Hay look here’s the rest of what was originally supposed to be one blog post.
ADHD/General Health:
- Settled on an appropriate daily dosage of Adderall XR
- Problems in establishing a healthier lifestyle because of Adderall (decreased appetite, insomnia, being fat when not on Adderall)
- How these problems affect school life
- Eerrmahgerrrd wtf am I supposed to do
- Why it’s good for me
- Wtf do I do
Med School/Future:
- What med school?
- Pursuing a master’s degree in applied cognition and neuroscience?
- Errmahgerrrrd how do I explain this to my parents?
ADHD:
So, sometime around my last week of finals during the fall, I managed to find my optimum Adderall dosage. I know I was still skeptical about being ADHD in general, and unsure of how obvious the effect was supposed to be, but now I’m able to clearly see how much it helps. I am better at prioritizing/planning, have better inhibitory control (study breaks are more likely to be short breaks, rather than a complete diversion), increased ability to maintain attention — in general, better executive function.
Something I noticed the few times I took Adderall during winter break, it’s easier to keep up with household chores also. Like, my mom occasionally admonishes my sister and I for never doing the dishes when we visit home. (I’m bad about doing dishes in the first place. I’ll just let them accumulate until I run out of silverware and dishes.) So every couple of days, I’ll think, “I should put up/wash the dishes. It’s not like there are that many, and my parents would appreciate it.” I want to do the dishes and I am mentally aware that it doesn’t take a lot of time, but it feels like it will, so I just procrastinate on it until my parents come home and end up doing it themselves. Both times I took Adderall during the break, I did the dishes of my own accord. Rather than feeling, “It’s such a bother, having to wash dishes for ten minutes instead of relaxing and watching TV. I’m on break, after all,” it’s more like, “Well, since I’ve already turned on the water to rinse off my plate, might as well wash it and all the other dishes while I’m here.”
I also noticed that I get way more talkative on Adderall. I’m more likely to talk with my friends, rather than being mostly passive in the conversation. Though I sometimes feel bad because I occasionally end up doing a majority of the talking. I’m also more likely to initiate conversations with strangers (like people sitting by me in a class). Don’t get me wrong, it’s still really rare, but still more likely than never. One of the best outcomes I’ve had is being able to approach and talk to professors. I kinda see the increase in talking as more of an increase in my self-confidence, though I can’t think of an explanation for why that is.
So taking Adderall definitely helps me both in studies and social life. But the side effects I experience are pretty intense. Mainly loss of appetite and difficulty sleeping. Now, I’ve always been pretty bad with eating healthily and regularly, for reasons similar to not wanting to do dishes (just feels like so much effort). I’ve never experienced forcing myself to eat — actually, I don’t think I’ve ever experienced having absolutely zero appetite. It’s weird, feeling my stomach growl and knowing that I’m physically hungry, but not having any desire to eat. And after trying to force myself for a while, eventually I just get repulsed at the sight and thought of whatever I’m eating. Light/snack foods seem to go down easily enough — yogurt, granola bars, baby carrots — but anything more substantial than that requires a great deal of effort. I usually try to wolf down a bowl of oatmeal in the morning, before my body has started metabolizing the adderall.
The other issue I’m having is difficulty sleeping. It’s hard for me to fall asleep, stay asleep, and I feel like I hover between consciousness and being asleep (sometimes I can’t tell if I really slept or not). People are generally advised to take adderall before noon in order to avoid sleep problems. I take Adderall at 8 in the morning, and still have trouble falling asleep when it’s 2 AM. Then I end up sleeping in until 12 or so the next day (since I only have classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays) and can’t take Adderall because I woke up so late. On average, since the start of the semester, I’ve taken Adderall on Tuesdays and Thursdays only, because the rest of the week, I wake up at noon and can’t take Adderall unless I feel like staying up for 36 hours. And yet I’ll still feel tired when I wake up, even after three consecutive days of sleeping for like, 12 hours (the weekends). I’ve tried exercising to try tiring my body out enough so that it overcomes the adderall-induced insomnia, but no. I can feel exhausted, but then find myself still awake 4 hours after going to bed.
