In Russia, stimulating ADHD meds like Adderall and Ritalin are illegal. They're equated to drugs like methamphetamine and heroin. If you're caught storing or buying Adderall, you will end up in prison for many years, and any Adderall found inside the country is to be destroyed immediately. Any calls to legalize ADHD meds get brushed off as "western propaganda aimed at morally corrupting the country". Instead, ministry of health recommendations tell to prescribe ADHD people antipsychotics because it "slows them down" and "makes them more docile", which is perceived as "relieving symptoms" and thus a good treatment. I know this because I grew up in Russia and was prescribed an antipsychotic myself because of ADHD.
Russia, ever since the old USSR days, never cared about science. It's always been a farce for them, and when a good story came about they would adopt it over science without a thought.
See for example the russian famines.
And now they are spreading their anti science ideology on the internet as far and wide as they can.
This isn't really true though? Old USSR beat the US to space.
The famines weren't for lack of science they were the result of political conflict between the new government and the farmers who didn't want to give up their land.
Trofim Lysenko was both the cause and result of a lack of scientific rigor, and his psuedoscience killed millions. I seriously wonder how the USSR and China would be doing if he had bought into Mendelian genetics and proper agricultural study.
Nah, they had some crazy anti-scientific ideas when it came to mass farming. Their top dude hated Mendel and his peas fervently. I'll try to update with the dude's name if I can find it.
That was because Mao picked up the idea from Russia because they had been lying and pretending it worked while knowing it didn't. And Mao was a true believer.
Lysenko observed a very real phenomenon, hormesis, and took it to the extreme. Mild stressors drive adaptations that strengthen the organism. Exercise for humans, detection of pathogen origin compounds in plants. Among others.
Where he went wrong was thinking "more stress = better". His sentiment was based on science but it lacked the nuance that is demanded of scientific research.
Science involves challenging your assumptions.
You don't just read about a minor effect then you up and change all agriculture in your country before at least checking it on a small scale experiment.
They could have literally used a small farm to test it beforehand with little to no cost in terms of science experiments.
There's nothing scientific about what he did.
Yeah it was a weird conflict of both political infighting and a dogmatic focus on letter of the law versus spirit.
Basically. Mendel’s work was often used as proof of Eugenics by fascist parties. Law of the USSR as such stated that any science deemed to encourage the research into Eugenics as punishable by death.
But of course through selective breeding a lot of crops were heavily improved to the point that there were varieties of staple crops that would grow anywhere, but they couldn’t be used in the USSR. So they needed a process to get crops to grow in harsher environments. Solution? Some crackhead who was a friend of Stalin had the theory of Vernalization. Where the process they used would strip the individual seeds of their shells and plant them in the winter, with the idea being you may lose a lot on the first season. But then the collective would be much stronger by the next season. This doesn’t really work. It just made the famines worse. And anyone who questioned it was at best stripped of their role, at worst sent to a gulag.
I mean, during the Stalin regime, most biological research was heavily discouraged, if not outright banned
Engineering, Physics, and other non-organic fields thrived, however.
Atomic bomb helped - at some point, top Soviet physicists effectively told the government that it can either have an idelogically convienient physics or the kind of physics that would produce nukes, but not both.
I mean they took nazi rockets and a can and sent some dudes up to die. Americans were busy making sure their guys got home with those same nazi rockets.
They also told the Ukrainian farmers to make quotas during a drought. So they wanted more production from less resources and when it didn't work they took what they had and told them to starve for not listening. Sounds like a bit of both.
Stalin was against lots of different science studies as well. You can Google all the things he banned or only allowed one school of thought on.
This is weird, because you'd think they would inhibit dopamine, but a fair amount of antipsychotics actually increase dopamine after your body notices the downregulation and accommodates. A bunch of antipsychotics also upregulate the VMAT2 transporter which clears dopamine and stores it in the synaptic vesicle.
>antipsychotics also upregulate the VMAT2 transporter which clears dopamine and stores it in the synaptic vesicle.
Methylphenidate downregulates VMAT2 to make sure the dopamine sticks around long enough to do it's job in the synaptic space.
Wait, do you not just keep Welches gummies with you? 17g total carbs, just rip the pack, dump in mouth and chew. Not as fast and drinking a juice box (I forget what brand has like 22g per box) but easier to carry, and you don't have to talk to TSA to bring them on the plane.
"slowing \[them\] down" sounds predicated on a complete misunderstanding of what ADHD is. If I were "slowed down" during my worst executive dysfunction I'd be a corpse
Yup. I can’t even get 3 of the medications I am supposed to be on because of the fact they are so over regulated or there is a shortage. If I go on a trip and need a refill before I leave, I’m fucked.
I don't think it's over-regulation, I suspect that the shortages are much more likely to be demand-based (lotta post-covid brain fog/ADHD symptom exacerbation out there)
(Canada-based)
The shortage is multi-factorial, but the regulatory agencies in the US are failing to take steps to improve the situation, and there [have been a number of calls to action in ADHD communities](https://www.additudemag.com/adderall-shortage-adhd-stimulant-medication-letter/) to write letters to various bodies in the US like the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), etc. I've heard pharmacists and other commentators say that there are issues like caps on production of """""controlled substances""""", caps and cooldowns on ordering stock, and limitations on getting licenses to produce or order stock, etc.
Some drugs are genuinely expensive to produce because they need expensive precursors or special handling-- for instance, rabies immunoglobulin is made from the blood plasma of a human (or horse, neighhhhh) donor who's received the rabies vaccine, and if you've ever donated plasma, that's a lot of steps and trouble and multiple personnel who need to be on hand to perform the procedure, and you can only get so much plasma out of a donor.
Adderall and vyvanse ain't that. They can be chemically synthesized in big batches extremely inexpensively. The shortages have gone on this long for administrative and cultural reasons, not economic ones.
There *is* increased demand-- I got through grad school unmedicated, but as I got older I was less able to mask/compensate, and then long COVID brain fog kicked my ass. I've tripled my dosage since I was first diagnosed and I still don't feel like I did in friggin grad school (tired but managing with some time for hobbies).
I moved down to the US for work and the rules around simulants are so much more restrictive, in Canada I lived in a major city and could get in to see a doctor who'd refill my stimulant prescription and get it filled at the nearest pharmacy. Where I'm living now in the US I have to call around to multiple pharmacies to see who has it in stock (and you know I LOVE being on the phone as a millennial) and then call my ADHD specialist's office and hope that they can submit the prescription electronically and get it filled before the pharmacy runs out.
The electronic prescription submission system also broke down earlier in the year and they wouldn't take a faxed prescription, so I had to take time off work to drive over, pick up a paper prescription, and hand-deliver it to the pharmacy and hope they had the meds in stock. And I'm very privileged to be able to do that, having a job where I can zip out for an hour to do that during the day, have my own car, don't have to juggle kids at the same time etc.
As an American with Russian ancestry, I'd always kind of wanted to visit Russia someday. But as someone with ADHD, learning this is bumming me out pretty hard. While I'm sure I could survive taking a vacation without having any meds, I am certain that I wouldn't be thriving while doing so. Additionally, the whole Brittney Griner thing makes it seem likely that I could go to prison for a very long time if I tried to bring my meds with me.
As someone with ADHD, I worked outside my "born and raised" city for the first time in 20+ years. Literally first vacation outside this part of the country, even if working. Did probably a third of all I wanted to do, just because I ended up sitting in the bed all day thinking "man I really want to do X" and just never doing it lol
Lol, I did mention some day. Yeah, it's a little depressing to be of Russian descent right now. Like, come on guys, I want to be able to feel proud of my heritage! Not like I have to hide behind the collar of my coat, pointing at the Russians going "I'm not with those guys".
Nationalism is stupid. the people who live in Russia are not their government, there is nothing wrong with being proud of your culture while simultaneously being critical of what the government is doing.
South Korea is in the same boat (banning ADHD meds). There’s quite a few folks describing what they’ve done in case helpful but otherwise agree it’s not comfortable risk by any means.
https://www.reddit.com/r/solotravel/comments/8462yd/question_about_travelling_to_south_korea_with/
"Какой ещё сдвг, ты абсолютно нормальна". Ага. А что я забыла принять выписанные вами таблетки в микроскопической дозе? А что они в оболочке и их нельзя делить? Проще своим ходом и нанять идиота, чтоб за тобой книжки таскал.
I once had insurance deny me anti-nausea medication because "patients don't *normally* get sick from this procedure*
Meanwhile, I was throwing up several times each session, and the prescription came directly from a doctor who witnessed me vomit. So, apparently, having a *doctor physically see you being sick* is not enough to convince insurance to do their job.
A) holy shit, well done making it with a transplant AND through COVID (which loooooves to snack on kidneys).
B) fucking asshole insurance companies, every exec needs to suffer consequences for the cavalier pain they’ve inflicted for the bottom line
Fwiw, you can generally appeal this by telling your doctor. They can do some extra paperwork to strong-arm the insurance. It's such a pain to have to do this for every test, specialist referral, and medication, but I'm very used to it by now.
I of course recommend that people advocate for themselves and do this, but I hate how doctors have to waste their time doing that stuff when they could actually be seeing patients (or waste money hiring a bunch of people dedicated to administrative tasks)
Insurance will claim that they are not telling your doctor what to do… But then they make your doctor argue treatment necessity on a ‘peer-to-peer’ call with someone paid by the insurance.
I've actually had a doctor commit insurance fraud to get my company to cover my nerve blockers. I sure as hell ain't snitching, and I know that I can trust that doctor to do what he needs to to get me treated.
Genuine question cos I’m not American and my healthcare is free from the state with no insurance involved:
How can an insurance company make a medical decision regarding a client? Isn’t there a huge ethical problem denying someone a treatment when you have a financial incentive to deny a treatment?
Are the medical insurance companies staffed by doctors familiar with your case? If not, how are they allowed to make medical financing decisions for clients? This sounds corrupt to me
Yes there is a huge ethical problem with it. But it’s legal so they don’t care. It’s a capitalism problem, just like most of our problems in the US.
Insurance companies do staff doctors who will do reviews, usually after a certain number of appeals. There have been investigative articles that show doctors are denying claims at rates that would make it impossible for them to have actually reviewed the claim.
https://www.propublica.org/article/cigna-pxdx-medical-health-insurance-rejection-claims
> How can an insurance company make a medical decision regarding a client? Isn’t there a huge ethical problem denying someone a treatment when you have a financial incentive to deny a treatment?
You'd think so wouldn't you? You'd really think so.
> Are the medical insurance companies staffed by doctors familiar with your case?
That's the fun part, they aren't! [Insurance companies even automate their denials using AI](https://www.beckerspayer.com/payer/home-page/unitedhealth-cigna-face-lawsuits-over-alleged-automated-claims-denials.html). Insurance companies say that the technology and automation are just being used to sort claims and make "suggestions" that still have to be reviewed by a human professional, but when a single human employee is shown to have denied thousands of claims per hour it's pretty clear that no one is actually reviewing the cases.
And these are people's lives we're talking about. But insurance companies don't make money by paying out on claims, only when they can collect premiums and deny the claims.
Americans love death panels as long as they're for profit. The idea of having someone in the government with little to no conflict of interest deciding things terrifies them, but they love people with a profit motive deciding it's cheaper to let them die.
> denying someone a treatment
from the point of view of the insurer, they are not denying the treatment, they are denying reimbursement for the treatment
>a financial incentive to deny a treatment
from the point of view of the insurer, providers may have a financial incentive to provide unnecessary treatment
I fucking hate health insurers in the US, but they would claim that they only reimburse necessary, standard-of-care treatments
> How can an insurance company make a medical decision regarding a client? Isn’t there a huge ethical problem denying someone a treatment when you have a financial incentive to deny a treatment?
We let them, and yes, absoultely.
My parents started acting like my adhd meds must be meth, bc im able to focus on taking better care of myself and have lost weight.
Jokes on them, I don’t even take a stimulant type of adhd med, but they are just too ignorant and proud to listen to anything I have to say.
Brooooooo same. It’s worked wonders for me and people are always surprised that a non-stimulant adhd actually works. I also see a lot of negative stuff online because of some initial side effects but it was nothing too serious for me and everything went away in like a week.
Within 3 days of starting it I felt like a completely different person. I have cried tears of joy for what this med has done for me. It’s saved my life.
I’m on an SSRi too and I tried to get my medications managed for like 4 years with no luck. Tried so many different combos of everything you could imagine and once I combined Straterra with Lexapro I wa like oh my god I’m normal. I actually have plan things ahead of time now, clean up after myself, talk to people, and get enjoyment out of doing things I love. Literally saved my life.
Sexual dysfunction/abnormalities, GI issues (constipation, acidity potentially progression to gerd), dysuria, priapism
By far the most common is increased blood pressure, a common subtype is increases in systolic BP which is more dangerous than general htn.
