Disclaimer: I’m referring the the US medical system, but I imagine people in other countries may encounter similar things.
I cannot be the only one who has had this experience, but all my dealings with the medical industry feel like they were refined by a group of psychologists to exploit the weaknesses of those with ADHD.
The volume of calls, appointments, and paperwork I had to full out to get a diagnosis and prescription for treatment is completely unreasonable to expect someone with poor working memory and attention issues to navigate.
Then, to stay on medication, you need to schedule and make appointments with a psychiatrist every month, for the rest of your life, and if you miss a single one, you will run out of meds (and likely charged a fine), which will make it even harder to remember to make the next one. If you miss too many, that psychiatrist will refuse to see you again and you have to go back to your PCP to get a new referral.
Look, I understand that their time is valuable, but this system couldn’t be designed any other way to be more accommodating to people who clinically forget things?!
It’s like designing a wheelchair ramp that’s actually just stairs that are 3x as steep as the regular stairs. Also, if you fall to the bottom, someone takes your wheelchair until you can climb back up.
Shoutout to ADHDcentral. They tried to make the process as clear and accessible as possible. With automated reminders.
What is this? I searched this in Brave search and got like no relevant results.
I’m curious as well. This is the closest relevant result I got, sadly it is for The Netherlands.
I’m extremely happy with the process I’ve had, but I understand it’s very likely not representative of the rest of us here.
By and large, you’re right though. My wife has gone through similar struggles and hasn’t been medicated for over a year because of it.
I’ve never seen a psychiatrist - I was diagnosed by a psychologist and prescribed by my general practitioner doctor. My doctor doesn’t make me come into the office regularly, I can generally just message him for a refill. I realize I am extremely lucky (not that lucky - I can’t seem to tolerate stimulants), but I encourage people to try a different route.
I think state regulations might vary. Where I am, every three months I HAVE to have an appointment to get a refill prescription for my Adderall. But fortunately my psych is still doing virtual appointments, which is a lot less disruptive to my workday.
I’ve heard it makes reliably getting meds a lot easier if they arent stimulants, so maybe youve got that going for you? 😃
This was for stimulants, I haven’t tried non-stimulants yet, but I am also of a demographic that doesn’t arouse suspicion
I meant shortages, i hear its a nightmare (at least in the US). I’ve got a little over a month to go for an appointment for an initial evaluation 😞
It’s hit or miss. The instant release Adderall has been more reliably available than the extended release version, but they’re both often delayed by a couple of days. The longest delay for me so far was like 2 weeks for the extended release. I’ve been taking it for almost a year now.
Damn. I don’t know where you live but I live in VA and my pcp just refills my prescription every month. We check in via what are basically text mesages and I do telehealth visits every 3 months.
100%
It took me years to realize I had it, even more years to get a diagnosis (I was told I had “severe ADHD” btw") and even now, I’m out of medication more often than I have any due to logistical and financial barriers.
My biggest fear living in the US was falling off meds and being unable to get back on them. If your life situation allows you should absolutely rely on friends or family for help. You don’t need to do this alone, ADHD is a disability and you’re allowed to need assistance.
you should absolutely rely on friends or family for help.
Aw, I wish. There are two types of people in my family. The first type is people who also have ADHD (unmedicated, at that) and/or autism. The second type is people who believe the first type are jUsT bEiNg LaZy.
There is no in-between.
Well fuck, my apologies then.
I feel your pain precisely. Also, most of the people who clearly have ADHD/autism or other, much-worse things are often the ones denying it’s a thing.
In the end, you are a drug victim to the pharma industry. You can achieve similar relief with growing your own medical herbs. It’s even healthier.
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Get off your high horse of weed being healthier than prescription medication.
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I’m not a doctor (but clearly neither are you) but I doubt you actually have ADHD… Weed exacerbates my ADHD symptoms. Attempting to treat my disability with weed would NOT work for me.
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Let’s say you’re correct and you do have ADHD and vaping a sativa strain really does help you. Well everyone is different and not every medication or treatment program is going to be a solution for everyone (for any condition, not just ADHD.) So either way, gtfo of here with the attitude that weed is the only solution anyone could possibly need and all of us are just victims for thinking otherwise.
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There is no grow at home remedy that works the way my medication does. To make claims like that it’s ignorant and harmful to people who do actually need medication.
