I'm just going to put this out there. If you think it's moronic rambling, ignore it. If you think it might be a valid concept/idea/thought to ponder, ponder it. Whatever you want to do is cool, but I have to say this, 'cause I don't understand and it's driving me batty.

I know you're not doctors. You're patients. I don't care. In some situations, patients are better than doctors at figuring out what's wrong with someone or what should be done to help them. You guys, like I, have had to go through crap with doctors, so you've learned stuff first-hand, which they haven't anyway, which puts you at a different level of medical understanding.

So here's what I'm asking. Pretend for a moment that you're a doctor. In the case of diagnosing or considering a diagnosis of ADD, would you figure, "If it walks like a duck, and it talks like a duck, it's a duck," as the saying goes?

I don't get this stuff. Haven't from day one. Why is he putting me on ADD meds that can cause seizures if I have epilepsy and he's not sure I have ADD? He's a neuropsych, --he diagnoses people who definitely have ADD. You guys haven't met me, but I have major memory problems, cannot organize for crap (in my brain or outside of my brain), am unable to focus and quite easily bored, lose interest in what I'm doing and start over with something else quite easily...

Eh, this doctor I go to--he's a great guy, and does a great job, but sometimes our logical ideas just don't match up. We know the following for sure:

I have full blown seizures and "seizure activity" (twitching and a drunk feeling, primarily.)
I have all of the personality traits listed above.
I have brain damage in, I think, the Temporal lobe.
Dexedrine was/is effective when I was put on it and was quite miraculous.
So what the hell? I don't get it. I'll see him on Monday. I can't connect the dots here, but then, I'm not running on all cylinders, as they say, and am rather befuddled in general at present--not valuable at solving complicated puzzles.

However, is it just me being a moron, or does that stuff up there not make sense, considering it as an equation?

It's not like I really want to have ADD. No one really begs for any kind of disorder or problematic issue. It's just that I don't understand what he's thinking vs. what's up vs. symptoms of ADD that he says are symmetrical with mine yet I probably don't really have ADD (what, is he psychic?)
The thing is that this medicine made an improvement. All the people around me could attest to that. It's an ADD treatment. They've tried everything else over the years, and nothing worked. And now an ADD treatment works. So why don't we just go out on a limb and consider that to be potentially comorbid with my seizure disorder and brain damage and what-not? If ADD therapy is working, and I have the symptoms...it doesn't make sense to me.

We (my husband, etc) just want improvement. And the only marked improvement we've ever seen was the dex. So while I'm not begging for an ADD diagnosis, if it seems like the treatments classically given to ADD patients are working for me, then we would like to consider it regardless of whatever the heck this guy is theorizing "neurologically." Sure, he'll leave me on the dex. But there are probably additional things they do for ADD patients, too, right? To help them? What if we tried them, and they helped even more, and then I was finally normal, when dex has (well, had, save for a couple of days) me so much closer to normal already?

Part or all of this may not have made any sense. I realize that. I've nearly gone back to my pre-dex state: confused, perplexed...nothing makes sense to me, and I can't understand what people are saying or what I'm saying or if what I'm saying even makes sense. I hated this. I don't want to go back to this. I had, what, three weeks of good miraculous smartness when I started the dexedrine?

Maybe I'm having some sort of anxiety attack about this whole thing. But I'm not the only one worried and confused and rather upset--the people around me are, too.

Chrys

"If it walks like a duck, and it talks like a duck, it's a duck," as the saying goes? Hehe speaking of docs...if it talks like a duck...he's a quack! :D

But from your Symptoms ya just described...U sound like 1 of us. You're right if he has not diagnosed ya with ADD officially then put ya on ADD Meds? :confused:

Dexadrine works great for me too but the state u are in now...I get to that place too...mostly when I cant sleep...Actually without Meds Nothing makes sence to me...not what I read or listening to ppl talk or even what I am saying ppl are like HUH? Medication effects are different for everyone

I though dex was also used to treat sezuires(I new I should have read the side effect sheet they give me w/ prescriptions:rolleyes: )

He's an interesting fellow, I must say, that neuropsych of mine. (Note--I use the words "neuro", "neurologist" and "neuropsych" concurrently to name one person...dunno why--probably 'cause he mostly treats my seizures but also gives me Xanax.) Somewhat eccentric. Oddly, I know he diagnoses other patients with ADD quite regularly, but somehow, with me, with my medical history, he's convinced that everything--nearly everything--is neurological.

I told my husband of my frustration and confusion (and that someone else agreed that it was weird) about this, and he just said, "Remember what we've said? Yeah, he's eccentric. Yeah, he blames everything you have on seizure activity or seizures or neurological misfire or brain damage or whatever. Heck, you could fart, and it'd be a seizure of the rectum or something."

