Hi. I have a confession....

[jenz87]

This is kind of long, sorry, but i would love some comments:

I've never been officially diagnosed with ADD, mostly because of the cost on a broke student. I've been academically, a good student all the way up to high school. It was when I started college that I began to struggle, especially with long lectures, labs, tests. I realized then that I couldn't concentrate and start to daydream about 20-30 minutes into the lecture or even fall asleep. Even when driving now I feel like I'm not completely there so I drive less and just carpool now. I know my memory isn't as good as my peers, and I don't know if that is just because I don't pay attention when people talk to me or if it is because i'm just not good with remembering stuff. I'm 25 btw. but I feel as if it's gotten a bit worse over the years with attention/memory/etc.

At the same time all this started happening, I started to experience weird sleeping problems. For example, I had episodes of sleep paralysis (once with hallucination right before falling asleep which completely scared the **** out of me), which at that time was unsettling since I didn't know what was happening. It was only recently I found out what that it's officially called "sleep paralysis". It still happens, not as often, and now I experienced it so many times that I don't even freak out during the episodes like I used to years back. I do get tired and fall asleep quite often during the day and I dream quickly thereafter, within a few minutes of falling asleep. I'm starting to think that this is narcolepsy as I've read up on it (before then I thought narcolepsy was just people who just drop to the floor and sleep) and probably the root of all my attention problem rather than just having attention problem + narcolepsy.

I'm in a graduate program now and this lack of ability to sit and study for more than an hour at a time has caused me lots of stress. No matter how hard I try I can't sustain my attention/motivation and have to take frequent breaks. I do well on tests that are less than 50 questions, but I struggle with longer ones. I have to take a 350 question test soon.

So....to the main point of all of this (sorry for the long posts, I'm pretty bad at being succinct):

a good friend of mine recently gave me some 30mg adderall (it's IR) to see if it'll do anything. I was desperate and usually I don't ever do this type of stuff...I haven't even tried any illicit drugs/smoke ever. I even held off trying any adderall in college while my friends offered them since I was too scared to try. Now my problems are getting old and not improving, so I finally gave in. I took half and didn't feel any different. Even feel asleep while studying (as always), which is what I do anyway without taking it. I was pretty disappointed. I couple of days later, I just took the whole 30mg and still didn't feel any noticeable difference, except maybe being thirstier. Eventually and most recently, I took half a tablet and waited perhaps an hour and drank some coffee and I think finally I feel a bit more focused. I'm not sure I am or I just want so badly for it to help.

Is this a familiar experience for anyone? Suggestions as what I should do? My health insurance won't cover sleeping problems nor learning disorders, so I'm worry about the cost. You can even berate me for taking adderall without a script if you want to lol. Thanks for taking the time to read this long post.

[CheekyMonkey]

Is your insurance through school? Are you able to get insurance through school that can cover it?

Another option is going to a clinic with a sliding scale.

[ginniebean]

She'd have to be diagnosed first.

[CheekyMonkey]

Originally Posted by ginniebean

She'd have to be diagnosed first.

You can get diagnosed at a clinic by a GP. Isn't not the ideal situation, but if it's the only option, what cha gonna do?

[meadd823]

Please note different countries may have different health systems, regulations ect ect !

[Ipsofacto]

jenz, Have you considered sleep apnea? I'm in the 13th percentile weight wise, but just an extra ten pounds or so can cause me to have sleep apnea. Sleep apnea can cause similar symptoms. Unfortunately a sleep test is expensive. I find that I don't have problems if I sleep on my side, although if you are an on the back sleeper normally, it's hard not to revert to this during the night. Might be worth a try.

[faller]

I would suspect narcolepsy without cataplexy before ADD. Or another sleeep disorder. Where do you live?

[fracturedstory]

Hmm, the fact that is takes a drink of coffee for Adderall to work...yeah, I don't think that's ADHD. I don't even need caffeine any more because of my medication.
How long have you been experiencing these attention issues? Since childhood?

[FlutteryPixie]

Two facts

• 30 mg is a very high "starter" dosage, A common test dosage here where I live, with instant release Ritalin, is 5 mg. Adderall is supposed to have greater effects on lower dosages so if you took 30 mg and hardly felt anything, I believe Adderall simply doesn't work for you.
• ADHD is not always treatable by medicine. I've heard from a psychiatrist where I got my diagnose that about 70-80% respond well to Ritalin and a slightly lower percentage to Strattera. They're not necessarily the same people, so the overlap makes for a high percentage who get help from either of the two types of medicine. Those are the drugs available in my country. Adderall is not available here and I don't know the percentage for it, but I assume it's not 100%, so it is possible to have ADHD and not feel improvement when you take medicine, it's just not that common.

I don't know what to make out of your particular situation, but those two facts may be relevant to you.

[jenz87]

Originally Posted by fracturedstory

Hmm, the fact that is takes a drink of coffee for Adderall to work...yeah, I don't think that's ADHD. I don't even need caffeine any more because of my medication.
How long have you been experiencing these attention issues? Since childhood?

I've only really started noticing it in college. But I suspect I've had it since elementary school. Awhile back, I found all my old academic stuff my mom had kept, and I've always scored low on the listening portions on the annual standardized exams (like 20 %tile) throughout 1st-6th grade but scored in the 70-90%tile for other subjects.

[jenz87]

Originally Posted by faller

I would suspect narcolepsy without cataplexy before ADD. Or another sleeep disorder. Where do you live?

I'm starting to think so too. I'm from Tennessee.

[jenz87]

Originally Posted by Ipsofacto

jenz, Have you considered sleep apnea? I'm in the 13th percentile weight wise, but just an extra ten pounds or so can cause me to have sleep apnea. Sleep apnea can cause similar symptoms. Unfortunately a sleep test is expensive. I find that I don't have problems if I sleep on my side, although if you are an on the back sleeper normally, it's hard not to revert to this during the night. Might be worth a try.

I sleep on my side in a fetal position most of the time. I agree, sleep tests are expensive. I'm beating myself up for not making use of my dad's insurance that covered sleeping studies when I had it. Guess I'll find out one day when I've save up enough $$.

[tortilaman]

This doesn't seem to ad up to add to me. Narcolepsy or some other disorder seems much more likely.

[Plognark]

Doesn't quite sound like ADHD to me. It's possible you could have some of the tendencies, but 20 minutes sounds like an eternity to be able to focus in a boring class to me.

Adderal has a synergy with caffeine, so I'm not surprised it helped you focus. Adderal gets abused a lot as a mental booster for people who are otherwise neurologically normal. That combo would give anyone a boost.

Definitely worth going to a psychiatrist to get evaluated though.

[TygerSan]

I'm not saying it *does* sound like ADHD, but I'm not so sure I'd be so quick to dismiss either.

How's your sleep schedule?

I ask because had some similar symptoms (sleep paralysis during naps, trouble waking, etc) in college. Most of that had to do with the fact that I had the worst sleep schedule in the world. I would regularly go to bed at 2-4 am and have 8am classes. Then I'd sleep as late as I could on weekends (sometimes not even getting out of bed till close to 4:00 pm), skipping meals, etc.

I wasn't on stimulants at the time, but I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have felt them very effective without first solving the lack of sleep.