It is. I tried it and it works for me. I’m talking about cannabis medication. It’s far safer than amphetamine. There are are doctors who prescribe it to you.
It works for me
Good for you. Now stop telling people your solution is universal and mutually exclusive to all other medical solutions
Without any additional details, I have to admit I’m skeptical. “My brain won’t let me be productive? I know, weed will make this better!” sounds… counterintuitive.
Just a quick search: https://neurolaunch.com/cannabis-and-adhd/
You can find the referenced studies at the bottom of the page.
I would be particularly cautious suggesting this to people with psychosis related disorders like bipolar or schizophrenia on top of ADHD as it can be detrimental to their wellbeing.
It sounds like it can be helpful for some people but considering how it worsens some symptoms like short term memory, motivation, and cognitive ability I would not consider it a replacement for prescription medication.
Certainly a very interesting topic of research, I would like to see more done… A refinement on dosage recommendations, strains specifically grown to cater to ADHD… Theres also the fact that the method of intake changes how it effects you (edibles vs smoking). If there is any way to lessen undesirable side effects…
And for the record, not all prescription medication for ADHD is amphetamines.
There is almost no evidence to back up their claims. It is a whole lot of “might”, “suggests”, and “possible”. It’s great if it works for you, but for you to say it’s superior to prescribed medication is still more harmful than helpful. I support more research into medical use for cannabis, but people who try to claim it treats everything only hurt the movement for wider acceptance.
An actual systematic review showed a lack of research, and currently very little evidence of benefits.
Cannabis is not a suitable treatment for ADHD. If anything, it exacerbates attention and memory issues.
My perspective is only mine, but I’ve had mixed results on this.
I’m in my mid-thirties and I have not seen a doctor as an adult. I have been to urgent care twice, once in my early twenties for pneumonia and once a couple years ago for a fungal ear infection.
I have a few minor ailments, some curable and some not, which I would love to see a doctor for. But I’m always afraid to open that door. Due to my ADHD, I tend to get in a cycle where I’ll find a decent job, burn out due to poor sleep hygiene and the pressure of wanting to do well, and then spend months working on personal projects and getting good sleep until I have to find work again.
I have this fear that I’ll find a doctor and get prescribed for something that I’m told I need and then become reliant on that medicine and then leave my job and not have an affordable way to get it. I’m mildly overweight, but at my peak fatness I was worried I was pre-diabetic. And I avoided seeing a doctor still because I figured I’d like to focus on diet and exercise to address it without medicine, because I don’t want to get prescribed anything. I get concerned hearing news stories about doctors getting pharmaceutical kickbacks.
I can’t stay young forever. My problems will worsen without adequate care. My goal is to make enough money from creating software independently that I don’t have to worry about whether I have a job or not when I schedule a doctor’s visit. To know I’ll be able to afford any medication either way. I feel like I’m getting close to realistically achieving this but it’s not necessarily a realistic goal for the average person with ADHD to have.
In the absence of healthcare, I have smoked and consumed a lot of cannabis. This self-medication has been the source of some of my ailments. There is a real possibility that if I continue to smoke this way into old age, I will develop some form of emphysema. I do not want to be dependent on this drug forever.
That said, the effect it has on my ADHD is mostly positive. I’ve developed a tolerance such that I’m not as affected by most of the usual negative side effects - impaired memory, lowered cognitive function, etc, though there is still some effect. It leads me to disassociate more for sure. But that can also be good practice for maintaining focus when I’m sober. I’m a lot better at that than I used to be. Maybe mainly due to maturity and experience. But if properly channeled, the THC-fueled ADHD tangents can lead to productive results. In my experience.
People forget that cannabis has a narcotic component. When I consume edibles, it makes me sleepy. But something about the metabolic pathway of smoking gives cannabis smoke or vapor a stimulant effect on me. And it motivates me to enjoy the thing I’m doing, whatever that is. It’s very easy to get lost in the enjoyment of watching movies or playing video games or making comments on Lemmy (oops). But when I’m doing work while high, I get a certain enjoyment in the minutiae of the task and trying to adequately solve whatever piece of the puzzle is keeping my work from advancing. Where I might not have had the motivation to work at all before, cannabis can make it a fun activity. Again, it’s how it works for me.
