Do you drink coffee? Because caffeine helps a ton when you’re on a med break.

I think making effective use of those tools is it’s own skill. They can give you bad results if you ask things too broadly. But copilot chat has become a pretty invaluable part of my workflow.

Have you tried using chatGPT or GitHub copilot?

It’s a mixed bag for sure. If I hyperfocus on a project I care about then I’m at least happy about the progress, and I do enjoy the process while it’s happening. But if I hyperfocus on some frustrating ass task that I thought would take 20 minutes but ends up taking all day then I feel less good.

Either way, at the end of a big hyperfocus session I feel like I squeezed all the brain juice out of myself.

I had a job interview at the end of one of those once and I felt so brain dead I was forgetting basic words. I literally apologized to the interviewer about it. Luckily she was understanding.

Have you tried Welbutrin? It’s not a highly controlled substance and doctors are pretty willing to prescribe it. It acts on dopamine and many people have found it helpful for ADHD.

One of the problems explained to me by my doctor is that executive dysfunction is the key symptom of ADHD, and it’s not hard to diagnose executive dysfunction. The problem is that executive dysfunction can also be caused by other conditions like MDD or Bipolar, and in those cases, ADHD treatment may not actually help.

That being said, I’m sorry you’re being denied the opportunity to try treatments that might help. Although I can understand providers being hesitant to give stimulants with abuse potential to someone with manic tendencies. Hopefully you can try some of the non-stimulant options and see if they help

It depends on the medical professional involved in the process. No matter what test they may or may not use, at the end of the day diagnosis is always up to the subjective opinion of the provider.

This was my process that started at age 28 while I was in graduate school. (I’m 30 now)

It started with a friend getting diagnosed. Talking to her about her symptoms, I kinda just thought all that was just normal existence. It then lead me to suspect that maybe my struggles weren’t exactly “normal”. So I dug into it and starting learning about ADHD through various online resources. Eventually became entirely convinced and self-diagnosed. I so cleanly fit the pattern ever since early childhood and while I had developed some decent coping strategies, things were always on the verge or in the process of falling apart.

I started with Cerebral which has the well-earned reputation of being a pill-mill company. I didn’t even finish explaining my symtomology and background before the prescribing NP said “sounds like ADHD, here’s an Adderall prescription”. It took like 30 minutes.

Adderall was life-changing and helped a ton, but after a while I started getting some weird emails from people not associated with the “treatment team” at Cerebral asking me to make an appointment with a doctor to get drug tested. This was because they were getting heat from the DEA. I saw the writing on the wall and decided that the best move would be to find a new provider that was local to me.

So I got an appointment with a local place that mentioned Adult-ADHD. The process with them was supposed to consist of 2 separate 2 hour screenings. In the first meeting with them, I answered questions and explained my personal and family history, symptomology, and what medication treatment had been doing for me. That meeting ended up only lasting an hour, the Doctor thought my analysis of things was legit and she offered to continue treatment without needing the other 2 hour followup. I’ve been seeing that provider ever since and she’s been great, eventually switched to vyvanse.

So yeah, I basically self-diagnosed, got treatment through a pill-mill. Jumped ship when it seemed like the company was going down, switched to a legit provider and used the effectiveness of previous treatment as a solid piece of evidence for why it should continue. No weird test needed.

I had to call 4 pharmacies to fill my vyvanse last time. And the pharmacy that had it only had a single months supply left.

So it’s starting to be a problem I think

My blood pressure spikes with stress. In my doctors office, we took a reading and it was high. Then we took another one 5 minutes later after I intentionally relaxed myself and it was normal again.

She prescribed guanfacine to take in combination with the vyvanse. Should theoretically help. Won’t know until I start it next month