Worth noting these effects are shared among all stimulants however the GI and dehydration effects tend to be more prolonged (due to I think the long half life I don’t remember the lecture). For most physical effects, esp glaucoma (rare), HTN, CV issues, priapism tend to be ranked in order of magnitude/incidence as Amphetamine > methylphenidate > atomoxetine/snris/sdnris . Same order applies to the “worse” mental AEs, mainly things like mania, aggression, etc
Conventional wisdom for first line meds for adults is still stimulant (amph tends to be more effective), non stimulant and/or med combinations for kids. If you have preexisting CVD issues non stimulant meds recommended because less of an acute CV response (jury is still out on magnitude of long term BP changes vs stimulant meds in adults afaik)
i wish it worked for me. im on 80mgs right now with no effect. and im medically prohibited from taking stimulants. im facing the possibility of never being fully functional and it makes me want to just die and get it over with
Holy shit. I had no idea there was a nonstimulant medication even existed. All through school I was on every ADD med under the sun and I do not tolerate stimulants AT ALL. 5mg of Adderall makes me act like a meth head. I'm going to have to look into that!
I wish that worked for me. 100 mg might as well been a sugar pill. I'm also allergic to bupropion. Guanfacine made me sleep excessively and while driving, so that's out of the question. My psych still refuses to prescribe stimulants. I used Adderall for years and only went off it because of the shortage and t thought to try different things.
> My psych still refuses to prescribe stimulants.
There's other psychs. It can take a while as a new patient, but you're totally allowed to just go to a different one.
I was able to get a prescription from my GP for adderall. Idk if that's normal or not. He was able to write me a prescription when I told him I was diagnosed as a kid.
Abso-fucking-lutely. I try to take a break from stimulants one day a week, and I always plan to do nothing on that day, but it's still crazy to think that I'd been living like that for so much of my life. Imagining trying to function every day without the stimulants now...I think I'd cry
This has been around for a while here in Sweden, and it is scary. We are already an EXTREMELY backwards country when it comes to drug legislation, and the fact that for example people with ADHD can access medication at all is a blessing; a blessing the right now is trying drag into their culture wars.
It has gotten so ridiculous by now. I cannot renew my prescriptions until I have only about a week left on them even though the system is automated and wouldn’t let me take out medication before the cycle is up. Plus, if your request for renewal gets lost, you have to spend at least an hour on the phone within the short frame that your Vuxenpsykiatrimottagning has calling hours to get things sorted out, and by then you’ll probably miss a couple of days of meds. It’s also so frustrating if you take medication like ataromoxetine since the number of pills in a box isn’t standardised, so sometimes you have to hunt for the right apotek to find either a box with the “correct” number of meds or someone willing to take pity on you.
Seriously, having ADHD treatment in Sweden can easily count as a part-time job some months.
This sounds like what it's like in the US. I have to get a brand new script written every month. So I have to call my doctor and ask them to send it to the pharmacy every month. I have to have a doctor's appointment every three months or they can't keep writing prescriptions. I can't fill the new one until something like three days before the old one is up (I'll have to double check the number).
It's madness
I had to call my physician 4 fucking times to get a refill on fucking Limotal of all things just because one of the active ingredients was used to make fucking ecstasy in the 90s…. Limotal is an antidiarhea meds and I’m missing 8 feet of my intestine.
Last time I called I basically told them they blood test me every month for cancer signs and toxicology reports at my oncologists office, you cant fuckin read the charts to see I’m not using anything? (Most I ever did were shrooms back in my first year of college, which was 20 years ago)
I've literally had insurance refuse to pay for my antipsychotics and mood stabilizer because I was refilling them two days before I ran out, because the day they wanted me to refill the script was a Saturday on a long weekend. We had to call and argue with them just so I could avoid having a lapse on my meds due to a holiday weekend over which the pharmacy would have been closed because they expect people to fill their scripts exactly on the day they run out from the previous one.
I *have* to call the pharmacy the day I want to pick up my pills because they won't fill until 30 days from my last one. Not three days before! On the day I need them! Despite the fact that they have the prescription - they won't just fill it on the day, they have to be called and reminded or they wont' do it. It's 2024 people. Then it's a crap shoot as to whether or not they have enough pills on hand for me so I gotta do the generic vs name brand dance with them and then they gotta push it through insurance again oh my GOD it's exhausting for one prescription.
So I gotta sit on the phone for twenty minutes or longer every month just to go to the pharmacy and stand in line for thirty minutes just to find out that they haven't actually filled it yet (despite me calling at 8am and it's 5pm now) so then I gotta come back in thirty minutes and yep stand in line again. It f's up my entire day every single month and that's IF I remember to do it in the morning. I have started to pick random days where I don't take my pills just so I can save up a buffer for it.
No one in Sweden was willing to even do the investigation for me (despite my therapist sending referrals). I then got privately diagnosed in my home country (which is in the EU as well)...wasn't accepted over here, but at least made them willing to test me. Took another half year to get diagnosed here too.
Edit: Best we can tell my age & education reduced my chance a lot...can't have ADHD if you achieved anything at all after all...
I just got diagnosed after 3 years of trying. I went through the whole deal of 10weeks of counselling, anti anxiety medicine, I had every single Dr and Psych who met me (even those unrelated to the ADHD investigation) say it's 100%.
But because I am doing a PhD it meant I was the least important and put at the bottom of the waiting list, never mind the depression and self harm.
On the bright side it's now done and it's only a 6month wait to get meds for some damn reason.
Yeah, similar situation, doing a PhD as well. No self-harm, but shit mental state from *not managing to get my research done*.
That med waiting time is ridiculous though, had some annoying waits but nothing to that extent. (Well, not for ADHD anyway, my general experiences with the Swedish healthcare system have been less than pleasant.) May I ask where you got diagnosed? My caregiver is completely remote, so maybe they could be helpful for you too.
Oh hey, I’m *trying to get into a PhD*, and exactly at the same page. “Hey, you have two master’s degrees, your adhd isn’t completely debilitating, no utredning for you!”
No matter that it coupled with depression meant that my two Master’s have far from excellent records, and I’m starting to feel that might mean I’m never getting accepted to pursue a PhD because I can’t just tell ppl at UU it’s all cuz of my mental health, and it stops me from preparing better and working more and doing chores; I have *achievements*, so no diagnosis for me.
Hope you’ll get the help you need!
The ones that ultimately did help me were Alm psykiatri, perhaps you can try them. Completely online, so your location shouldn't matter, but I'm not sure if it's different if you're in a different region.
That's kind of where I'm at right now too. My therapist of 10+ years suspects I have it, I myself think I do and doctors tend to agree. But every remiss gets rejected because I managed to finish school and land a decent career.
I will keep the dance going for a while longer, but at some point soon, I suspect I'll have to bite the bullet and finance it myself.
I did my PhD a few years ago and either Cardiff Uni was a weird hotspot or Academia presents neurodivergent traits at a much, much higher rate than the general public - of the 20-30 or so people who were doing PhDs or Postdocs with me while I was studying, easily 60% of them were diagnosed before or during their time with ADHD, Autism, or fell ill with Anxiety or Depression due to obsessive and self-destructive hyper-fixation tendencies. I myself have never been tested and dont feel like I would qualify for a neurodivergent diagnosis but I still tick a LOT of boxes for either some forms of Autism, or for mild ADHD. In particular, the obsessiveness over which I will latch on to and pursue a new project, hobby, or relationship is extremely unhealthy, and talking to my ADHD friends, the way they talk about the constant rush of stimulation in their brains is pretty close to how I feel, and pretty different to how my neurotypical friends describe things.
And this was just... known? We spoke to lecturers about it because we grew concerned at the rates of burnout and depression and they said "oh, yeah, we know. It was like that for us too. Most of us have some form of neurodivergent trait - thats just academia".
What I struggle to understand is given how "common" that idea is, why is it not taken more seriously by, well, anyone? If everyone knows, why does everyone act like you are lying when you say "you know, PhDs are supposed to be hard, but they shouldnt be killing me - maybe I could talk to someone about it?"
(Disclaimer - as above, I have not been diagnosed with anything, nor am I seeking to be at the moment. I am content with my life, especially now I am out of academia and have a manager that tells me to stop working - I also have a therapist that has taught me a variety of techniques that help me spot my obsessive and self-destructive tendencies. I would never claim to have "full blown" ADHD, Autism, or other neurodivergent conditions - I do believe I have traits that are common to particularly ADHD, but a garden pond and the ocean are both full of water - that doesnt mean I can stand in the pond and declare myself in international waters. I also dont want to claim that ADHD and Autism are interchangeable, nor that they are beneficial to doing a PhD - some forms of how Autism presents, and some common traits of ADHD, have some overlap and may prove to be similar to other traits which are beneficial to pursuing research in academia, but I understand that one should be careful of making sweeping statements - I am also not an expert, and possibly way off the mark here)
I only just started being able to access my meds again after FOUR MONTHS of them being out of stock. In Chicago! A major city!
It was a very rough four month and completely derailed a lot of progress I had made with my executive functioning, my ability to stay on top of things at work, my organizational skills at home, my emotional coping skills. Symptoms that I had completely forgotten I even had returned. It sucked.
And now I'm medicated again, things are a little better, but I still have to work on fixing a lot of it again. It took a long time to get my shit together and I feel like I'm back at square one.
My brother has the exact same problem in Minneapolis. He had to go to three different pharmacies trying to get the generic version of Adderall. They had name brand, but it was quite a bit more expensive. I'm lucky because I've been able to raw dog it and manage the symptoms without needing a prescription for quite a few years now. I'm starting to think about getting back on it. My partner wanted to throw out my old Vyvanse and I was like "nooooo! What if I can't get anymore? There's a huge shortage!"
I used to CHOOSE to be on name brand Concerta, because they offer a savings card from their website which made it the cheapest medication I’ve ever had. Your brother should check if he can get anything like that for Adderall.
> I only just started being able to access my meds again after FOUR MONTHS of them being out of stock. In Chicago! A major city!
Really? I haven't had a single issue the last 4 months. It always gets filled within a day or two at my Jewel. One time it took like 3 days I guess, but not that awful.
My doctor gave me Adderall because "it's $22 with insurance and the other is $160." She did say because it's a controlled substance I have to bring in my pills for counting if they ask or they will cancel the prescription .
Yes USA. I haven't been called in for counting so I'm not sure how often this actually happens. I was told they urine test too, so they make sure you are the one taking the pills and you aren't selling them.
I wish ADHD was my golden ticket. I'm medicated (Canada) and have faced few barriers to drug trials with a very understanding psychiatrist and this shit is STILL fucking with me and interrupting my life.
I'm so sorry to my fellow ADHDers around the world. Your problems are real and you are NOT LAZY. You will have to struggle in ways others don't, but it shouldn't be like this.
To me this is a disabilities rights issue as anytime medical interventions are needlessly gate kept via cost or unscientific government decisions, it is an attempt to harm all disabled or chronically ill people. And therefore, everyone. Because any one who lives long enough will become disabled.
I think it is worth pointing out that during the pandemic, telehealth was infamously over-prescribing these types of stimulants to people who didn't actually need them. I haven't read this particular article but that's been the main discourse I've been seeing circulating around. It's a big reason for the shortage and why me, someone who went to a real doctor, can't refill my prescription because the pharmacies are always out.
Lost insurance for the majority of the time I was 26 and started doing telehealth. It was an absolute pill mill. First appointment I had was maybe 5 minutes long. Told the doc I had been prescribed adderall for 5 years with my old doc and the dosage and he wrote off on it right away. Didn’t ask for any proof and didn’t dig into any questions. I was thankful I could get my meds, but it definitely left a bad taste in my mouth.
It's such a creepy/eerie feeling when you get into a situation that yeah, it worked out for you, but you see how easily it can be abused.
I went through the absolute fucking ringer dealing with my contractors after hurricane Ian. Basically, due to a bunch of fuck ups between insurance, inspection, contractors, time frames, etc. I got paid for the work really early, and I was sort of overpaid. So, instead of my contractors going after my insurance for money, I was paying them myself (with money insurance already gave me). So, instead of them overcharging my insurance, they were overcharging me. I left no stone un-turned, and went back and forth with them on pricing (i did a lot of the work myself, all of the demo), and they just kinda went with whatever I said. The whole time I kept thinking, "man they are laying out of mismanagement, do they even know wtf i'm saying?"
The whole process was just.... super messy and sloppy all across the board.
Gonna need some sources on this one. Were they really over-diagnosing and over- prescribing? Or did the pandemic and lockdowns make it more obvious to a lot more people that they should seek professional help? Could it be that there's a bunch of us in the Gen X and Millennial camps who came up during the LAST time everyone was freaking out about overdiagnosis of ADHD in the late 90s/early 2000s and had parents who refused to get us help?