(That's a joke. Just brain stuff, really, like my odd periods of anxiety and neurosis that seemingly come out of nowhere and then *poof* disappear as mysteriously as they came, and my ocular migraines, where I see double,are blamed on seizure activity...or "sparkage," as I like to call it. ;) Basically, if nothing's really happened to stress me out and make me anxious and neurotic, but then I get all anxious and neurotic, he theorizes that it's a seizure. A shrink would blame it on the anxiety disorder and PTSD, but the random nervous neurotic stuff can't really be blamed on those two problems, since they came from the bad junk that happened to me. In a way, he makes sense on that one.)

Back to my husband:

"But remember what we said when you started going to him and thought he was a little odd? We said we'd try it. And somehow he stopped your seizures, and no one else ever had. So when it comes down to it, you need to remember what we said--no matter how odd he is about that "everything's neurological" stuff, he just gets sh** done, and that's all that matters, 'cause no one else even got close. You might have ADD. Who cares about the diagnosis? You're getting the meds for it. You're getting Xanax for "sleep," when we know it's also for your anxiety. Why worry? If it seems like you have ADD, and all these people who have had it think it looks like you do but he thinks it probably isn't or doesn't say that it is, then go ahead and just nod your head and smile, and keep getting the schedule 2 drugs from the guy. Man, you worry too much over useless junk."

He's got a point.

Chrys

p.s. Get this...he practices neuropsychiatry, basically, since he treats people for seizures and treats people for psych stuff. But guess what? He's only got a shrink degree. He gets all freaked out sometimes and reminds me never, ever, ever to write down "neurologist" or "neuropsychiatrist" next to his name on a form or he'll get in big trouble, because he's technically a shrink, period. But he's good at neurology, so degree or not, he's really popular with seizure patients... How funny is that? Guess he's just a one-stop brain repairman.:)

Correct me if I'm wrong but doesn't damage to the temporal lobe...well, wouldn't that make you appear ADD like but not exactly ADD because you weren't born with it? I'm lost please find me the map.

well your symptoms also sound similar to dyslexia / dyspraxia / dysprasia. I would specify which, i was diagnosed witht them all but i no longer remember which one does what.

Oh yeah, and you know you have a good psych if their nuts. They analyse everything and anything, and usualy end up depressed and loanly. (mine was trying to analyse my mambo drunk beer tree t-shirt and why i chose to ware that to that appt on that day. I told him it was the first shirt i found out the washing pile that was clean and not baddly creased. He almost got into some full blown deep thinking philosophical thing about it, till i changed the subject. He did the same about the bird on the phone when he got authorisation for my next dex top up. Started saying about how she said "bye" with a "thank god thats over" tone. Again i changed the subject. The mental health proffession has the highest level of smoakers, suercides and alchol abbusers of any profession. I have not verifyed this, just somthing i was told a month or so back so dont take them as gospel. So yeah, good psychs are batty

Correct me if I'm wrong but doesn't damage to the temporal lobe...well, wouldn't that make you appear ADD like but not exactly ADD because you weren't born with it? I'm lost please find me the map.
Don't worry, you're not alone. Can't give you the map.

Remember my appt yesterday? We discussed that, before the psychodrama stuff.

Guess he, and you, and I are on the same page, on that and are all sort of lost and not quite sure try not to get dizzy reading this:he said something about howhe

couldn't go back to my childhood and observe me over the years or something to determine what's neurologically based and what's not, so basically, if the dex is working, then it could very well be ADD, but I have damage in the temporal lobe, so maybe not, but then I have symptoms that can't be entirely attributed to temporal lobe damage (I don't know which ones or what) yet look more like ADD...

so as he said,

(mind you, this was all before the psychotherapeutic drama, BTW, while everything was still calm and smooth and cynical and goofy), :rolleyes:

..."just take the f*cking medicine and let's quit bothering with it, at least for now, I need a break, it's giving me a headache. Because, you see, it's one of those mysteries that can't be solved, and I hate when I can't solve a challenge, even though I like challenging cases, and you're my biggest one right now and maybe ever."

Whatever. He's a dork. But for the most part, we get along famously, and he's a funny, intriguing dork...usually.

Chrys

its lame, science knows exactly what all these dissoders are (for the most part) and what they do and how they do it (IE, chemical inballance) again, not for everything but for many dissoders. So why cant they just freaking fid a bullet proof test for them, rather than all this analyzing your responses and all that sort of crud..? I know there isnt an answer, just a musing i got reading this.

Just because your not born with ADD does not mean you cant develop it. Think of the definition of ADD. Everyone has it but at different levels. An injury to the head could push a person to the point of needing medical assistance for ADD when it wasnt needed before.

I got this information from Dr Amen