Comment by throwingawayusr
4 months ago
One thing I haven’t ever seen mentioned in these threads is how do people who can’t handle stimulants get by?
4 months ago
One thing I haven’t ever seen mentioned in these threads is how do people who can’t handle stimulants get by?
I take guanfacine. It’s an older blood pressure medication that happens to treat adhd. I also have high blood pressure so I get an added bonus. Stimulants are great for laser focus. Guanfacine helps with focus but its biggest help, for me, is executive function and curbs some of my emotional effects of adhd. I notice I’m not as sensitive to feedback or criticism.
Coffee and chocolate (plus potentially tobacco) are technically stimulants, 100% legal, and people seem to handle them just fine. Just take them strategically as opposed to recreationally (i.e. only as support for building up healthy habits; go cold-turkey otherwise!) and you should do just fine. The effect is way stronger than most people might think, provided that habituation hasn't built up and the existing tolerance has been dissipated.
I wouldn't necessarily recommend nicotine. It works and alleviates ADHD symptoms at first which is great but that also makes it really addictive. I can't comprehend the level of discipline I would need to use nicotine without becoming addicted and I'm not prone to addiction generally.
The interesting thing wrt. this is that nicotine replacement products are widely available without a prescription. Would people really get seriously addicted to e.g. wearing a transdermal patch?
7 replies →
I don't think it is a question of discipline when it comes to addiction - if you are taking it on a regular basis at a high enough dose to become addicted, you will become addicted, and you will have withdrawal symptoms when you stop taking it.
It might be possible to manage the addiction and maybe keep it from escalating with discipline, but the addiction will always be there.
Humans are excellent at denying addiction and rationalizing addictive behavior. And you don't even realize you are doing it - I've seen it in myself with cigarettes, which I fortunately quit years ago.
The addiction some people have to caffeine is just as crazy. So, I guess it depends on a bunch of physiological and psychological factors.
2 replies →
Lol I will provide a small anecdote as a warning from my own life. I was at a point (pre-diagnosis) where I felt my caffeine intake had reached an addiction-like level and had decided to wean myself down to a more sustainable level. I’d read about adenosine receptors and the different substances that can act as stimulants/inhibit adenosine. I was starting to get a bit of a caffeine headache + drowsiness and the good idea fairy told me “hey why don’t you have some chocolate instead? Theobromine is an adenosine-receptor antagonist so it might help without consuming any caffeine”
This led to what was probably the worst headache of my life. I don’t know enough pharmacology to understand how exactly that worked, but it was terrible. Having a cup of coffee reversed the effect pretty quickly, luckily.
> plus potentially tobacco
You know… I feel like my symptoms were not so bad when I used to have cigars
Take less. I don't mean to be snarky, but if it makes you anxious, it's too much. If 5 mg of Adderall feels like too much, I think the issue is just that you feel different. Give it a few weeks. Psychotropic medication isn't an instant fix without side effects. You'll get used to it.
There are non-stimulant medications for ADHD but I think their effectiveness is more variable, they work well for some people and not at all for others. Strattera, guanfacine, and wellbutrin come to mind.
Outside of medication there's therapy, cognitive training, coaching, etc.
There is at least one non-stimulant ADHD medication which may help them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomoxetine
That's me. I had to stop because of the anxiety. I just have to get back to life as I always used to and measure the distractions via behavioural changes
And yet here I am, commenting on HN...