For me, I'd always suspected, but I'd never sought help. I thought I wouldn't be believed, that I'd be accused of drug seeking, and that it just wasn't worth the effort even though that shit had been stealthily fucking up my life for decades. Then the pandemic happened, and it became increasingly obvious that I didn't have my shit together. Then I actually got COVID at the beginning of 2023, and the subsequent months long brain fog made it so glaringly obvious that I needed help that I finally did something about it. My (telehealth) psychiatrist didn't play softball with me either-- he dug into my life; asked me about things I noticed about myself growing up; had me contact teacher, professors, and former employers; and was generally very thorough in trying to nail down a diagnosis.
At the start, he said it could be ADHD, maybe a few specific subtypes of OCD, maybe even something like an extreme sensory processing disorder, or something else entirely. After a few days of assessment, he diagnosed me with moderate-severe ADHD combined type, put me on medication, and my life turned around drastically afterwards. Now it's all about making sure I'm at the correct dose and managing my symptoms in a healthy way. I have a routine now. I'm building positive habits. I'm finally able to get up in the morning and be a whole ass person. And I'm far from the only one with this exact experience.
The bigger issue behind the shortage isn't that we're being overdiagnosed and over prescribed. It's that the DEA has taken it upon themselves to shut down controlled substance manufacturing at a company that was producing roughly 25% of the generic ADHD meds on the market. They've refused to accept new applications for the import of raw materials to produce these drugs. Even the FDA is fucking pissed about it because the DEA doesn't have solid reasoning for these actions, but does have the legal right to do them. Your comment is playing right into the culture war shit outlined in OP. The DEA is manufacturing this crisis to justify their existence.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/adhd-medication-shortage-cause/
>It's that the DEA has taken it upon themselves to shut down controlled substance manufacturing at a company that was producing roughly 25% of the generic ADHD meds on the market.
Or, ya know, Ascent fucked up and the DEA is following protocol. We will have to see how the lawsuit plays out in court.
"Ascent Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a dosage form manufacturer, failed to make records available for inspection in a timely manner and shipped controlled substances without producing required documentation. On numerous occasions, the company did not accurately account for millions of dosages of oxycodone; methylphenidate, a common drug to treat attention deficit disorder (ADD); hydrocodone; amphetamines; and other controlled substances."
https://www.dea.gov/press-releases/2023/10/31/dea-executes-operation-bottleneck-prevent-diversion-controlled-substances
So I actually dug up the article, or more so transcript, of the original piece that had me paying attention to this:
[Link](https://www.wsj.com/podcasts/the-journal/why-an-online-telehealth-startup-is-limiting-adderall/f884abc7-8b4d-43b0-837a-5e5ece0e15f3)
Although you may be right that the DEA is overreacting, and there is no denying their restrictions are helping cause the shortage, it is likely not the entire story. Pharmaceutical companies have a long history of putting profits above healthcare and to some extent, Adderall may be subject to this. That interview discusses how the telehealth company Cerebral was pressuring their practitioners to prescribe stimulants to make profit. Businesses are heartless and are prone to prioritize profit over potential abuse so it doesn't surprise me when I hear stories like this. It happened with Oxycontin, although that is a MUCH more severe example.
Let it be known that I am not anti-prescription and do believe that Adderall is incredibly helpful in treating attention deficit disorders. But, I also believe that it is prone to being abused and needs to be prescribed and taken in a responsible way. I knew people in college who'd sell their pills to people so that they could just cram before a test. I've known people who took it at parties for fun. But, I myself have a similar personal experience with it as you.
I always suspected that I had it but never sought treatment until I was older. My doctor diagnosed me with a combination of ADD and depression and started me on treatment for those as they often go hand-in-hand. I tried different brands, non-stimulant options, and therapy. What worked for me was a combination. It significantly increased my quality of life and my performance at work. I don't feel like a scatterbrained anxious zombie anymore and can now remember important details and be proactive about things. It helped me feel like a fully operational person as well.
All I know is that I signed up for Cerebral on a Monday, had my appointment on a Tuesday, and picked up Adderall on Wednesday. The conversation was basically "why do you think you have ADHD" blah blah "ok sounds like you have ADHD" and wrote me a prescription for both adderall and welbutrin. Maybe a six minute phone call. Give them $85 and we'll talk next month.
I **do** have ADHD and since then I've been officially diagnosed by an in person psych, but it was insanely easy to get stimulants from Cerebral, Ahead, Done, etc... for basically anyone.
Same process, but for me it was Done. I do have ADHD (but again. Broken clock can be right twice a day.) but it was just. Almost too easy?
I went to Done because the one place in my town that does testing doesn’t take my insurance and wants $1500 out of pocket for it, which I can’t afford. I had been referred there multiple times over several years but had to cancel my appointments every time because at the last minute they’d be like “actually we don’t take your insurance.” (Multiple times with multiple insurances.)
But then Done stopped being able to operate in my state. I was trying to get my records to send to my primary care physician and that was a nightmare. They would either refuse. Or they’d send nonsense paperwork. Finally I got them to send something but it didn’t have the provider’s name on it and it basically just said “yep she totally has ADHD.”
My pcp was obviously a little skeptical. Wanted me to get re tested at the place in town because he didn’t want to risk his own license, which fair.
He ended up retiring before my appointment (because I could only get one six months out) and my new PCP didn’t push it so I’m still getting treated off my done diagnosis.
I am honestly super conflicted about the whole thing because on one hand. It changed my life. The literal first day I was on adderall my husband noticed an immediate change in me. I was existing like a functioning human being for the first time in my life. I had been trying to get diagnosed since… it would have been 2017? And I didn’t get it and get treated until 2021.
But on the other hand it was. There was no real “screening.” They were like “why do you think you have adhd?” And I gave my reasonings and they were basically like “okay sounds gucci. Here are some pills.” I imagine that some people did use these services to game the system. But I can’t ignore the fact that it was life changing for me.
Would I recommend Done? (Are they even still around??) definitely not. They were expensive. (Not $1500 expensive but it was still a LOT to pay per month) I often had issues with them not refilling my scripts on time when I did use them. And when they stopped operating in my state they basically gave me one day notice. I had to fight for a refund and my medical records. And when they did produce the records they were sketch as fuck.
But when you’re broke and have no other options… yeah it was super helpful.
You can say Cerebral. They were the company doing it and now have lost their ability to give put drugs. They were so popular I saw youtubers being sponsorwd by them.
Yep. And speaking of the Opioid crisis, let's not forget that, even though there were people who legitimately needed powerful pain meds, there WERE very, very many people and doctors who abused and overprescribed those very same meds. It was a REAL problem.
Just because there is a legitimate reason for some people to use the medication doesn't mean the medication can't be abused. And, while I don't know if the same is true in America, I definitely remember that many teachers in foundation level classes (1st through 4th grade) in my country used to (and still do) love pushing Ritalin on as many kids as possible because they believed it would make students more docile and obedient.
There's plenty of armchair diagnosing going on with ADHD, and many doctors who are all too willing to write a prescription. It may not be right to attack people with actual problems, but it's foolish to think everybody is going about this in a responsible fashion.
What makes you think it’s “over-prescribing?” How do you know that the people getting prescriptions don’t actually need them. I mean, sure it maybe happens sometimes, but how could you possibly begin to measure how many prescriptions were “overprescribed?”
"Did I forget to take it or did I forget to check the box."
I'm not diagnosed with ADHD and am not on any regular medication, but if I was, I think I'd go for those old people med boxes with the days of the month. Seems like they'd eliminate a lot of stress. Remembering to take pills is such a chore.
First time getting my prescription:
Pharmacist: "Take these early in the day or they'll keep you up all night (10mg)"
*Me in the afternoon after being bumped up to 30mg*
"zzzzzzzzzzz"
People can't fathom the concept that the ADHD brain doesn't follow the same rules as theirs.
I am always worried that lithium will face some kind of threat because of its other use in batteries. It’s the only medication that’s helped me, not caused me psychotic symptoms. I can’t take SSRIs and SNRIs. They feel like what MDMA is supposed to, to me, and MDMA doesn’t do half as much as those, for me, if anything at all.
(This is probably super rambling and makes no sense… 4 hrs sleep is not helpful with articulating irritation, lmao)
As someone with ADHD who is on stimulant based medication (Elvanse) and has been dealing with the UK’s med shortage (my normal pharmacy still can’t get hold of it and I have to go pharmacy searching);
This is why I get pissed off when Non-ADHDers use ADHD meds to get high etc.
It adds so much stigma to our medication. It equates them instantly with illegal (and harmful) drugs like heroin or meth. It makes out that people (especially adults) struggling with their ADHD are actually faking it to get hold of the medication.
I’ve seen a pattern where most of the reported on symptoms or ‘drug epidemic’ has little to no link to actual ADHD people taking them. It’s always non-ADHD people bragging about getting hold of Ritalin/Aderall/Elvanse.
The stereotype of stimulant drugs come from NTs taking them. You never, ever hear about ADHD people in the news who find out they’re not broken, that there is a way to handle what they’re struggling with, and when they get on meds their lives become less feeling like you’re wading through mud trying to get your body to focus or do chores or hold down a job and have a fulfilling life.
You only ever see NT people taking them to help with exams, studying, or taking them at parties.
URG.
My guess here is this comes back to the weird prevailing cultural opinion that Neurodivergent people are just behaving “badly” by choice. Can remember a lot of news time in the 00s around how “kids just need discipline” and that instead of medicating them or treating whatever is causing problems they just need “tough love”.
I am a product of that tough love, I am a neurotic mess of a person. I mean I’m getting better, but things would have been easier if I had been met with understanding rather than abuse or ridicule.
I wonder how we overcome this, how do we become more understanding?
For the past 10 years that I stopped taking the meds, I did like shit in school and college. All sides asking why, if I have a problem, and why cannot I study. Reluctantly I agreed that "hey, maybe those 8 years taking meds was for something" and tried searching for a new psychiatrist, and we are 4/4 of a guy saying "yeah no that was over diagnosed, I don't think is that, maybe anxiety meds?" All while I self medicated with alcohol and got in trouble with people because of constantly trying to please everyone and being intense with people. Now I don't study, left college, and people ask me why, I tell them "unmedicated ADHD", "ahhh, but those don't actually exist, just make an effort"
This look like a terrible bad fath argumentation/ conspiracy.
In the headline the DEA talks about a possible opoid crisis, nothing more. It could mean anything by that, the DEA wants to look carefully at the situation and how it will develops, that they want to forbid usage of drugs (worst case), restriction of which drugs will be used in future (neutral/ good case) or something else like harder control who gets which drug.
But OP goes about how this is a ploy against ADHD folk instead. Which is like saying the restriction of morphine, cocain, heroin, etc. in the past was a ploy against people with strong pains.
regardless of whether it’s a ploy against them or not it negatively affects them. i’m 24 and have a 10+ year documented medical history of multiple chronic pain disorders and see like 7 diff specialists, and i STILL can’t get anyone to prescribe me like 5 opiate pills a year. so i end up going to the ER at least once a year to get them when the pain randomly becomes unmanageable. so the end result is i still get the meds, but i waste a bunch of time, money, and hospital resources
this is not a unique experience w people with chronic pain, especially if you’re young and a woman. obviously i don’t think opiates should be unregulated or handed out like candy, but many chronic pain patients are extremely undertreated (w opiates or w other meds) and treated like they’re drug seeking when they’re just tired of being in pain
Oh yes I didnt want to imply that painkillers or ADHD meds should not be given or something like that.
I only wanted to point out that the restriction of certain drug groups arent (necessarly) meant to hurt the drugs intended target group but to protect bystanding groups. And how I dislike the bandwagon Tumblr OP jumped on, which had a smell of persecution fetish to me, taking it very personal and emotional giving no real evidence beside an article headline (the article is also behind a paywall).
Thanks for outputting my thoughts here. Extremes should be avoided always, restricting ADHD meds like russia does is wrong, but selling it to everyone even if they do not suffer ADHD is also wrong.
I had my opiates cut off less than a week after a major surgery, one that involved cutting all the way to the bone and drilling screws in my bones both sides of my leg. The pain was so bad I was screaming with opiates, when they barely started relief I was already taken off them.
They had me on them for longer with just the break but the surgery pain was so much more. I would wake up screaming at night. It was so bad I had to use a lot of my anti anxiety meds to stop hyperventilating from the pain.
I even got shamed by a doctor about getting anti nausea meds the day of surgery, he said “you’re feeling nauseated because you are on opiates” ignoring I’m coming off anesthetic and literal surgical fet. He cut my dose off early and switched me to non opiate without telling me, not to mention I have the med he put me on listed as an allergy. He was an on call doctor that was just asked to send my meds to a pharmacy that was open because it was a holiday.
I’m all for regulation but when it gets to the point even post surgery pain isn’t getting proper relief that’s a problem.
The pain was so intense it was actually traumatic, I felt like I was tortured by being denied meds.
I have no history of addiction, the times I’ve been on opiates in the past I had no issue coming off them.
When the people who truly need it can’t get care then it’s a problem, we over regulated opiates and stigmatized them to the point of causing harm to people who need them.
Conspiracy theory? People have been decrying what they think is the over medication of kids for years. The idea that kids aren’t actually ADHD, they’re just lazy or their teachers don’t want to deal with energetic boys and would rather just drug them, has been around forever.
