I (24y) have a very strong assumption that I have ADHD and I fill pretty much every symptom and I had a million problems in life due to it. However, I don’t want to go to a doctor just to be diagnosed based of my own words.
I can say that my brain can’t stop overthinking, that I am jittery, can’t focus and so on, which is all true, but that’s just my subjective opinion and what is too much for me might be normal for someone else and so on, so even if I do have ADHD, based on my words I might get overdiagnosed and have too much medication prescribed.
So, is there an actual clinical test, like a blood test, that can diagnose this or do you essentially have to “diagnose yourself” by remembering every symptom?
There is no blood test or other lab test for ADHD. However, it doesn’t appear to be solely a matter of the patient “remembering” symptoms, but is also a matter of observation on the part of your healthcare provider.
This page from the CDC on ADHD may help you understand how it’s diagnosed in adults, and what a doctor would be looking for. Symptoms and Diagnosis of ADHD | CDC
There are specialists who perform a battery of tests to help determine if you have any form of ADD or other conditions. Some of the testing is just to weed out malingerers, or to look for general cognitive problems. Generally though, the evaluation is made by a discussion with a physician specialist, and drugs like Ritalin may be tried to out to see if they have the desired effect.
I was diagnosed with ADD some years ago but the best confirmation of the diagnosis came recently when watching a TED talk about ADHD on YouTube. As the video played I scrolled down to the comments and there at the top was this (paraphrased):
“You definitely have ADHD if you are reading these comments while the video is still playing. And it’s probably 2AM and you should be in bed sleeping by now.”
I do that all the time, but especially with tabs, I currently have 7 opened tabs other than this one and that’s after I cleared a few others…, almost all about different topics and 3 youtube videos (1 long car project video, 1 song, 1 video about history, mail, wikipedia, news and another forum). I’m also into video games and sometimes I play for 3+ hours and only stop when it’s really, really late or if I have to go to work or something.
Do you by any chance have a problem with remembering lyrics? I can listen to songs a million times, remember every single part of the sound/melody, but can barely remember 1 or 2 complete sentences without making mistakes, 3 is already too much. Might be related, but I also have trouble counting larger numbers, if I have to count 50+ objects (at work), I often get confused and end up with a few more or less than there is, so sometimes I split the objects into groups of 10 objects and that makes it easier, but I can’t do that every time.
Some of the tests I was given were empirical. There were several different versions on a computer screen. Things like, “Read this word” and the word would be a color name but the font was flashing in a different color. Or “Count These Objects” while other increasingly similar objects moved through the screen. But to the best of my knowledge, no, there is no chemical marker for ADD, and they haven’t found the DNA marker(s) yet.
I actually have an insane memory for song lyrics, but couldn’t tell you the title or artist to save my life. It’s different for everybody. ADD is largely a function of how able you are to direct your attention toward something that bores or repels you.
It’s also my observation that my friends and family with ADD share my lack of an internal clock. Most people can tell you whether 5 minutes or 20 minutes have passed. I’m really not sure. If I’m interested in what I am doing it could be hours. If I am disinterested I might predict it was hours when it’s only been minutes.
Don’t confuse this with the more normal “time is dragging” feeling. Normal people have a sense of time, the ADDs I know lack this sense.
I was diagnosed by a psychiatrist, who went through a series of questions. At the end he said that I was definitely depressed, but also showed signs of ADHD/PI. The problem, he said, was that depression can mimic ADHD/PI and untreated ADHD/PI can cause depression. He sort of left it up to me which therapy to try first.
I’d been treated for depression before, so i voted for the ADHD. The idea being that if it didn’t work, we’d head back to the other. That was years ago and the meds still help a lot.
If I can’t even understand any lyrics much less memorize them.
The time thing is weird, sometimes time seems to pass slowly, sometimes quickly. Then there’s also this weird thing of seeing the difference between real time and perceived time from either side. As an example the real world can seem to be moving rapidly, while my perceived time seems normal, and then I can flip it around so the real world seems to be moving at normal speed and my perceived time is very slow. This can be very disconcerting.
