It can take time to find the right dose.
I even started with 5 mg only, and it felt great. Crashed after just 3 - 4 hours, and within the first week figured that 12 mg is right for now.
The individual differences can be enormous.
This guide to understand dosage finding is pretty good, but doctor’s orders first: https://www.adxs.org/en/page/232/dosing-of-medication-for-adhd
I think it’s not that crazy: It also increases dopamine and noradrenaline in other parts of the brain, too, so in higher doses, it would be a “great” recreational drug, similar to speed. The brain quickly adjusts to the relatively small dose, so it doesn’t feel like a recreational drug any more (unless a lot more is taken), and only the prefrontal cortex still “benefits” from the increased levels of dopamine and noradrenaline, as intended.
So, the initial high is not the intended effect, just a pleasant side effect, and always fades. Otherwise, we could all happily live on recreational drugs all day.
The numbing effect on the emotions, on the other hand, could be the INTENDED effect, just way too strong. Need to take much less, for some people even as low as 5 mg.
So you might have gotten the intended effect and the side effect mixed up: You don’t want the initial 2 week high, you do want the numbing, but much less of it.
That is my VERY limited layman understanding, certainly at least partially wrong. Maybe it’s also hilariously wrong, who knows.
It’s compatible with benzos, so for rare occurrences, like a few times per year, that’s an option.
In my particular case, a magnesium deficit had been missed for a very long time.
In relationships, that’s a problem. Over the years, that really developed into … something. When I have a crush and daydream, I imagine how she comes onto me, and I’m like: Sorry, not interested.
Sometimes that actually happens, and it does feel great.
Even when I daydream about meeting a cute girl with a nice personality, I imagine how she likes me, so I can reject her.
The oddest thing is that I still had a couple of healthy, nice relationships, some over many years. She was always more into me than vice versa, though. And I was overall single longer than I was in relationships.
So maybe the counterpart personality exists, and that’s why it works: Longing to always having to prove herself to someone who isn’t even that attractive, just for getting a fraction of it back.
Great list! I use a plain txt file that I started about 25 years ago for notes, now 28,000 lines. It used to contain even all passwords, until password managers became a good option.
“Being bad at stuff” is also so selective. The other kids are not expected to be two years ahead in math, but I am expected to be able to sit perfectly still for 4 hours and pay attention in an oxygen depleted room. Everybody has to have this nearly exact same skillset.
It’s not what society needs, not even what the industry needs in the workforce, but that is most convenient for the teachers.
Indeed, I programmed in vim only, until IDEs just got too good. Still using it for everything else to this day. I’ve been thinking to get Neovim, but it doesn’t seem essential when I stick with IDEs for programming.
I tried Eclipse way back around 2004, but found the advantages not sufficient to make do with a crappy editor. Years after that, IntelliJ IDEA just got too good to miss out on, though. It also had the feature that is essential for me to understand anything: To search for an action rather than click through & stare at endless menus.
I get 0 done without lists. People laugh about my lists, because every tiny detail has to be on it. So let’s say I’m in the situation you described, and it’s 10:30 am. What I’d tell myself is: There isn’t even a list, so let’s make a list, and if it’s the last thing I’ll do before lunch.
The list is quite often as detailed as:
Then, even in my worst state, I can tell myself: You can check off just the next item. That’s not overwhelming, that’s not too much.
Stainless steel for me, too. For most dishes, sticking isn’t much of an issue, and where it’s a bit harder, such as sunny side up eggs, I rather have that little challenge than to deal with cast iron. Or non-stick, which scratch and poison the entire family if I ever pet it with the wrong side of the sponge.
Btw, it actually was kind of complex:
When I’m in my own messy kitchen, I can’t find a starting point. I feel like I’d have to be this big octopus creature that stands in the middle and does a thing with each tentacle simultaneously: Threw this into the garbage, put that into its place, start a heap of things that need to go into different rooms, clean neglected things such as the area behind the sink, clean the floor and main surfaces (but there is too much stuff on it even if I had the 10 tentacles), do dishes, put clean dishes away, throw out expired food from every shelf and the fridge, complex sequences such as bagging the garbage -> put new garbage bag in …
Dishwasher was also my first thought. I “tried” to get one for over 20 years, but finally did it less than 2 years ago.
The complexity of getting one threw me off for 2 decades. Which model? How to deliver? How to install? How to get an extra water-in and water-out installed? Make appointments with technicians? Same company that sells & delivers the dishwasher or a different one?
For singles, a simple small one that requires nothing and can be filled with water manually is a good hack to get started. These can often be installed properly later for less hassle.
Yes, weird with the teacher relationships. A kid from my class, strong on the hyperactive side, was really hated by some teachers. One threatened to beat him up in front of the whole class, another (of the super nice relaxed ones) just threw him out with a book to study on his own in the hallway. I suspect that he never did a single line of homework or studying at home, but his test grades were too good to let him fail.