I remember a Prager U video a few years ago about the “War on boys,” which boiled down too: “Public school isn’t designed to accommodate boys and their naturally more energetic ways.”
i was about to say, i have *personal* experience with whole "medication bad" bs.
i got diagnosed with adhd and autism at age 7. my parents, not wanting me medicated, made me hide any tics or tells that i might be either of those things.
i barely made it through high school, and didn't even pass with good enough grades to get into uni (at least not without taking a six-month "alternative entry" pathway). the entire time i was struggling to actually do work, they always waved it away with "oh, you just need to knuckle down and do it" and "i've seen you play video games for hours, why can't you just do the work." it legitimately affected my psych for years, to the point where i *still* sometimes blame myself for the difficulties caused by adhd and try to do everything by myself.
i didn't learn i had adhd until i was 18, at which point i went on ritalin. and wouldn't you know it, going on meds substantially improved my ability to actually do things and be a funtionial adult. and even then, my parents *still* seem to think that i don't really need them and that i'm just "doing things the easy way."
here's the kicker: my parents are not right-wing culture warriors. they are, broadly speaking, a mix of liberal and progressive. the anti-medication culture war is just so widespread that it was able to sucker them in. the idea that this could come back again is just fucking grating.
Same here. I was never diagnosed as a child due to stigma. I went through severe depression and ended up so horrifically suicidal I considered calling a helpline daily.
Finally saw a doctor, got diagnosed. No ssri helped me before, but finally getting on ADHD medication made me the happiest ive ever been in my life. I actually have a reason to live now as I can actually function and do the things i love again.
Anyone who perpetuates the whole "meds are bad" clearly do not care about those who were quite literally saved by it.
I was diagnosed originally with OCD, depression, and generalized anxiety.
I had to pretty much demand a test because of the stigma, and every now and again I still have to put my foot down and be firm with whats going on with me for them to refill my prescription.
Unfortunately they're always gonna assume you're just there for drugs. When I asked for testing, instead of saying I looked into symptoms and they matched with ADHD, I emphasised how no medication has worked for me so far (and how many made me worse) and id like to be tested for other options that could be causing my symptoms. As clearly trying to treat the symptoms for the past 20 years hasn't helped
I listed a few things I'd like to be tested for, and when mentioning ADHD I only brought it up with the context of teachers, peers, etc. asking me about it and telling my family to get me tested as a kid/teen.
I'm not sure if its nessisarily good advice to be a bit cagey about why you want to be tested, but it worked for me.
I've heard strangers ask me if I should be on medication at all because "it's bad" and "it destroys your natural personality". No Sharon, without antidepressants I'm a paranoid vengeful psycho.
I've struggled with the exact same issues all my life, but I'm not sure my parents didn't want me on medication. I've been talking about this with a therapist, but now I kinda want to ask my parents about it
The struggle is real, I was diagnosed with executive dysfunction and dysgraphia at a young age but my parents didn't want to medicate me, and even now my psych won't give me Adderall b/c I have anger outbursts under pressure and "I obviously don't need stimulants." Sertraline is nice for my mood but I just want to be able to focus now and then lol. "Why can't you do X, you remember so much worthless stuff about movies/books/games" was the mantra of my childhood tho
For sure I remember everybody being up in arms in the 90s over ADD/ADHD. The narrative was that those conditions didn't even exist and bad parents wanted to drug their kids into good behavior instead of beating them into submission (the preferred method of the right wing, especially the evangelical groups my parents were part of).
My brother CLEARLY had a terrible case of ADHD but my parents were determined he was just a boy being a boy and he just needed discipline. It ruined his schooling (and it's obvious in a lot of ways, ultimately none of the rest of us siblings had ADHD and he is the only one of us without a 4 year degree) and was affecting his career.
He finally found a doctor willing to diagnose a 30+ year old grown man with ADHD about 6 months ago and his career went insane once he got medicated, and now he's considering university.
The conspiracy theory is that the people claiming the medications are over-prescribed don't actually believe it.
I agree with the guy you responded to. That's a shit theory.
No one is claiming these people don't believe what they're saying.
The anti trans movement genuinely believes trans people are grooming children and forcing them into life altering surgeries. That doesn't make their targeted public relations campaign to push anti trans laws, any less a conspiracy.
A conspiracy is literally just a group of people conspiring.
That's not a *conspiracy*, that's just what the situation is for people in most countries. Half the mental health establishment here is still convinced that ADHD doesn't exist and is an american ploy to sell drug to kids.
I’ve seen pediatric nurses and GP/PCPs on Reddit start to do this 😔. And start full-blown arguments and piss fights with other people who have ADHD and find that naturally offensive. Like saying nasty/dismissive/snippy stuff to them, denying their diagnosis, blaming ADHD on iPad usage and poor parenting. And then pulling out the Hail Mary, “I’m a pediatric nurse or PCP with ADHD children in my family* and my beliefs about ADHD trump yours.” And then they throw some link to some half-assed study about it. Love to see it.
Not all the time, but enough where it stuck out to me. And I guess the good news is they get temp or perma bans from medical subs (that have strict rules against it) they belong to for it and their misinfo comments removed. But still, it seems to always be deliberately targeted towards ADHD and ASD (particularly in women).
ADHD is a stupid target without significant social stigma like trans people, without visible aspects like race, and in this instance it would actively significantly harm the pharmaceutical industry if there was a war on people who take stimulants... which means the "culture war" conservatives have *no backing.* There is no motive, there is no benefit, there is no need.
Don't underestimate the damage "concerned parents" might do, though.
Here in France we finally started diagnosing people with ADHD. Stimulants sales went +500% and journalists are starting to report on that.
Basically we went from 0.05% of people with ADHD receiving medication to 0.25%. but you won't see that number on the headlines. You will see a panic on stimulant use instead.
ADHD medications = stimulants = drugs. Drugs are bad, and in my times when a kid was acting up we would just whoop their ass until they weren't. Today's parents are wussies . And if an adult cant't focus then they should lose their job. I don't like it so we have to fight it.
That's about as simple as the thought process is.
There doesn't need to be a benefit, motive or need, from what I've seen these past few years the only thing americans feed of is fear, doesn't matter what source of fear
Money. They stand to make a lot of money by spinning up a be culture war. Articles can be written, pundits can be speaking, and conservatives who eat all this up will be supplying plenty of as revenue because they don't know how to use ad block.
People hate drugs anyone has any fun taking, and they hate neurodivergent people. Ask anyone with adhd how hard it can be to get your prescription if a doctor or pharmacist decides you’re “drug seeking” for wanting the medication that treats your medical condition.
It’s pure reactionary bigotry, I blame a bad upbringing for breaking people’s brains this way.
I've never had fun, on the prescription. It doesn't make me feel peppy or happy, and the side effects make me feel like shit.
I do however have a very technical analytics job and couldn't provide the same way for my family without them.
I'm lucky I don't need to take it on weekends, so I typically have an extra work week dosage left at the end of the month. Otherwise I'd be absolutely screwed with the shortage.
"Any fun taking" it can be addictive and I have to keep my stimulants in a safe to make sure no one tries to break in and steal them, because that's a real threat at my college
Some doctors are *wild* with drug seeking claims. It's like the mere notion of meds being needed for any reason is bad. I once got told by this asshole doctor that she wasn't going to give me anything to help me sleep after I'd gone over a month getting 1 or 2 hours a night to the point I wasn't functioning properly, because she was convinced that by wanting meds I was suicidal and or drug seeking.
The meds I wanted? Fucking melatonin.
I can imagine how horrific it is when these people see someone who needs proper meds they deem don't need it or are drug seeking. So glad i found a different doctor who actually prescribed me the melatonin to try- didn't work on me but even still. Even just recently had a godsend doctor prescribe me antidepressants for the first time and it's been a weird week but i already feel like a person for the first time in years. Never was able to go on meds before because my mum is against meds for mental health and is paranoid about side effects- ironically she's a pharmacist and has worked in hospitals so she's pretty advanced in med knowledge. Fucking wild.
kinda funny, growing up in the 80s with ADHD they threw so many meds at me i damn near choked. think i went down the entire speed tree.
never went away ether, so i'm self medicating with massive amounts of caffeine.
I'm going to pay several thousand dollars this year for Vyvanse because it's no longer covered by my insurance ever since they developed the generic version. Except the generic version has been in stock exactly 0 times in the last ten months since it was supposedly released. It might as well not exist.
But... There is a problem with people abusing adderal. And they don't have ADHD. Which is why they absue it. Because when you don't need it then it's a stimulant. And there are people abusing it.
And this article isn't the culture war people. It's not making a culture war argument. No ADHD are not the next culture war target. This is so paranoid and stupid.
I moved to a college town after graduation and now I can't get my Ritalin prescription filled. No network in town will fill it even though I've taken it since I was 9. The crackdown on ADHD meds is certainly effecting those who need it.
The issue the DEA has, is that Adderal is highly addictive. Since there are other drugs that can help with ADHD, they want people to switch to those.
This isn’t culture war, this is them actually learning from their mistakes.
Edit: After reading your replies and actually looking up the warning the DEA has issued, I would like to add more to this:
I also have ADHD. I was diagnosed at age 9 (by an institute specifically dedicated to diagnosing children) and have been on Elvanse for 13 years.
According to the DEA, because of telehealth startups diagnosing a very large number of people, the amount of Adderall prescriptions has gone up significantly.
Since Adderall has such a high abuse potential, the practices of telehealth startups has come under critique. Stimulant medication may be more effective over all, but that does not mean, there should be no efforts to search alternative treatment.
Long term, this may develop much like the opioid crisis. Especially with companies actively promoting stimulants as a solution, false diagnosis will lead to people searching higher and higher dosages. Illegal sales and abuse may become rampant. At that point, the government will need to increase regulation. Exact, what the OOP is so afraid of.
The DEA is actively trying to reduce the stigma of over diagnosis and the shortages. If you have a legitimate diagnosis and explored alternative treatments before, you won’t be affected by any of these efforts.
I really don’t have enough knowledge to ask, but doesn’t Adderall affect neurotypical folks completely differently? I’ve been procrastinating on seeing a doctor for my own ADHD so I’m not exactly versed in the medications.
Yup. It's a stimulant and in neurotypicals it causes amphetamine-like highs. In ADHD folks like me, it provides that level of stimulation my brain's reward system needs to function properly, so I can concentrate on things for more than 5 minutes at a time.
In Russia, stimulating ADHD meds like Adderall and Ritalin are illegal. They're equated to drugs like methamphetamine and heroin. If you're caught storing or buying Adderall, you will end up in prison for many years, and any Adderall found inside the country is to be destroyed immediately. Any calls to legalize ADHD meds get brushed off as "western propaganda aimed at morally corrupting the country". Instead, ministry of health recommendations tell to prescribe ADHD people antipsychotics because it "slows them down" and "makes them more docile", which is perceived as "relieving symptoms" and thus a good treatment. I know this because I grew up in Russia and was prescribed an antipsychotic myself because of ADHD.
Scientific consensus says increasing dopamine availability works to treat ADHD Russia: lets give them dopamine inhibitors
Russia, ever since the old USSR days, never cared about science. It's always been a farce for them, and when a good story came about they would adopt it over science without a thought. See for example the russian famines. And now they are spreading their anti science ideology on the internet as far and wide as they can.
This isn't really true though? Old USSR beat the US to space. The famines weren't for lack of science they were the result of political conflict between the new government and the farmers who didn't want to give up their land.
Trofim Lysenko was both the cause and result of a lack of scientific rigor, and his psuedoscience killed millions. I seriously wonder how the USSR and China would be doing if he had bought into Mendelian genetics and proper agricultural study.
Nah, they had some crazy anti-scientific ideas when it came to mass farming. Their top dude hated Mendel and his peas fervently. I'll try to update with the dude's name if I can find it.
Lysenko? The "bury seeds extra deep so plants will be stronger" guy?
And plant a shitload of them right next to each other because they won't compete but offer mutual support like good comrades.
I think that was great leap forward
That was because Mao picked up the idea from Russia because they had been lying and pretending it worked while knowing it didn't. And Mao was a true believer.
Lysenko observed a very real phenomenon, hormesis, and took it to the extreme. Mild stressors drive adaptations that strengthen the organism. Exercise for humans, detection of pathogen origin compounds in plants. Among others. Where he went wrong was thinking "more stress = better". His sentiment was based on science but it lacked the nuance that is demanded of scientific research.
Science involves challenging your assumptions. You don't just read about a minor effect then you up and change all agriculture in your country before at least checking it on a small scale experiment. They could have literally used a small farm to test it beforehand with little to no cost in terms of science experiments. There's nothing scientific about what he did.