So, not only do I lack proper nutrition (even moreso than I did before), I also lack proper sleep/rest. Eventually, those effects will negate any benefit I get from taking Adderall. And up until my appointment with the Dr. Stein yesterday, I had accumulated an extremely high level of stress trying to figure out how I was supposed to overcome these side effects. I figured they might decrease once my body gets used to the adderall, but that can’t really happen if I’m only taking it twice a week. And I can’t take it more than that unless I just never want to sleep. And then I haven’t been able to keep up with all of my classes because I’m not taking Adderall on my days off, on top of being mentally fatigued from lack of sleep, made even worse because I haven’t been eating anything substantial. I just found myself going in circles and the stress just kept increasing and things started feeling hopeless.
I’m supposed to do an ADHD self-report scale symptoms checklist once a week, so that my doctor can get an idea of my progress (or lack thereof) with the medication. He remarked that it seemed like the Adderall wasn’t having much of an effect anymore, but I figured that was more due to me only taking it twice a week. I told him about the sleep problems, so the solutions he offered were: switch to a non-stimulant ADHD drug, or get prescribed some sort of sleep aid. I opted for the latter; I don’t like the idea of increasing the number of drugs I’m taking, but I’m reluctant to switch to another ADHD medication because then I would have to experiment with dosages again, and also have to possibly deal with a new set of side effects. Of course, I might encounter side effects with the Clonidine also, but I feel like there’s less probability of me having problems with it.
He gave me a prescription for Clonidine, a mild sedative that was first used to treat hypertension. It’s also used to treat anxiety and panic disorders, and apparently can also help moderate impulsive and oppositional behaviors associated with ADHD. (Wikipedia, yay!) He only talked about how it aided in sleep, since that’s what my main problem was. He also gave me a list of sleep hygiene tips, which lists the combination of melatonin, zinc, and magnesium supplements as a sleep aid. I figured I’ll try that for a week, and if it doesn’t seem to be effective enough, then I’ll get the Clonidine prescription filled and try that out. Hopefully I’ll be able to wean myself off of at least the Clonidine, once I establish a routine and healthier lifestyle in general.
Med School:
As for med school, I went to a pre-health adviser to get some direction on things to do for the application process. She took a look at my GPAs and course history, and with the knowledge that I’m still figuring out all the ADHD stuff, she told me to wait until next year to apply. I knew it was reasonable, and perhaps, the better thing to do for me, but I still couldn’t help but feel disappointed. It’s not like she said I’d never get into med school, and apparently I also need to retake two med school pre-req classes because they don’t meet the minimum grade requirement. Which I probably should’ve realized earlier, but with the whole ADHD thing, and apprehension for talking to people with authority (profs, advisers, older people in general), it’s kinda obvious why I didn’t. It didn’t help that I’d been in a frenzy the whole week prior to the advising session, trying to get together all the info she’d possibly need or ask for, most of which wasn’t even looked at. So I guess the news hit me hard because I’d put a great deal of effort into prepping for the meeting, and I also felt that I should’ve figured out all the ADHD stuff earlier, and if I had, then maybe I wouldn’t be in this situation.
After a week or so, I calmed down and accepted that it would be better for me to wait. I already had a bunch of stress from ADHD problems and trying to keep up with school as is; worrying about applications might drive me insane. But how am I supposed to explain this to my parents? What else am I supposed to do in all that time between graduation and entering med school, aside from retaking two classes? A friend suggested I go for my masters in Applied Cognition and Neuroscience. The more I thought about it, the more it made sense. I’m still fighting an uphill battle with ADHD and studying and healthy living. I need time to establish a plan for living normally with ADHD, and then figuring out an effective study method. Just retaking the two classes won’t be enough, and I’m sure I won’t be able to figure it all out before graduation. The masters program will give me a workload to test and refine my study methods. Even if I were to apply this year and, by some miracle, get accepted somewhere, I’d drown under the course load within the first week.
So then I realized it. I’m just not ready to go to med school yet. How am I supposed to learn how to care for other people when I’m still trying to figure out how to take care of myself?
I think my parents will be able to understand my reasoning, and it’s not like I’ll be doing nothing. I might have to emphasize that waiting another year won’t hurt my chances of getting into med school. Hopefully seeing that I’ve put a lot of thought into it will also keep them from trying to persuade me otherwise. Not to mention that an adviser pretty much said that the chances were really slim if I applied this year. But hopefully I won’t have to tell them that.
Blogging for stress-relief isn’t as therapeutic when you write it after going to the doctor and getting a possible solution. Nor does it accurately convey the extent to which the stress was affecting me. Oh well.