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From: Searching for an answer - long post -
Date: 04 Aug 2003
Time: 11:13:31 -0400
Remote Name: 141.197.12.180
I think I may be an adult with ADHD. I realize this is a site/forum for children, but it appears there are some very knowledgeable people here so I’m going to give it a go. Here’s my story: I don’t recall having many of the typical symptoms of ADHD as a youth. My concentration, behavior, grades were always good. However, things changed significantly when I went off to University. All of a sudden I began struggling with symptoms that were foreign to me. For the longest time I had a difficult time describing my most prominent symptom. This I’m sure made possible diagnosis of my problem very difficult. What I described the feeling was a “brain fog”. That is I could almost feel my brains inability to process information. I could not concentrate and my memory was shot, and had just a general “blah”, lethargic feeling. I had a very difficult time “thinking” and the more I tried, the more stress I felt, and the worse the symptoms became. When I was at my worst, as quickly as someone was saying something to me, I was forgetting what they were saying. I was trying hard to concentrate on what they were saying, but with no avail. It was very stressful as I had a hard time answering peoples questions, as I literally could not figure out what they first said. This could be a one sentence instruction! When I could somewhat remember what was asked, I would begin responding and then lose my train of thought, and have then forgotten the question, making a coherently completed response impossible. This was very stressful and embarrassing to me. It wasn’t for years after graduating University that I was first diagnosed with “atypical depression”. That’s how it was described to me anyway. While I didn’t feel “depressed” and certainly never had thoughts of suicide, the Doctor indicated that my lack of concentration (and other symptoms) were also characteristic of Depression. Well I took the normal drugs associated with the Prozac family. Prozac was the first and worked miracles for a couple months. I thought I had found the ailment that plagued me for many years and was very happy about it. However, the positive effects of the drug diminished and I then was put on a number of others for many years, all with similarly limited success. It wasn’t until recently that someone diagnosed me with ADHD. My Doctor recommended I see a counselor, and it was the counselor that diagnosed it. So I went off the anti-depression drugs and went on Adderall. Adderall by far has helped the most. I now feel I operate around “80%”. Most days are pretty good. Some are great (I feel and operate at “100%”). While I still have some days with the old symptoms. Fortunately these days are much less frequent (maybe 3-7 bad days a month). I don’t like being dependant on drugs, but based on my research, I felt that my infliction was due to the chemical imbalance in my brain, and that I had to have these drugs to correct it. I just began to look for some more info on the net, and found this site. Wow, great info and I find the possible “non drug” treatment encouraging. Thus I’ve sent off for Attend. Well if anyone’s still with me, I do have the following questions: 1 Do my symptoms sound like ADHD (I scored 40 on the ADHD test on this site)? 2 For the people with it, do you get the “foggy brain” feeling I described? 3 My greatest concern of whether I have ADHD is that a lot of the information I’ve read on diagnosing it, include that the symptoms were experienced as a child. I didn’t have these symptoms I have now, when I was a child. Maybe I have something else/similar? 4 After reading more on how diet can affect the brain, I’m wondering if the change in diet experienced when I went to University (from a well balanced to a fast food diet). Anyone have any thoughts on the possibility of this? 5 I’ll do a search but does anyone have some good Adult ADHD websites they would recommend? Thanks to anyone who made it this far; and congratulations as you apparently do not suffer from ADHD :)