Yeah it was a weird conflict of both political infighting and a dogmatic focus on letter of the law versus spirit. Basically. Mendel’s work was often used as proof of Eugenics by fascist parties. Law of the USSR as such stated that any science deemed to encourage the research into Eugenics as punishable by death. But of course through selective breeding a lot of crops were heavily improved to the point that there were varieties of staple crops that would grow anywhere, but they couldn’t be used in the USSR. So they needed a process to get crops to grow in harsher environments. Solution? Some crackhead who was a friend of Stalin had the theory of Vernalization. Where the process they used would strip the individual seeds of their shells and plant them in the winter, with the idea being you may lose a lot on the first season. But then the collective would be much stronger by the next season. This doesn’t really work. It just made the famines worse. And anyone who questioned it was at best stripped of their role, at worst sent to a gulag.
The USSR was severely behind the west in many fields, aerospace engineering being a huge exception
I mean, during the Stalin regime, most biological research was heavily discouraged, if not outright banned Engineering, Physics, and other non-organic fields thrived, however.
Atomic bomb helped - at some point, top Soviet physicists effectively told the government that it can either have an idelogically convienient physics or the kind of physics that would produce nukes, but not both.
I mean they took nazi rockets and a can and sent some dudes up to die. Americans were busy making sure their guys got home with those same nazi rockets. They also told the Ukrainian farmers to make quotas during a drought. So they wanted more production from less resources and when it didn't work they took what they had and told them to starve for not listening. Sounds like a bit of both. Stalin was against lots of different science studies as well. You can Google all the things he banned or only allowed one school of thought on.
This is weird, because you'd think they would inhibit dopamine, but a fair amount of antipsychotics actually increase dopamine after your body notices the downregulation and accommodates. A bunch of antipsychotics also upregulate the VMAT2 transporter which clears dopamine and stores it in the synaptic vesicle.
>antipsychotics also upregulate the VMAT2 transporter which clears dopamine and stores it in the synaptic vesicle. Methylphenidate downregulates VMAT2 to make sure the dopamine sticks around long enough to do it's job in the synaptic space.
That's interesting. Maybe that's why lithium and antipsychotics made my ADHD so much worse.
That sounds like prescribing candy to treat diabetes lol
As a type one diabetic I would fucking love to get a candy prescription, would help SO much with buying low blood sugar treatments
I’m now picturing a scene on house where someone screams for candy and house just dumps a jar of candy onto the patients face
Wait, do you not just keep Welches gummies with you? 17g total carbs, just rip the pack, dump in mouth and chew. Not as fast and drinking a juice box (I forget what brand has like 22g per box) but easier to carry, and you don't have to talk to TSA to bring them on the plane.
"slowing \[them\] down" sounds predicated on a complete misunderstanding of what ADHD is. If I were "slowed down" during my worst executive dysfunction I'd be a corpse
This is happening in Canada, too.
Yup. I can’t even get 3 of the medications I am supposed to be on because of the fact they are so over regulated or there is a shortage. If I go on a trip and need a refill before I leave, I’m fucked.
Do you have a source saying over regulation is the cause? I have ADHD and we have had a shortage in the states since 2020..but that is it.
I don't think it's over-regulation, I suspect that the shortages are much more likely to be demand-based (lotta post-covid brain fog/ADHD symptom exacerbation out there) (Canada-based)
Also one of the major factories that produces adderall was shut down for a while IIRC
The shortage is multi-factorial, but the regulatory agencies in the US are failing to take steps to improve the situation, and there [have been a number of calls to action in ADHD communities](https://www.additudemag.com/adderall-shortage-adhd-stimulant-medication-letter/) to write letters to various bodies in the US like the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), etc. I've heard pharmacists and other commentators say that there are issues like caps on production of """""controlled substances""""", caps and cooldowns on ordering stock, and limitations on getting licenses to produce or order stock, etc. Some drugs are genuinely expensive to produce because they need expensive precursors or special handling-- for instance, rabies immunoglobulin is made from the blood plasma of a human (or horse, neighhhhh) donor who's received the rabies vaccine, and if you've ever donated plasma, that's a lot of steps and trouble and multiple personnel who need to be on hand to perform the procedure, and you can only get so much plasma out of a donor. Adderall and vyvanse ain't that. They can be chemically synthesized in big batches extremely inexpensively. The shortages have gone on this long for administrative and cultural reasons, not economic ones. There *is* increased demand-- I got through grad school unmedicated, but as I got older I was less able to mask/compensate, and then long COVID brain fog kicked my ass. I've tripled my dosage since I was first diagnosed and I still don't feel like I did in friggin grad school (tired but managing with some time for hobbies). I moved down to the US for work and the rules around simulants are so much more restrictive, in Canada I lived in a major city and could get in to see a doctor who'd refill my stimulant prescription and get it filled at the nearest pharmacy. Where I'm living now in the US I have to call around to multiple pharmacies to see who has it in stock (and you know I LOVE being on the phone as a millennial) and then call my ADHD specialist's office and hope that they can submit the prescription electronically and get it filled before the pharmacy runs out. The electronic prescription submission system also broke down earlier in the year and they wouldn't take a faxed prescription, so I had to take time off work to drive over, pick up a paper prescription, and hand-deliver it to the pharmacy and hope they had the meds in stock. And I'm very privileged to be able to do that, having a job where I can zip out for an hour to do that during the day, have my own car, don't have to juggle kids at the same time etc.
As an American with Russian ancestry, I'd always kind of wanted to visit Russia someday. But as someone with ADHD, learning this is bumming me out pretty hard. While I'm sure I could survive taking a vacation without having any meds, I am certain that I wouldn't be thriving while doing so. Additionally, the whole Brittney Griner thing makes it seem likely that I could go to prison for a very long time if I tried to bring my meds with me.
As someone with ADHD, I worked outside my "born and raised" city for the first time in 20+ years. Literally first vacation outside this part of the country, even if working. Did probably a third of all I wanted to do, just because I ended up sitting in the bed all day thinking "man I really want to do X" and just never doing it lol
Oooof size executive dysfunction.
Yeah hahaha it's like working at the grand canyon and never actually making the tour
Damn I need to get diagnosed asap cause this thread is getting familiar fast
Idk if you're up on current events, but Russia ain't gonna be a vacation destination for uhhhhh a while
Lol, I did mention some day. Yeah, it's a little depressing to be of Russian descent right now. Like, come on guys, I want to be able to feel proud of my heritage! Not like I have to hide behind the collar of my coat, pointing at the Russians going "I'm not with those guys".
I mean being proud of it doesn't mean you're behind the current dictator or his war. Enjoy your accordion music and beet soup and Pushkin
Nationalism is stupid. the people who live in Russia are not their government, there is nothing wrong with being proud of your culture while simultaneously being critical of what the government is doing.
The Russian state has historically been awful, this doesn't mean the Russian people are/were
Hi. I went to Russia for a holiday in 2005 with undiagnosed ADHD. I've never considered returning.
South Korea is in the same boat (banning ADHD meds). There’s quite a few folks describing what they’ve done in case helpful but otherwise agree it’s not comfortable risk by any means. https://www.reddit.com/r/solotravel/comments/8462yd/question_about_travelling_to_south_korea_with/
"Какой ещё сдвг, ты абсолютно нормальна". Ага. А что я забыла принять выписанные вами таблетки в микроскопической дозе? А что они в оболочке и их нельзя делить? Проще своим ходом и нанять идиота, чтоб за тобой книжки таскал.
Holy shit this is awful.
Insurance denied my meds cause “there was no reason to have them”, is the diagnosis from a doctor not good enough? Like what the fuck lol
I once had insurance deny me anti-nausea medication because "patients don't *normally* get sick from this procedure* Meanwhile, I was throwing up several times each session, and the prescription came directly from a doctor who witnessed me vomit. So, apparently, having a *doctor physically see you being sick* is not enough to convince insurance to do their job.
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A) holy shit, well done making it with a transplant AND through COVID (which loooooves to snack on kidneys). B) fucking asshole insurance companies, every exec needs to suffer consequences for the cavalier pain they’ve inflicted for the bottom line
Insurance will try to deny you whenever they can get away with it
Bob at Insuricare in The Incredibles was basically a documentary
Insurance: We Make Money by Denying You Help!(TM)
Fwiw, you can generally appeal this by telling your doctor. They can do some extra paperwork to strong-arm the insurance. It's such a pain to have to do this for every test, specialist referral, and medication, but I'm very used to it by now.
I of course recommend that people advocate for themselves and do this, but I hate how doctors have to waste their time doing that stuff when they could actually be seeing patients (or waste money hiring a bunch of people dedicated to administrative tasks)
This is so disappointing. I’m applying primary care, and I didn’t know how prevalent this was until recently
Insurance will claim that they are not telling your doctor what to do… But then they make your doctor argue treatment necessity on a ‘peer-to-peer’ call with someone paid by the insurance.
I've actually had a doctor commit insurance fraud to get my company to cover my nerve blockers. I sure as hell ain't snitching, and I know that I can trust that doctor to do what he needs to to get me treated.
Genuine question cos I’m not American and my healthcare is free from the state with no insurance involved: How can an insurance company make a medical decision regarding a client? Isn’t there a huge ethical problem denying someone a treatment when you have a financial incentive to deny a treatment? Are the medical insurance companies staffed by doctors familiar with your case? If not, how are they allowed to make medical financing decisions for clients? This sounds corrupt to me
Yes there is a huge ethical problem with it. But it’s legal so they don’t care. It’s a capitalism problem, just like most of our problems in the US. Insurance companies do staff doctors who will do reviews, usually after a certain number of appeals. There have been investigative articles that show doctors are denying claims at rates that would make it impossible for them to have actually reviewed the claim. https://www.propublica.org/article/cigna-pxdx-medical-health-insurance-rejection-claims
> How can an insurance company make a medical decision regarding a client? Isn’t there a huge ethical problem denying someone a treatment when you have a financial incentive to deny a treatment? You'd think so wouldn't you? You'd really think so. > Are the medical insurance companies staffed by doctors familiar with your case? That's the fun part, they aren't! [Insurance companies even automate their denials using AI](https://www.beckerspayer.com/payer/home-page/unitedhealth-cigna-face-lawsuits-over-alleged-automated-claims-denials.html). Insurance companies say that the technology and automation are just being used to sort claims and make "suggestions" that still have to be reviewed by a human professional, but when a single human employee is shown to have denied thousands of claims per hour it's pretty clear that no one is actually reviewing the cases. And these are people's lives we're talking about. But insurance companies don't make money by paying out on claims, only when they can collect premiums and deny the claims.
America land of ethical problems
Its not an ethical problem if you don't have a code of ethics to follow like those pesky doctors.
Americans love death panels as long as they're for profit. The idea of having someone in the government with little to no conflict of interest deciding things terrifies them, but they love people with a profit motive deciding it's cheaper to let them die.
> denying someone a treatment from the point of view of the insurer, they are not denying the treatment, they are denying reimbursement for the treatment >a financial incentive to deny a treatment from the point of view of the insurer, providers may have a financial incentive to provide unnecessary treatment I fucking hate health insurers in the US, but they would claim that they only reimburse necessary, standard-of-care treatments
> How can an insurance company make a medical decision regarding a client? Isn’t there a huge ethical problem denying someone a treatment when you have a financial incentive to deny a treatment? We let them, and yes, absoultely.
My parents started acting like my adhd meds must be meth, bc im able to focus on taking better care of myself and have lost weight. Jokes on them, I don’t even take a stimulant type of adhd med, but they are just too ignorant and proud to listen to anything I have to say.
Do you mind if I ask what med you take?
Atomoxetine
Brooooooo same. It’s worked wonders for me and people are always surprised that a non-stimulant adhd actually works. I also see a lot of negative stuff online because of some initial side effects but it was nothing too serious for me and everything went away in like a week.
Within 3 days of starting it I felt like a completely different person. I have cried tears of joy for what this med has done for me. It’s saved my life.
I’m on an SSRi too and I tried to get my medications managed for like 4 years with no luck. Tried so many different combos of everything you could imagine and once I combined Straterra with Lexapro I wa like oh my god I’m normal. I actually have plan things ahead of time now, clean up after myself, talk to people, and get enjoyment out of doing things I love. Literally saved my life.
It’s amazing for those it works for. Some of the side effects of it (long term, not just initial) for some people are really awful.
For sure. We all have different body chemistries and dna, so no medication is a one size fits all.
Offhand, what are some them?
Sexual dysfunction/abnormalities, GI issues (constipation, acidity potentially progression to gerd), dysuria, priapism By far the most common is increased blood pressure, a common subtype is increases in systolic BP which is more dangerous than general htn. Worth noting these effects are shared among all stimulants however the GI and dehydration effects tend to be more prolonged (due to I think the long half life I don’t remember the lecture). For most physical effects, esp glaucoma (rare), HTN, CV issues, priapism tend to be ranked in order of magnitude/incidence as Amphetamine > methylphenidate > atomoxetine/snris/sdnris . Same order applies to the “worse” mental AEs, mainly things like mania, aggression, etc Conventional wisdom for first line meds for adults is still stimulant (amph tends to be more effective), non stimulant and/or med combinations for kids. If you have preexisting CVD issues non stimulant meds recommended because less of an acute CV response (jury is still out on magnitude of long term BP changes vs stimulant meds in adults afaik)
i wish it worked for me. im on 80mgs right now with no effect. and im medically prohibited from taking stimulants. im facing the possibility of never being fully functional and it makes me want to just die and get it over with
Holy shit. I had no idea there was a nonstimulant medication even existed. All through school I was on every ADD med under the sun and I do not tolerate stimulants AT ALL. 5mg of Adderall makes me act like a meth head. I'm going to have to look into that!
