it was with Modafinil: I tackled the most urgent todo without mental effort and little chores just “happened”. But with a high like from recreational drugs.

Maybe what contributed was that I did a quick, but intense workout.

So it was perfect - a very safe dose, yet also the productivity boost I needed for the day. 10 mg might also have been fine, but taking the entire 30 mg (or even 20) would have been a mistake. Certainly no risk to not feel anything.

I wonder if I should take another 2.5 mg for the afternoon, or just use tea and coffee as usual.

This strange effect regarding intensity and duration was no surprise - I observed that with other medication and drugs before, the doctor understood it and took it into account, thus the individualised instructions.

I don’t know why he does what he does, but he said that I should find the ideal dose, which often is between two capsule sizes. He encouraged me to take any dose lower than 30 mg for the first month, and after he sees me again to fine tune it by dissolving in water.

I dissolved it in some water in a protein shaker with marks, so I can take exact 3 mg doses (10 % steps).

Only thing I don’t like about this is that children are in the house, and there should not be deadly poison water standing around anywhere. The capsules are in a lockbox.

Thanks! I’ll play it safe and would rather start with 5 than 10 mg.

Not sure if related, but I have absolutely no problem getting things in the household done when I’m voicechatting with a friend. Odd as it is, videos that don’t require watching while listening (e. g. youtubers that just talk into the camera) also work, but podcasts don’t (must be mental).

When I can’t get my “fix”, no friends with time online and no interesting video of that type, I end up searching for it so long that I get too little sleep, rather than just do the 15 minutes work without.

I think it should work exactly like the fire department. Entirely tax funded, no hassle. A hospital is, in my eyes, more similar to a fire department or a police station than it is to a super market, and that’s how it should work.

But it only works well all-in. A strange system of compromises forged between parties with entirely opposing views over 50 years is terrible.

Most recent example: Started freelancing in July again, got to pay nearly 1k per month. First money received is EUR 4400 end of September.

I tried the alternative route last time, and it’s no fun: Write in certified mail that I make less and need a lower rate, they’ll ignore it, say they didn’t get anything, I’m not insured any more. Go to a lawyer with the proof of certified mail, win, get the lower rate and they have to pay back medical bills, EUR 500 lawyer costs though. Have to pay back 1k per month anyway if it turns out I make enough in the last few months of the year, so it was all for nothing.

I will never understand how the land of fast food and unnecessarily pre-packed products fills pill bottles by hand in the pharmacy. Like, milk I would understand; I lived near a farm, and we would go over with huge milk cans and have them filled there by the farmer. But that same concept seems strange to me for a pharmacy. Like, even our weed and coke dealers have pre-packed little plastic bags, you don’t like bring your joint papers and have them individually filled.

Also, this seems like a really complicated process that causes lots of problems. Isn’t it pretty much likely that even in your best state of mind, you’d fill about 1 out of 200 wrong, and about 10 % of those mean near certain death for the patient? So weird.

It’s nice that US still ALLOWS to not be insured. In Germany, it’s mandatory, it’s nearly EUR 1,000 if you don’t provide proof that you can’t afford that (and they accept the proof), and if you dodge them and they catch you later, you have to backpay for the uninsured time.

So in contrast, we go a little broke always, but we don’t go more broke when we get sick.