I had a teacher in the 1970s ask my mother if I’d ever been checked for “hyperactivity.” My doctor laughed at the idea, and said I was practically the opposite.
It turned out later that I have a rare condition called PANDAS (pediatric auto-immune neurologic disorder associated with strep). Kids with this (and it can linger into adulthood too) have behavioral symptoms when they have strep. Mine mostly took the form of paranoia and insomnia, but when I was recovering from the strep-- about two weeks out from finishing an antibiotic, I could act a little like a kid with ADHD-- a very back-talking, uncooperative one-- and the whole time I had strep, I had poor attention, beyond what you could just chalk up to feeling lousy from being sick.
My point is, that if you are having serious enough symptoms that you really suspect this, please don’t just “self-diagnose.” See a doctor. There are a lot of “zebra diagnoses,” which in the aggregate, account for a lot of people. Make sure you don’t have one of them, because some of them are very treatable, and some get worse if you don’t treat them.
Trucelt, what about lyrics of foreign songs? I often listen to songs in other languages, sometimes those I barely understand or don’t at all and I can remember the lyrics on about the same level as those in my language. So if I could remember lyrics in my language, I think I would do the same with foreign ones as well, despite not understanding them, but…unfortunately I can’t do it with even my own language.
No. Behavioral checklists and consultation with a medical professional to rule out other reasons for the signs of ADHD.
A trial of medication can be pretty innocuous when working closely with your physician. They will start at a low dose and titrate upwards until symptoms are managed. If the meds don’t help or side effects are worse than main effects, stop that medication, try another, or focus on behavioral remedies.
In a way, the treatment can itself be a test. People with actual ADHD will be calmer when on stimulants like Ritalin, while for people without ADHD, those drugs will have the reverse effect. So, if your doctor prescribes ADHD drugs, try them. If they work, great. If not, then the problem probably wasn’t ADHD, and you need to try something else (and stop the stimulants).
I actually learned Irish because I wanted to learn Sean Nos songs. I know all the French songs I listen to on a regular basis as well. But if you’re asking about lyrics I don’t understand, then no, it’s not the same for me at all. I will sometimes get a word wrong, but use a synonym.
That is a myth. Small doses of stimulant help virtually everyone focus better, which is why many college students (without diagnoses ADHD) use the drug to help them cram before big exams.
And why many of us depend on our morning coffee to begin our days.
Yeah. It used to be ADD. When they changed it to ADHD, they had to add ADHD/PI for those of us who show no hyperactivity (PI= Predominantly Inattentive). Which just makes it harder to explain.
If you’re ADHD/PI, no one can tell if your meds are working except you - unless someone is watching you really closely and knows you really well.
People who depend on morning coffee to start their days, it’s because caffeine withdrawal is preventing you from focusing. Folks who aren’t addicted to caffeine don’t have that problem.
Not always. There’s an enzyme called adenosine that builds in your system the longer you are awake, and breaks down when you are asleep. Adenosine binds to receptors in your brain, and the more receptors that are bound, the sleepier you are.
Caffeine attaches to adenosine and prevents it from binding to your adenosine receptors, thus preventing you from feeling sleepy.
It works only to a point, though, because eventually you have so much adenosine in your system, you can’t consume enough caffeine to bind to it all-- if you tried, it would be toxic to other parts of your body before it reached the parts of your brain where adenosine is.
This is why caffeine works so well to make you alert first thing in the morning after normal or mostly normal sleep-- you usually just have a little residual adenosine, but it doesn’t help that much if you have stayed up all night.
I have bad insomnia, and have had a lot of sleep studies. I have read lots of pamphlets, and gotten lots of lectures from doctors on the mechanics of sleep.
[previous attempt garbled, trying again:]
Oh dear: almost. Adenosine is a purine+ribose, not an enzyme. Caffeine has a similar structure to adenosine and can bind to adenosine receptors on the surfaces of nerve cell membranes. While caffeine occupies the receptor adenosine cannot bind. Adenosine, via its triphosphate derivative ATP, drives the fundamental energy cycle of the cell. So analogs like caffeine that disrupt its activity change the energy dynamics of nerves, in this case to help you stay awake.