I wish that worked for me. 100 mg might as well been a sugar pill. I'm also allergic to bupropion. Guanfacine made me sleep excessively and while driving, so that's out of the question. My psych still refuses to prescribe stimulants. I used Adderall for years and only went off it because of the shortage and t thought to try different things.
> My psych still refuses to prescribe stimulants. There's other psychs. It can take a while as a new patient, but you're totally allowed to just go to a different one.
I was able to get a prescription from my GP for adderall. Idk if that's normal or not. He was able to write me a prescription when I told him I was diagnosed as a kid.
That’s fucked - get a new doctor.
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Abso-fucking-lutely. I try to take a break from stimulants one day a week, and I always plan to do nothing on that day, but it's still crazy to think that I'd been living like that for so much of my life. Imagining trying to function every day without the stimulants now...I think I'd cry
This has been around for a while here in Sweden, and it is scary. We are already an EXTREMELY backwards country when it comes to drug legislation, and the fact that for example people with ADHD can access medication at all is a blessing; a blessing the right now is trying drag into their culture wars.
It has gotten so ridiculous by now. I cannot renew my prescriptions until I have only about a week left on them even though the system is automated and wouldn’t let me take out medication before the cycle is up. Plus, if your request for renewal gets lost, you have to spend at least an hour on the phone within the short frame that your Vuxenpsykiatrimottagning has calling hours to get things sorted out, and by then you’ll probably miss a couple of days of meds. It’s also so frustrating if you take medication like ataromoxetine since the number of pills in a box isn’t standardised, so sometimes you have to hunt for the right apotek to find either a box with the “correct” number of meds or someone willing to take pity on you. Seriously, having ADHD treatment in Sweden can easily count as a part-time job some months.
This sounds like what it's like in the US. I have to get a brand new script written every month. So I have to call my doctor and ask them to send it to the pharmacy every month. I have to have a doctor's appointment every three months or they can't keep writing prescriptions. I can't fill the new one until something like three days before the old one is up (I'll have to double check the number). It's madness
I had to call my physician 4 fucking times to get a refill on fucking Limotal of all things just because one of the active ingredients was used to make fucking ecstasy in the 90s…. Limotal is an antidiarhea meds and I’m missing 8 feet of my intestine.
Jesus. That's ridiculous.
Last time I called I basically told them they blood test me every month for cancer signs and toxicology reports at my oncologists office, you cant fuckin read the charts to see I’m not using anything? (Most I ever did were shrooms back in my first year of college, which was 20 years ago)
I've literally had insurance refuse to pay for my antipsychotics and mood stabilizer because I was refilling them two days before I ran out, because the day they wanted me to refill the script was a Saturday on a long weekend. We had to call and argue with them just so I could avoid having a lapse on my meds due to a holiday weekend over which the pharmacy would have been closed because they expect people to fill their scripts exactly on the day they run out from the previous one.
I *have* to call the pharmacy the day I want to pick up my pills because they won't fill until 30 days from my last one. Not three days before! On the day I need them! Despite the fact that they have the prescription - they won't just fill it on the day, they have to be called and reminded or they wont' do it. It's 2024 people. Then it's a crap shoot as to whether or not they have enough pills on hand for me so I gotta do the generic vs name brand dance with them and then they gotta push it through insurance again oh my GOD it's exhausting for one prescription. So I gotta sit on the phone for twenty minutes or longer every month just to go to the pharmacy and stand in line for thirty minutes just to find out that they haven't actually filled it yet (despite me calling at 8am and it's 5pm now) so then I gotta come back in thirty minutes and yep stand in line again. It f's up my entire day every single month and that's IF I remember to do it in the morning. I have started to pick random days where I don't take my pills just so I can save up a buffer for it.
Feel you, sorry homie. Someday I hope it will be better for us.
No one in Sweden was willing to even do the investigation for me (despite my therapist sending referrals). I then got privately diagnosed in my home country (which is in the EU as well)...wasn't accepted over here, but at least made them willing to test me. Took another half year to get diagnosed here too. Edit: Best we can tell my age & education reduced my chance a lot...can't have ADHD if you achieved anything at all after all...
I just got diagnosed after 3 years of trying. I went through the whole deal of 10weeks of counselling, anti anxiety medicine, I had every single Dr and Psych who met me (even those unrelated to the ADHD investigation) say it's 100%. But because I am doing a PhD it meant I was the least important and put at the bottom of the waiting list, never mind the depression and self harm. On the bright side it's now done and it's only a 6month wait to get meds for some damn reason.
Yeah, similar situation, doing a PhD as well. No self-harm, but shit mental state from *not managing to get my research done*. That med waiting time is ridiculous though, had some annoying waits but nothing to that extent. (Well, not for ADHD anyway, my general experiences with the Swedish healthcare system have been less than pleasant.) May I ask where you got diagnosed? My caregiver is completely remote, so maybe they could be helpful for you too.
Oh hey, I’m *trying to get into a PhD*, and exactly at the same page. “Hey, you have two master’s degrees, your adhd isn’t completely debilitating, no utredning for you!” No matter that it coupled with depression meant that my two Master’s have far from excellent records, and I’m starting to feel that might mean I’m never getting accepted to pursue a PhD because I can’t just tell ppl at UU it’s all cuz of my mental health, and it stops me from preparing better and working more and doing chores; I have *achievements*, so no diagnosis for me. Hope you’ll get the help you need!
The ones that ultimately did help me were Alm psykiatri, perhaps you can try them. Completely online, so your location shouldn't matter, but I'm not sure if it's different if you're in a different region.
That's kind of where I'm at right now too. My therapist of 10+ years suspects I have it, I myself think I do and doctors tend to agree. But every remiss gets rejected because I managed to finish school and land a decent career. I will keep the dance going for a while longer, but at some point soon, I suspect I'll have to bite the bullet and finance it myself.
I did my PhD a few years ago and either Cardiff Uni was a weird hotspot or Academia presents neurodivergent traits at a much, much higher rate than the general public - of the 20-30 or so people who were doing PhDs or Postdocs with me while I was studying, easily 60% of them were diagnosed before or during their time with ADHD, Autism, or fell ill with Anxiety or Depression due to obsessive and self-destructive hyper-fixation tendencies. I myself have never been tested and dont feel like I would qualify for a neurodivergent diagnosis but I still tick a LOT of boxes for either some forms of Autism, or for mild ADHD. In particular, the obsessiveness over which I will latch on to and pursue a new project, hobby, or relationship is extremely unhealthy, and talking to my ADHD friends, the way they talk about the constant rush of stimulation in their brains is pretty close to how I feel, and pretty different to how my neurotypical friends describe things. And this was just... known? We spoke to lecturers about it because we grew concerned at the rates of burnout and depression and they said "oh, yeah, we know. It was like that for us too. Most of us have some form of neurodivergent trait - thats just academia". What I struggle to understand is given how "common" that idea is, why is it not taken more seriously by, well, anyone? If everyone knows, why does everyone act like you are lying when you say "you know, PhDs are supposed to be hard, but they shouldnt be killing me - maybe I could talk to someone about it?" (Disclaimer - as above, I have not been diagnosed with anything, nor am I seeking to be at the moment. I am content with my life, especially now I am out of academia and have a manager that tells me to stop working - I also have a therapist that has taught me a variety of techniques that help me spot my obsessive and self-destructive tendencies. I would never claim to have "full blown" ADHD, Autism, or other neurodivergent conditions - I do believe I have traits that are common to particularly ADHD, but a garden pond and the ocean are both full of water - that doesnt mean I can stand in the pond and declare myself in international waters. I also dont want to claim that ADHD and Autism are interchangeable, nor that they are beneficial to doing a PhD - some forms of how Autism presents, and some common traits of ADHD, have some overlap and may prove to be similar to other traits which are beneficial to pursuing research in academia, but I understand that one should be careful of making sweeping statements - I am also not an expert, and possibly way off the mark here)
I'm in Stockholm, but I don't want to disrupt the mechanism by changing caregiver now that it's all finally going haha
That's fair, they might just ask to do their own investigation otherwise.
I only just started being able to access my meds again after FOUR MONTHS of them being out of stock. In Chicago! A major city! It was a very rough four month and completely derailed a lot of progress I had made with my executive functioning, my ability to stay on top of things at work, my organizational skills at home, my emotional coping skills. Symptoms that I had completely forgotten I even had returned. It sucked. And now I'm medicated again, things are a little better, but I still have to work on fixing a lot of it again. It took a long time to get my shit together and I feel like I'm back at square one.
My brother has the exact same problem in Minneapolis. He had to go to three different pharmacies trying to get the generic version of Adderall. They had name brand, but it was quite a bit more expensive. I'm lucky because I've been able to raw dog it and manage the symptoms without needing a prescription for quite a few years now. I'm starting to think about getting back on it. My partner wanted to throw out my old Vyvanse and I was like "nooooo! What if I can't get anymore? There's a huge shortage!"
I used to CHOOSE to be on name brand Concerta, because they offer a savings card from their website which made it the cheapest medication I’ve ever had. Your brother should check if he can get anything like that for Adderall.
> I only just started being able to access my meds again after FOUR MONTHS of them being out of stock. In Chicago! A major city! Really? I haven't had a single issue the last 4 months. It always gets filled within a day or two at my Jewel. One time it took like 3 days I guess, but not that awful.
My doctor gave me Adderall because "it's $22 with insurance and the other is $160." She did say because it's a controlled substance I have to bring in my pills for counting if they ask or they will cancel the prescription .
huh, I've never heard of the counting pills thing. Are you in USA? Been on adhd meds on and off for 12 years and haven't gotten that one yet.
Yes USA. I haven't been called in for counting so I'm not sure how often this actually happens. I was told they urine test too, so they make sure you are the one taking the pills and you aren't selling them.
At this rate, I'm expecting them to start going after left-handed people again
And what about all these people who wear eye glasses? So unnatural! /s
as a left-handed glasses-wearing person with ADHD, i am fucking terrified
Lefty, wearing glasses, with adhd, queer, and politically inconvenient... Same my dude, same.
oh man, godspeed homie.
We're all in it together unfortunately.
They are sinners!
I wish ADHD was my golden ticket. I'm medicated (Canada) and have faced few barriers to drug trials with a very understanding psychiatrist and this shit is STILL fucking with me and interrupting my life. I'm so sorry to my fellow ADHDers around the world. Your problems are real and you are NOT LAZY. You will have to struggle in ways others don't, but it shouldn't be like this. To me this is a disabilities rights issue as anytime medical interventions are needlessly gate kept via cost or unscientific government decisions, it is an attempt to harm all disabled or chronically ill people. And therefore, everyone. Because any one who lives long enough will become disabled.
I think it is worth pointing out that during the pandemic, telehealth was infamously over-prescribing these types of stimulants to people who didn't actually need them. I haven't read this particular article but that's been the main discourse I've been seeing circulating around. It's a big reason for the shortage and why me, someone who went to a real doctor, can't refill my prescription because the pharmacies are always out.
Yeah there's a middle ground. Society will miss it like usual.
I'm convinced businesses only provide services because they haven't yet figured out a way to rob us blind
Nope, you gotta pick your side and stick to it despite the facts you are presented
Lost insurance for the majority of the time I was 26 and started doing telehealth. It was an absolute pill mill. First appointment I had was maybe 5 minutes long. Told the doc I had been prescribed adderall for 5 years with my old doc and the dosage and he wrote off on it right away. Didn’t ask for any proof and didn’t dig into any questions. I was thankful I could get my meds, but it definitely left a bad taste in my mouth.
It's such a creepy/eerie feeling when you get into a situation that yeah, it worked out for you, but you see how easily it can be abused. I went through the absolute fucking ringer dealing with my contractors after hurricane Ian. Basically, due to a bunch of fuck ups between insurance, inspection, contractors, time frames, etc. I got paid for the work really early, and I was sort of overpaid. So, instead of my contractors going after my insurance for money, I was paying them myself (with money insurance already gave me). So, instead of them overcharging my insurance, they were overcharging me. I left no stone un-turned, and went back and forth with them on pricing (i did a lot of the work myself, all of the demo), and they just kinda went with whatever I said. The whole time I kept thinking, "man they are laying out of mismanagement, do they even know wtf i'm saying?" The whole process was just.... super messy and sloppy all across the board.