But it’s expensive, even with how cheap it’s become. When you look at the long term, who knows if I would have saved money with pharmaceuticals instead? And it hurts my lungs, makes me cough loudly. I’m also dependent on it. I’ve needed to stop at times for jobs, or because I was trying to quit. And I notice after a week or two, I’m more irritable, more lethargic, with increased depression and suicidal ideation. It is addictive.
But so are the stimulants people with ADHD take. I’ve dated people on these meds and seen the difference in energy of on versus off. I wonder if in some ways I’m better of from having not used my access to medical care and instead I developed coping mechanisms that allow me to exist in the world. Or just grew out of some of my issues to some degree. But even if THC has helped me with the introspective development I needed to reach this point, I wonder if I would now be better off without it. And maybe give the pharmaceuticals a shot, tentatively. I’m unsure.
I don’t think the guy promoting cannabis in this thread is doing so with very much tact, and maybe the downvotes are useful to deliver that point. But given my history I hesitate to entirely dismiss the idea that cannabis can stand in for a stimulant in certain scenarios. We should be realistic about the risks and tradeoffs, but I felt the need to provide my somewhat biased viewpoint. Not trying to persuade anyone, just want my experience to live here as another point of data. In case anyone else has experienced something similar.
I will believe you if you show me a credible source which proves your claim
This works for you. Congratulations. You found a thing that works for you. You, who is privileged enough to have the space AND the mental capacities to grow things at home. Your situation is extraordinary and your advice is not advice.
What are you talking about.
Treatment for ADHD is (not always, but often) stimulant medication. There’s no herb you can grow at home to treat that, and that’s a good thing, because the stuff we use to treat ADHD apparently turns neurotypicals into addicts.
Growing Ephedra could actually work.
Do you know how stimulating early-harvested “sativa dominant” strains are? You never even digged into this field. I can tell from my own experience. It works when vaporized at low temperature.
Sativa vs indica is pure marketing horse shit. Stop spreading misinformation.
Indica and sativa labels are largely meaningless when it comes to cannabis complexities
Dude, stop. I use cannabis on a daily basis, for both medical and non-medical reasons, and it’s not a fucking panacea. If it has worked for you, that’s wonderful, but please stop embarrassing yourself and making other cannabis users look like fools with this bullshit.
I grow weed and have ADHD. You’re a fucking moron.
Stop giving bad advice based on misinformation please.
Congratulations, you’re the first person I tagged for misinformation on Lemmy.
“Zocdoc” is a great app to make appointments when possible.
I’ve been self medicating for decades with nicotine and THC. It works well for me. I guess I’m lucky.
THC helps a lot in very low doses 20mg but I build a tolerance to it after 2-3 weeks, and also it makes me completely stupid. Its great for getting chores and shit done but terrible for my job.
It’s designed that way, because it has the same effect on everyone. People with ADHD are just starting with a lower capacity for it. The goal is to get as many people as possible to give up on getting what should be theirs in order to “save money”. It’s the same thing you’ll see in certain software when you try to do something they don’t like, for example, opening a link in an external browser, or contacting an actual support representative. Suddenly, this app is really poorly designed! It’s not a bug, it’s a feature
No, it’s entirely a DEA thing. They have such a stick up their ass that must doctors and pharmacies are terrified of writing/filling too many controls because the DEA can fuck them in the ass for actually providing the meds people need.
Chances are someone did make it as hard as possible on purpose. US is the source of eugenics…
Healthcare shouldn’t be political currency. Healthcare care is an inherently political issue, as each government has to determine the best strategy for them, but like many things in the US politicians see it as just another talking point and something that actually impacts people. This leads to policy being made by people who aren’t knowledgeable about healthcare for people who have strong about healthcare but often aren’t impacted by these policies and don’t have a strong understanding of the topic.
While it would still be a horrible thing to have happen, I’m starting to think that having a bunch of LLMs run/control the government wouldn’t necessarily be worse than what we have now (at least in the US).
Shout out to all my spiritual siblings who skip days to stockpile meds because we live in a nightmare world.
The shit that pisses me off is the 4 week refill time because over the span of several months the refill date and appointment date get out of sync. Just make it so you can’t fill more than three times in 90 days or whatever and it would accomplish the exact same shit but with way more flexibility.
I’ve never had a doctor or therapist take me serious. If I had access to the drugs I could self medicated diagnose better.
