i come from a strict family with a set-in-stone "no medication policy."
several doctors confirm what i had suspected, i have ADHD. however, my parents belive all it takes to cure ADHD is a swift kick in the behind. i will be attending university next year, and would like to know how i can aquire adderall via perscription or any other way. how would i go about approaching a doctor and asking him for a perscription. im only 18!! help please!

be calm. rule no 1. if your all nervous you wont have a chance in hell. Tell him you were always distracted in school.

Also, tell him you have a friend who says it worked miricles for them.

Tell him that you've had doctors suspect/confirm that you are ADHD and that you are willing to take a test to prove it. Tell him how you are, distracted, unable to finish tasks, and constantly start new ones. As long as your are honest and sincere with him he'll talk with you.

And make sure you're open to other medicenes, not just Adderall.

Read "Driven to Distraction", NY times best seller on ADD, that alone has been invaluable to helping me manage my ADD. Let your father read it, he'll probably see you in the multitude of examples the book gives.

This book should be required reading for anyone who suspects they have ADD.

If you were diabetic, would your family prohibit you from taking insulin?

If you are 18, then your parents cannot legally prevent your doctor, or any doctor, from prescribing medication to you. Furthermore, you could mention the family situation to your doctor, and you can either ask him to talk to your family for you, if you think that might help, or conversely, you have the right to ask that he keep this confidential and not tell your parents at all. Under the law, a doctor cannot disclose confidential patient information in this situation. If you were still under 18, he would be required to tell your parents, but ecause you are now legally an adult, he not only doesn't have to tell them, he is in fact legally prevented from doing so.

One other thing that you can do is go to http://scholar.google.com and do a search for "ADHD," or "ADHD Medication." You should get several hundred, if not several thousand citations for scientific studies on the suject. Pick a few that you think might be relevent to your situation and print them out and hand them to your parents, and tell them that unfortunately you were unale to find any citations for "swift kick in the butt," but you're certain that the American Medical Association will look into it any day now.

you might also take the ADD test on the AMEN clinic website, print off the results and take it with you to your doctor.

http://www.amenclinic.com/ac/tests/

good luck with that!

A lot of colleges have medical facilities you can go to for this sort of problem. Most will have at least a counseling center that can direct you to treatment sources. Many have ADD screenings. Depending on your medical insurance, you may be able to get medication without your parents knowing. The only thing is, a lot of times psychiatrists want to talk with your parents to confirm your diagnosis, since a lot of college students will just make stuff up to get ahold of ADD meds.

There's also the possibility that your family is more open to medication than you think. I thought my parents would be really against me taking medication, so I didn't seek treatment for a long time. But then my aunt was diagnosed, and my parents were really supportive of her, so I figured I'd give it a shot.

You say you've had "several doctors" confirm that you have ADHD? Then just have one of them call your new doctor and give their report. If it's a family doctor (or doctors), and you're afrad they won't be discreet, go see a psychiatrist (far more likely to be knowledgable about ADHD than a GP) and explain your symptoms. Don't be too married to Adderall. Wellbutrin or Strattera work just as well for many people, and you won't have to deal with the inconvenience of taking a controlled substance.

Do NOT try to get the Adderall "any other way." This is dangerous, illegal, and even if you get it safely and without getting caught, how long can you keep that going? Scoring amphetamines is not a long-term solution to your college problem (especially since no one is monitoring your dosage), and generic Adderall through a prescription is almost certainly going to be cheaper than street drugs.

You're 18, and your family does not need to know every piece of your business. With a doctor's advice and care, you need to do what's right for you, and it sounds like talking to a psychiatrist (quite possibly through your school) would be the best thing. But I do want to urge you not to try and get the meds on your own. Just think how much worse it would be for you if your anti-drug family got informed by the college that you were expelled for drugs instead of them finding out you were taking a prescription medication.

1- Any University worthy of its designation as a "university" will have medical support services for students. Your sky-high tuition, in part, pays for those services.

2- Your university will have mental health professionals. Lots of them. They're of questionable quality most of the time, but they try to help. University wears down students like nothing else, and they know it. They're also somewhat adept at things like diagnosing learning disabilities.

3- Your university's medical services are private. You go see your doctor, you deal with whatever it is you have to deal with, and the only people who know are you, your doctor, and the manilla folder that holds your records. And whoever you authorize to view your information. This is done for a few reasons, but mostly because A-it's the law, and B-it encourages students to use the services without worry that any potentially embarrassing problems could come out into the open IE "I had my first one night stand last night, and I need STD testing..." or "I can't concentrate, I faked my way through high school, and I'm failing 4/5 classes. I think I have ADHD". From experience, both of those scenarios turn out to be more common than you'd expect.

4- University medical services are GREAT at referring you to specialists. Their referrals seem to always get you into whoever you need to see faster than most other doctors. So when you inevitably need a specialist, you get one. Which is a good thing, cuz sometimes, what you get at school isn't worth much.

5-If you turn out to be ADHD, and you need meds, and you're insured, I'm almost 200% positive that whatever you get through your (your parents') insurance company is confidential. I know that what I get through insurance is. My parents will periodically remind me, "just in case you'll ever need anything, uh, that you don't want us knowing about, you know...we want you to be, uh, safe and healthy..ya..."

6- If you're still unsure about it, just get Ritalin. It's dirt cheap thanks to years of overzealous prescribing by physicians!

7-If your parents are dicks, you don't need to tell them anything. Whatever keeps you feeling OK about yourself is what you need to do. School is hard enough without having to worry about parents who just don't understand.

As everyone else has pointed out, you are 18 and legally, you can make your own decisions. I understand where you are coming from, though. My family was highly anti-meds when I was first diagnosed.

Getting the diagnosis is the most important step for you right now. From my own experience, nothing is more demoralizing than trying to do anything in school and constantly failing because your brain just doesn't work like everyone else's.

Go see a psychologist to get the diagnosis. Hopefully, s/he can make an appropriate diagnosis, and then, if you feel like you can't talk to your parents, have a family session with you and your parents. That's what my guy did for me. My parents were of the mind-set that I had never had problems before, and I was doing something wrong. It's easier for parents to understand what you are going through if the news comes from a professional.

Another note: Make sure that you are educated about the disorder when you're talking to your parents. If you've done your homework and can show them what you know, and you have a diagnosis, it may help them understand why you've been spinning your wheels all your life.

ADD is thought to have a strong genetic component (it tends to run in families). After my diagnosis, when my parents were reading the books I had given them, my dad realized that he had been struggling with ADD all his life.

One last note (this is long enough already): For a parent, nothing is scarier than finding out there is something wrong with your child. There are many feelings of guilt and self-blame that parents go through. They care deeply for you and want only the best things in life for you. Explain to them that it is not their fault, they didn't create this. This is where a family session with a counselor/psychologist/psychiatrist can really be helpful.

Best of luck to you in this endeavor. You're not alone.
CAT