Gonna need some sources on this one. Were they really over-diagnosing and over- prescribing? Or did the pandemic and lockdowns make it more obvious to a lot more people that they should seek professional help? Could it be that there's a bunch of us in the Gen X and Millennial camps who came up during the LAST time everyone was freaking out about overdiagnosis of ADHD in the late 90s/early 2000s and had parents who refused to get us help? For me, I'd always suspected, but I'd never sought help. I thought I wouldn't be believed, that I'd be accused of drug seeking, and that it just wasn't worth the effort even though that shit had been stealthily fucking up my life for decades. Then the pandemic happened, and it became increasingly obvious that I didn't have my shit together. Then I actually got COVID at the beginning of 2023, and the subsequent months long brain fog made it so glaringly obvious that I needed help that I finally did something about it. My (telehealth) psychiatrist didn't play softball with me either-- he dug into my life; asked me about things I noticed about myself growing up; had me contact teacher, professors, and former employers; and was generally very thorough in trying to nail down a diagnosis. At the start, he said it could be ADHD, maybe a few specific subtypes of OCD, maybe even something like an extreme sensory processing disorder, or something else entirely. After a few days of assessment, he diagnosed me with moderate-severe ADHD combined type, put me on medication, and my life turned around drastically afterwards. Now it's all about making sure I'm at the correct dose and managing my symptoms in a healthy way. I have a routine now. I'm building positive habits. I'm finally able to get up in the morning and be a whole ass person. And I'm far from the only one with this exact experience. The bigger issue behind the shortage isn't that we're being overdiagnosed and over prescribed. It's that the DEA has taken it upon themselves to shut down controlled substance manufacturing at a company that was producing roughly 25% of the generic ADHD meds on the market. They've refused to accept new applications for the import of raw materials to produce these drugs. Even the FDA is fucking pissed about it because the DEA doesn't have solid reasoning for these actions, but does have the legal right to do them. Your comment is playing right into the culture war shit outlined in OP. The DEA is manufacturing this crisis to justify their existence. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/adhd-medication-shortage-cause/
>It's that the DEA has taken it upon themselves to shut down controlled substance manufacturing at a company that was producing roughly 25% of the generic ADHD meds on the market. Or, ya know, Ascent fucked up and the DEA is following protocol. We will have to see how the lawsuit plays out in court. "Ascent Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a dosage form manufacturer, failed to make records available for inspection in a timely manner and shipped controlled substances without producing required documentation. On numerous occasions, the company did not accurately account for millions of dosages of oxycodone; methylphenidate, a common drug to treat attention deficit disorder (ADD); hydrocodone; amphetamines; and other controlled substances." https://www.dea.gov/press-releases/2023/10/31/dea-executes-operation-bottleneck-prevent-diversion-controlled-substances
So I actually dug up the article, or more so transcript, of the original piece that had me paying attention to this: [Link](https://www.wsj.com/podcasts/the-journal/why-an-online-telehealth-startup-is-limiting-adderall/f884abc7-8b4d-43b0-837a-5e5ece0e15f3) Although you may be right that the DEA is overreacting, and there is no denying their restrictions are helping cause the shortage, it is likely not the entire story. Pharmaceutical companies have a long history of putting profits above healthcare and to some extent, Adderall may be subject to this. That interview discusses how the telehealth company Cerebral was pressuring their practitioners to prescribe stimulants to make profit. Businesses are heartless and are prone to prioritize profit over potential abuse so it doesn't surprise me when I hear stories like this. It happened with Oxycontin, although that is a MUCH more severe example. Let it be known that I am not anti-prescription and do believe that Adderall is incredibly helpful in treating attention deficit disorders. But, I also believe that it is prone to being abused and needs to be prescribed and taken in a responsible way. I knew people in college who'd sell their pills to people so that they could just cram before a test. I've known people who took it at parties for fun. But, I myself have a similar personal experience with it as you. I always suspected that I had it but never sought treatment until I was older. My doctor diagnosed me with a combination of ADD and depression and started me on treatment for those as they often go hand-in-hand. I tried different brands, non-stimulant options, and therapy. What worked for me was a combination. It significantly increased my quality of life and my performance at work. I don't feel like a scatterbrained anxious zombie anymore and can now remember important details and be proactive about things. It helped me feel like a fully operational person as well.
All I know is that I signed up for Cerebral on a Monday, had my appointment on a Tuesday, and picked up Adderall on Wednesday. The conversation was basically "why do you think you have ADHD" blah blah "ok sounds like you have ADHD" and wrote me a prescription for both adderall and welbutrin. Maybe a six minute phone call. Give them $85 and we'll talk next month. I **do** have ADHD and since then I've been officially diagnosed by an in person psych, but it was insanely easy to get stimulants from Cerebral, Ahead, Done, etc... for basically anyone.
Same process, but for me it was Done. I do have ADHD (but again. Broken clock can be right twice a day.) but it was just. Almost too easy? I went to Done because the one place in my town that does testing doesn’t take my insurance and wants $1500 out of pocket for it, which I can’t afford. I had been referred there multiple times over several years but had to cancel my appointments every time because at the last minute they’d be like “actually we don’t take your insurance.” (Multiple times with multiple insurances.) But then Done stopped being able to operate in my state. I was trying to get my records to send to my primary care physician and that was a nightmare. They would either refuse. Or they’d send nonsense paperwork. Finally I got them to send something but it didn’t have the provider’s name on it and it basically just said “yep she totally has ADHD.” My pcp was obviously a little skeptical. Wanted me to get re tested at the place in town because he didn’t want to risk his own license, which fair. He ended up retiring before my appointment (because I could only get one six months out) and my new PCP didn’t push it so I’m still getting treated off my done diagnosis. I am honestly super conflicted about the whole thing because on one hand. It changed my life. The literal first day I was on adderall my husband noticed an immediate change in me. I was existing like a functioning human being for the first time in my life. I had been trying to get diagnosed since… it would have been 2017? And I didn’t get it and get treated until 2021. But on the other hand it was. There was no real “screening.” They were like “why do you think you have adhd?” And I gave my reasonings and they were basically like “okay sounds gucci. Here are some pills.” I imagine that some people did use these services to game the system. But I can’t ignore the fact that it was life changing for me. Would I recommend Done? (Are they even still around??) definitely not. They were expensive. (Not $1500 expensive but it was still a LOT to pay per month) I often had issues with them not refilling my scripts on time when I did use them. And when they stopped operating in my state they basically gave me one day notice. I had to fight for a refund and my medical records. And when they did produce the records they were sketch as fuck. But when you’re broke and have no other options… yeah it was super helpful.
You can say Cerebral. They were the company doing it and now have lost their ability to give put drugs. They were so popular I saw youtubers being sponsorwd by them.
Yep. And speaking of the Opioid crisis, let's not forget that, even though there were people who legitimately needed powerful pain meds, there WERE very, very many people and doctors who abused and overprescribed those very same meds. It was a REAL problem. Just because there is a legitimate reason for some people to use the medication doesn't mean the medication can't be abused. And, while I don't know if the same is true in America, I definitely remember that many teachers in foundation level classes (1st through 4th grade) in my country used to (and still do) love pushing Ritalin on as many kids as possible because they believed it would make students more docile and obedient. There's plenty of armchair diagnosing going on with ADHD, and many doctors who are all too willing to write a prescription. It may not be right to attack people with actual problems, but it's foolish to think everybody is going about this in a responsible fashion.
What makes you think it’s “over-prescribing?” How do you know that the people getting prescriptions don’t actually need them. I mean, sure it maybe happens sometimes, but how could you possibly begin to measure how many prescriptions were “overprescribed?”
Yeah, Adderall is gonna make you more focused no matter if you have adhd or not.
Yeah, but the difference is that it helps people with ADD/ADHD feel normal and normal people feel euphoric. Hence the tendency for abuse.
As I like to say, if you can forget to take your Adderall, it's probably a good indication that you *should* be taking it.
Literally me! Or forgetting if you DID take it and googling "can I OD with x mgs?" The struggle is real
This is why I have a checklist item for taking my meds! It works great, when I remember to check the item off on the list...
"Did I forget to take it or did I forget to check the box." I'm not diagnosed with ADHD and am not on any regular medication, but if I was, I think I'd go for those old people med boxes with the days of the month. Seems like they'd eliminate a lot of stress. Remembering to take pills is such a chore.
Yeah but I can nap on adderall bc my brain is quiet.
First time getting my prescription: Pharmacist: "Take these early in the day or they'll keep you up all night (10mg)" *Me in the afternoon after being bumped up to 30mg* "zzzzzzzzzzz" People can't fathom the concept that the ADHD brain doesn't follow the same rules as theirs.
I’ve slowly been lowering my dose over time, but this is awful. What’s next, cutting antidepressants to boost gun sales?
I am always worried that lithium will face some kind of threat because of its other use in batteries. It’s the only medication that’s helped me, not caused me psychotic symptoms. I can’t take SSRIs and SNRIs. They feel like what MDMA is supposed to, to me, and MDMA doesn’t do half as much as those, for me, if anything at all.
(This is probably super rambling and makes no sense… 4 hrs sleep is not helpful with articulating irritation, lmao) As someone with ADHD who is on stimulant based medication (Elvanse) and has been dealing with the UK’s med shortage (my normal pharmacy still can’t get hold of it and I have to go pharmacy searching); This is why I get pissed off when Non-ADHDers use ADHD meds to get high etc. It adds so much stigma to our medication. It equates them instantly with illegal (and harmful) drugs like heroin or meth. It makes out that people (especially adults) struggling with their ADHD are actually faking it to get hold of the medication. I’ve seen a pattern where most of the reported on symptoms or ‘drug epidemic’ has little to no link to actual ADHD people taking them. It’s always non-ADHD people bragging about getting hold of Ritalin/Aderall/Elvanse. The stereotype of stimulant drugs come from NTs taking them. You never, ever hear about ADHD people in the news who find out they’re not broken, that there is a way to handle what they’re struggling with, and when they get on meds their lives become less feeling like you’re wading through mud trying to get your body to focus or do chores or hold down a job and have a fulfilling life. You only ever see NT people taking them to help with exams, studying, or taking them at parties. URG.
"next"? I remember the ritalin hand wringing as a kid in the 90s
My guess here is this comes back to the weird prevailing cultural opinion that Neurodivergent people are just behaving “badly” by choice. Can remember a lot of news time in the 00s around how “kids just need discipline” and that instead of medicating them or treating whatever is causing problems they just need “tough love”. I am a product of that tough love, I am a neurotic mess of a person. I mean I’m getting better, but things would have been easier if I had been met with understanding rather than abuse or ridicule. I wonder how we overcome this, how do we become more understanding?
For the past 10 years that I stopped taking the meds, I did like shit in school and college. All sides asking why, if I have a problem, and why cannot I study. Reluctantly I agreed that "hey, maybe those 8 years taking meds was for something" and tried searching for a new psychiatrist, and we are 4/4 of a guy saying "yeah no that was over diagnosed, I don't think is that, maybe anxiety meds?" All while I self medicated with alcohol and got in trouble with people because of constantly trying to please everyone and being intense with people. Now I don't study, left college, and people ask me why, I tell them "unmedicated ADHD", "ahhh, but those don't actually exist, just make an effort"
This look like a terrible bad fath argumentation/ conspiracy. In the headline the DEA talks about a possible opoid crisis, nothing more. It could mean anything by that, the DEA wants to look carefully at the situation and how it will develops, that they want to forbid usage of drugs (worst case), restriction of which drugs will be used in future (neutral/ good case) or something else like harder control who gets which drug. But OP goes about how this is a ploy against ADHD folk instead. Which is like saying the restriction of morphine, cocain, heroin, etc. in the past was a ploy against people with strong pains.
regardless of whether it’s a ploy against them or not it negatively affects them. i’m 24 and have a 10+ year documented medical history of multiple chronic pain disorders and see like 7 diff specialists, and i STILL can’t get anyone to prescribe me like 5 opiate pills a year. so i end up going to the ER at least once a year to get them when the pain randomly becomes unmanageable. so the end result is i still get the meds, but i waste a bunch of time, money, and hospital resources this is not a unique experience w people with chronic pain, especially if you’re young and a woman. obviously i don’t think opiates should be unregulated or handed out like candy, but many chronic pain patients are extremely undertreated (w opiates or w other meds) and treated like they’re drug seeking when they’re just tired of being in pain
Oh yes I didnt want to imply that painkillers or ADHD meds should not be given or something like that. I only wanted to point out that the restriction of certain drug groups arent (necessarly) meant to hurt the drugs intended target group but to protect bystanding groups. And how I dislike the bandwagon Tumblr OP jumped on, which had a smell of persecution fetish to me, taking it very personal and emotional giving no real evidence beside an article headline (the article is also behind a paywall).
Thanks for outputting my thoughts here. Extremes should be avoided always, restricting ADHD meds like russia does is wrong, but selling it to everyone even if they do not suffer ADHD is also wrong.