I don’t have hyperactivity. The best teacher I had really hated me, because he was all about punctuality, reliability, discipline - totally not my approach to math. His teaching was great, I didn’t forget a single lecture to this day, and it allowed me to get all the math course certificates for a STEM field later, although I never finished the degree. A few STEM teaches though realised that my obsession with electronics and programming was really getting somewhere and tried to motivate me to put in the time in related fields, but I never put any work in, and only for computer science was that enough to still ace it.
My own son is even stronger in the extremes. He is barely old enough for his grade, but already has to take math in the grade above. Can’t skip, because his reading & writing is just on par (although in two languages). But he is extremely disruptive. His teachers seem like they understand that he puts in the same mental effort to focus and sit still, just with worse results than the average. And they support my suspicion that he has ADHD and should get tested. Well, will probably take 4 - 6 months to get an appointment, and another 4 - 6 months until there is a diagnosis.
Amazing about the comments is that while a majority seems to “deliver” when the pressure is on, they split 50/50 on whether they feel great during it or suffer greatly, no middle ground.
I’m definitely in the 2nd group. I can get it done if the alternative has horrifying consequences, but it’s not a good feeling.
Maybe two things are mixed up, though. One is like a thing where not doing it is horrible, such as vet appointment for the pet, crucial last deadline at work, kid’s birthday party. The other is like working in a high stress environment, like a project where everything is on fire and under pressure, it’s not about our condition, or an emergency situation like a sinking ship.
I, personally, suffer greatly in the former, but less than the average person in the latter.
This is certainly very helpful as it is. The way I had to live below my potential, I need only like 50 good days in a year. If things don’t work out as I hope, I could use Methylphenidate 50 times per year to achieve that.
Overall, I thought there is not such a clear separation between the euphoria and fixing the ADHD symptoms, as both are caused by noradrenalin, among other things. However, after some reading today, I realise that the intended effect of the medication works with such neurotransmitters in the prefrontal cortex and can very well do so over years, while euphoria is caused by the same neurotransmitters, but elsewhere.
Definitely a good approach, maybe for people like ourselves even more so. But for it to work with my chaotic finances, I’d probably need a business account and pay myself a regular wage. If I’d do things in such an orderly fashion, I’d probably not be here in the first place, and we’d never have met :-)
I was afraid it might be like that. Also quite possible that the euphoria does part of the job, so I actually need more. Low dose opioids have a similar effect on me - I’m euphoric, I get things done. So currently, it might even be like 60 % euphoria, 40 % noradrenalin, explaining that I need only 12 mg when the lowest child dose even is 20 mg. I might end up with something like 30 mg.
The danger I see is that I think I need to up the dose to match the euphoria from the start, while I actually need to get to the point where it’s 0 % euphoria, 100 % noradrenalin.
Very much simplified, if not wrong, as noradrenalin might be a main contributor to the euphoria.
Really doesn’t work with my life. Extreme, sudden expenses, such as a 6k health insurance debt, hit me with as much surprise as a sudden project that pays 20k within 20 days. I just got to roll with it and hope it stays in the + somehow.
He seems completely incompetent altogether. I expressed concern that a stimulant would not be right for me, as even coffee has an extreme effect when taken after a long pause. But everybody, GP, therapist and psychiatrist, insisted that we should try MPH or AMP, as it is so much better, even though the whole prescription process is complicated for a schedule 2. And it worked out great from the very start.
He seems to worry about the wrong things. To rather let a patient in his care suffer with 3rd choice meds for months (?), followed up unmedicated than take the chance that you might be a 1%er who abuses it. For which there isn’t even much indication, as you have a prescription.
However, if I really try to give him the benefit of a doubt: A quick search shows that there are some risks in combining weed and medical stimulants. The positive effect can be reduced, and cardiovascular risks of stimulants increase. So, without medical training, I don’t know if that means that you have to search for alternative for either of those first (switch either the pain meds or the ADHD meds), and then continue treatment for both, or if it really is so risky that you absolutely must keep one of the conditions untreated. As far as I understand, weed is rarely the only option and, at best, only slightly better than the next best alternative. For ADHD, on the other hand, MPH or AMP or so much better than the next best alternative. I tried Modafinil myself, and the side effects were severe.
So maybe his tone was just off, and he should have explained those careful considerations for the best therapy options, rather than be like “eek junkie, get out until you are clean”.
I might be completely wrong here, it’s literally what spins off in my head after 2 minutes of search.
Could also be that in times of remission, we take on more challenges: Start dating again, get pregnant, challenging new job to pay for it all. Or challenging career change, get a degree, get training.
And that would not be newsworthy at all.