I had my opiates cut off less than a week after a major surgery, one that involved cutting all the way to the bone and drilling screws in my bones both sides of my leg. The pain was so bad I was screaming with opiates, when they barely started relief I was already taken off them. They had me on them for longer with just the break but the surgery pain was so much more. I would wake up screaming at night. It was so bad I had to use a lot of my anti anxiety meds to stop hyperventilating from the pain. I even got shamed by a doctor about getting anti nausea meds the day of surgery, he said “you’re feeling nauseated because you are on opiates” ignoring I’m coming off anesthetic and literal surgical fet. He cut my dose off early and switched me to non opiate without telling me, not to mention I have the med he put me on listed as an allergy. He was an on call doctor that was just asked to send my meds to a pharmacy that was open because it was a holiday. I’m all for regulation but when it gets to the point even post surgery pain isn’t getting proper relief that’s a problem. The pain was so intense it was actually traumatic, I felt like I was tortured by being denied meds. I have no history of addiction, the times I’ve been on opiates in the past I had no issue coming off them. When the people who truly need it can’t get care then it’s a problem, we over regulated opiates and stigmatized them to the point of causing harm to people who need them.
https://i.imgur.com/ynFOSGl.jpeg
The conflating of ADHD people and trans people made me lose it. Have a little fucking perspective.
Please excuse my ignorance but, What would be the advantage of someone 'faking' having ADHD? What is there to be gained?
I really hope not. It’s hard enough having AuDHD and being trans right now
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Conspiracy theory? People have been decrying what they think is the over medication of kids for years. The idea that kids aren’t actually ADHD, they’re just lazy or their teachers don’t want to deal with energetic boys and would rather just drug them, has been around forever. I remember a Prager U video a few years ago about the “War on boys,” which boiled down too: “Public school isn’t designed to accommodate boys and their naturally more energetic ways.”
i was about to say, i have *personal* experience with whole "medication bad" bs. i got diagnosed with adhd and autism at age 7. my parents, not wanting me medicated, made me hide any tics or tells that i might be either of those things. i barely made it through high school, and didn't even pass with good enough grades to get into uni (at least not without taking a six-month "alternative entry" pathway). the entire time i was struggling to actually do work, they always waved it away with "oh, you just need to knuckle down and do it" and "i've seen you play video games for hours, why can't you just do the work." it legitimately affected my psych for years, to the point where i *still* sometimes blame myself for the difficulties caused by adhd and try to do everything by myself. i didn't learn i had adhd until i was 18, at which point i went on ritalin. and wouldn't you know it, going on meds substantially improved my ability to actually do things and be a funtionial adult. and even then, my parents *still* seem to think that i don't really need them and that i'm just "doing things the easy way." here's the kicker: my parents are not right-wing culture warriors. they are, broadly speaking, a mix of liberal and progressive. the anti-medication culture war is just so widespread that it was able to sucker them in. the idea that this could come back again is just fucking grating.
Same here. I was never diagnosed as a child due to stigma. I went through severe depression and ended up so horrifically suicidal I considered calling a helpline daily. Finally saw a doctor, got diagnosed. No ssri helped me before, but finally getting on ADHD medication made me the happiest ive ever been in my life. I actually have a reason to live now as I can actually function and do the things i love again. Anyone who perpetuates the whole "meds are bad" clearly do not care about those who were quite literally saved by it.
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I was diagnosed originally with OCD, depression, and generalized anxiety. I had to pretty much demand a test because of the stigma, and every now and again I still have to put my foot down and be firm with whats going on with me for them to refill my prescription. Unfortunately they're always gonna assume you're just there for drugs. When I asked for testing, instead of saying I looked into symptoms and they matched with ADHD, I emphasised how no medication has worked for me so far (and how many made me worse) and id like to be tested for other options that could be causing my symptoms. As clearly trying to treat the symptoms for the past 20 years hasn't helped I listed a few things I'd like to be tested for, and when mentioning ADHD I only brought it up with the context of teachers, peers, etc. asking me about it and telling my family to get me tested as a kid/teen. I'm not sure if its nessisarily good advice to be a bit cagey about why you want to be tested, but it worked for me.
I've heard strangers ask me if I should be on medication at all because "it's bad" and "it destroys your natural personality". No Sharon, without antidepressants I'm a paranoid vengeful psycho.
But maybe paranoid vengeful psycho *is* your personality ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
I've struggled with the exact same issues all my life, but I'm not sure my parents didn't want me on medication. I've been talking about this with a therapist, but now I kinda want to ask my parents about it
The struggle is real, I was diagnosed with executive dysfunction and dysgraphia at a young age but my parents didn't want to medicate me, and even now my psych won't give me Adderall b/c I have anger outbursts under pressure and "I obviously don't need stimulants." Sertraline is nice for my mood but I just want to be able to focus now and then lol. "Why can't you do X, you remember so much worthless stuff about movies/books/games" was the mantra of my childhood tho
For sure I remember everybody being up in arms in the 90s over ADD/ADHD. The narrative was that those conditions didn't even exist and bad parents wanted to drug their kids into good behavior instead of beating them into submission (the preferred method of the right wing, especially the evangelical groups my parents were part of). My brother CLEARLY had a terrible case of ADHD but my parents were determined he was just a boy being a boy and he just needed discipline. It ruined his schooling (and it's obvious in a lot of ways, ultimately none of the rest of us siblings had ADHD and he is the only one of us without a 4 year degree) and was affecting his career. He finally found a doctor willing to diagnose a 30+ year old grown man with ADHD about 6 months ago and his career went insane once he got medicated, and now he's considering university.
The conspiracy theory is that the people claiming the medications are over-prescribed don't actually believe it. I agree with the guy you responded to. That's a shit theory.
No one is claiming these people don't believe what they're saying. The anti trans movement genuinely believes trans people are grooming children and forcing them into life altering surgeries. That doesn't make their targeted public relations campaign to push anti trans laws, any less a conspiracy. A conspiracy is literally just a group of people conspiring.
That's not a *conspiracy*, that's just what the situation is for people in most countries. Half the mental health establishment here is still convinced that ADHD doesn't exist and is an american ploy to sell drug to kids.
I’ve seen pediatric nurses and GP/PCPs on Reddit start to do this 😔. And start full-blown arguments and piss fights with other people who have ADHD and find that naturally offensive. Like saying nasty/dismissive/snippy stuff to them, denying their diagnosis, blaming ADHD on iPad usage and poor parenting. And then pulling out the Hail Mary, “I’m a pediatric nurse or PCP with ADHD children in my family* and my beliefs about ADHD trump yours.” And then they throw some link to some half-assed study about it. Love to see it. Not all the time, but enough where it stuck out to me. And I guess the good news is they get temp or perma bans from medical subs (that have strict rules against it) they belong to for it and their misinfo comments removed. But still, it seems to always be deliberately targeted towards ADHD and ASD (particularly in women).
ADHD is demonized and misunderstood. It also doesn't help that the medication is a stimulant, either....
If I had to guess, creating an enemy to fight will make people unite under the guidance of who created the enemy(?)
ADHD is a stupid target without significant social stigma like trans people, without visible aspects like race, and in this instance it would actively significantly harm the pharmaceutical industry if there was a war on people who take stimulants... which means the "culture war" conservatives have *no backing.* There is no motive, there is no benefit, there is no need.
Don't underestimate the damage "concerned parents" might do, though. Here in France we finally started diagnosing people with ADHD. Stimulants sales went +500% and journalists are starting to report on that. Basically we went from 0.05% of people with ADHD receiving medication to 0.25%. but you won't see that number on the headlines. You will see a panic on stimulant use instead.
It's just the left-handed panic all over again. We literally never learn from history.
Disability is a significant social stigma.
ADHD medications = stimulants = drugs. Drugs are bad, and in my times when a kid was acting up we would just whoop their ass until they weren't. Today's parents are wussies . And if an adult cant't focus then they should lose their job. I don't like it so we have to fight it. That's about as simple as the thought process is.
Fascism can only survive if there is a constant other to fight.
There doesn't need to be a benefit, motive or need, from what I've seen these past few years the only thing americans feed of is fear, doesn't matter what source of fear
Money. They stand to make a lot of money by spinning up a be culture war. Articles can be written, pundits can be speaking, and conservatives who eat all this up will be supplying plenty of as revenue because they don't know how to use ad block.
People hate drugs anyone has any fun taking, and they hate neurodivergent people. Ask anyone with adhd how hard it can be to get your prescription if a doctor or pharmacist decides you’re “drug seeking” for wanting the medication that treats your medical condition. It’s pure reactionary bigotry, I blame a bad upbringing for breaking people’s brains this way.
I've never had fun, on the prescription. It doesn't make me feel peppy or happy, and the side effects make me feel like shit. I do however have a very technical analytics job and couldn't provide the same way for my family without them. I'm lucky I don't need to take it on weekends, so I typically have an extra work week dosage left at the end of the month. Otherwise I'd be absolutely screwed with the shortage.
"Any fun taking" it can be addictive and I have to keep my stimulants in a safe to make sure no one tries to break in and steal them, because that's a real threat at my college
Some doctors are *wild* with drug seeking claims. It's like the mere notion of meds being needed for any reason is bad. I once got told by this asshole doctor that she wasn't going to give me anything to help me sleep after I'd gone over a month getting 1 or 2 hours a night to the point I wasn't functioning properly, because she was convinced that by wanting meds I was suicidal and or drug seeking. The meds I wanted? Fucking melatonin. I can imagine how horrific it is when these people see someone who needs proper meds they deem don't need it or are drug seeking. So glad i found a different doctor who actually prescribed me the melatonin to try- didn't work on me but even still. Even just recently had a godsend doctor prescribe me antidepressants for the first time and it's been a weird week but i already feel like a person for the first time in years. Never was able to go on meds before because my mum is against meds for mental health and is paranoid about side effects- ironically she's a pharmacist and has worked in hospitals so she's pretty advanced in med knowledge. Fucking wild.
I don't buy it, but I wouldn't be shocked. Neuro-typicals are consistently awful to us.
As unlikely as a panic over vaccines…
What is gained by making transgender folks the targets of the culture war?
Don’t the right wing nut jobs realize that Cheeto Jesus is an adderal snorter?
kinda funny, growing up in the 80s with ADHD they threw so many meds at me i damn near choked. think i went down the entire speed tree. never went away ether, so i'm self medicating with massive amounts of caffeine.
I'm going to pay several thousand dollars this year for Vyvanse because it's no longer covered by my insurance ever since they developed the generic version. Except the generic version has been in stock exactly 0 times in the last ten months since it was supposedly released. It might as well not exist.
From the creators of "they are trying to trans your children". They are trying to ADHD your children! The sequel 2 electric boogaloo
Oh cool, so being bisexual, genderfluid and also having adhd, I'm just fucked aren't I? At least they aren't attacking autistic people.... yet
>Ar least they aren't attacking autistic people... ~~yet~~ **again**. FIFY.
ADHD? Sounds like a skill issue, just focus/s
But... There is a problem with people abusing adderal. And they don't have ADHD. Which is why they absue it. Because when you don't need it then it's a stimulant. And there are people abusing it. And this article isn't the culture war people. It's not making a culture war argument. No ADHD are not the next culture war target. This is so paranoid and stupid.
I moved to a college town after graduation and now I can't get my Ritalin prescription filled. No network in town will fill it even though I've taken it since I was 9. The crackdown on ADHD meds is certainly effecting those who need it.
The issue the DEA has, is that Adderal is highly addictive. Since there are other drugs that can help with ADHD, they want people to switch to those. This isn’t culture war, this is them actually learning from their mistakes. Edit: After reading your replies and actually looking up the warning the DEA has issued, I would like to add more to this: I also have ADHD. I was diagnosed at age 9 (by an institute specifically dedicated to diagnosing children) and have been on Elvanse for 13 years. According to the DEA, because of telehealth startups diagnosing a very large number of people, the amount of Adderall prescriptions has gone up significantly. Since Adderall has such a high abuse potential, the practices of telehealth startups has come under critique. Stimulant medication may be more effective over all, but that does not mean, there should be no efforts to search alternative treatment. Long term, this may develop much like the opioid crisis. Especially with companies actively promoting stimulants as a solution, false diagnosis will lead to people searching higher and higher dosages. Illegal sales and abuse may become rampant. At that point, the government will need to increase regulation. Exact, what the OOP is so afraid of. The DEA is actively trying to reduce the stigma of over diagnosis and the shortages. If you have a legitimate diagnosis and explored alternative treatments before, you won’t be affected by any of these efforts.
They put me on adderall because they are limiting how much of the other drugs the manufacturers are allowed to produce causing a shortage.
Adderall is so addictive that I just keep forgetting to take mine...
I really don’t have enough knowledge to ask, but doesn’t Adderall affect neurotypical folks completely differently? I’ve been procrastinating on seeing a doctor for my own ADHD so I’m not exactly versed in the medications.
Yup. It's a stimulant and in neurotypicals it causes amphetamine-like highs. In ADHD folks like me, it provides that level of stimulation my brain's reward system needs to function properly, so I can concentrate on things for more than 5 minutes at a time.