Are ADHD waiting lists ever going to improve?

The point is that many people do need medication to function, and if you don’t even have ADHD why do you think you’re qualified to say they don’t?

Not true.

This is exactly why i was diagnosed, and why i have found it helpful to have a diagnosis.

Where's the bar for medication?

Id say the bar should be set at where medication will make a difference to that person.

How severely affected should someone be before they're allowed medication?

I have a job, kids, i cope with family life. Adhd makes all of those things much more difficult. If medication will help why shouldn't i have it? Do we deny people with bad backs painkillers because other people have worse back injuries? If there's a shortage of medication, make more! If there's a long wait list, recruit more doctors! If someone thinks they might have ADHD, how do we decide which of those people is worth listening to, and which isn't? (Maybe by assessing them? Oh... Wait....)

As for parents just using adhd to explain bad behaviour - a parent is usually the best person to collect the information that the psychiatrist will require to make the diagnosis. There's no scan, no physical test that they can do. They make an assessment based on anecdotal evidence from the people that know the patient. Do we ignore parents when they go to the doctor's and say that their child is complaining of a physical issue on the basis that kid probably just wants to excuse themselves from PE? Or does the doctor listen and make an assessment of the patient in front of them?

That is complete BS

The type of drugs that are prescribed to someone without ADHD could affect them so badly that they could end up being responsible for their death.

When taken by a person with ADHD they have the opposite or no affect (remember taking my first 30mg of Lisdexamphetamine and waiting for some sort of different feeling but non came)

Wait till you get to menopause.

I made it to late 50s without a diagnosis or meds and thought I was coping (never thought I had ADHD until my dd showed me the symptoms and could tick each one both as an adult and a child)

The diagnosis and meds literally changed my life and probably saved it. Definitely added years to it.

Don’t forget the average life expectancy of someone with non diagnosed and medicated ADHD is 13years less than the average life span of a NT

If you’re reliable and successful then there’s no need for diagnosis and medication

Speaking personally - I think I am probably one of the women who slipped through the net in childhood, I'm 36 now and had a difficult school experience. I think a diagnosis will provide an explanation to me for certain traits I have that prove very difficult and have complicated my life. I have gone through most of my adult life feeling like a complete failure. If I get a diagnosis it will take a lot of time to unpick the negative thoughts and beliefs about myself that I have formed over the years but with support I think a lot of women want a diagnosis to help them start that process. The other side of the coin is that if I don't get a diagnosis that could be devastating as I really will be just a lazy forgetful ditzy woman with a social handicap.

@THisbackwithavengeance Unlike autism ADHD has effective medication that (for lots of people) can really improve their symptoms and be life changing. So it's a bit different..

Agreed. Some people self diagnosing to excuse their children's behaviour/piss poor parenting, which will cause a huge back log for children that require correct diagnosis and possibly treatment

This is literally me down to the letter too!

Yep.

And also why do people feel the need to seek an official diagnosis. I've likely got autism. My DCs have it and I have identical traits.

However I've made it this far through life without medication or an official diagnosis so I feel absolutely no need to waste my GP's time or have public money spent investigating something I already know.

What's the point?

Of course it is - different areas always have different diagnosis / treatment wait times.

Someone I know has just been referred through school. They were told waitlist was 45 weeks (I think it’s less for children). Adults is currently 2 years

sorry realised you said Surrey schools! Misread it!

It’s problematic as it means that people who are genuinely severely impacted by it can’t get medication

I very strongly suspect my DH has ADHD.
he hates most tech and spends less time on a screen than most people I know (in fact it is a bone of contention that he "hasn't seen" because it doesn't occur to him to check any emails to do with school/kids/work etc)

I feel like he "zones out" during most family meal times. We can have the same conversation 3 days in a row as if it is new info. DC used to get upset that he literally had no idea at all what they had discussed at the dinner table and he would get defensive about it. Even stuff the rest of us have had complete hysterics about. Now I've read and (tried) to understand more about it, some of the things that can be frustrating, make more sense in context.

I have heard so many people saying they think they have it and listing off a load of random reasons that don't sound like adhd at all. It's frustrating.

But you're guilty of this too. You think other people are making it up, because they're not affected the same way or as bad as you are. You don't believe them, in the same way you're scared you won't be believed.

ADHD can affect two different people very differently. One person might have extreme issues with memory, another person's worst symptom could be their RSD, another could be executive dysfunction, another could be lack of focus.

There's no right or wrong way to have adhd. people may be less or more affected than you. It doesn't mean their struggles are less valid than yours.

I can't stand it when people gatekeep adhd and just assume everyone else is making it up because other people's experiences aren't exactly the same as their own.

I'm diagnosed with adhd. It doesn't make any difference to me if the next person also gets a diagnosis or thinks they have it. I'm happy for them if understanding adhd means they can make sense of their life.

Pretty sure I have undiagnosed ADHD, I work in mental health and several colleagues (including clinical) I work closely with have mentioned it as a possibility (probably too polite to say likelihood!).

I've not persued a diagnosis because I have had the pages and pages of forms sat there for ages and still haven't been able to complete them 🤦‍♀️

How do you buy meds? Even with a prescription I’ve had months long waits but can’t find it anywhere

Many Spanish psychiatrist prescriptions are recognised in the UK (some even work for the NHS). Just need to find the right person.

I paid for a private assessment from a company that is ratified by NHS, which means you can transfer to shared care - GP creates NHS prescriptions (saving you a small fortune) and you have to pay for clinical checkups twice a year privately (a few hundred pounds.

Seriously, I wish I had known to do this decades ago. It has changed my life.
The assessment cost about £800 - which is a lot, and yet nothing over the course of a lifetime, if it leads to a future without the exhausting daily battle with ADHD. There was a 9 month waiting list even for the private assessment. If you can find the money, book with an NHS recognised clinic (happy to PM details of mine). My argument was - we find money for holidays, Christmas and birthdays so why not my day to day health? And ironically, I've been able to increase my working hours already, as I am so much more focused and energised. I suspect it will pay for itself pretty quickly.

But then you need the meds.

And only a pysch can initiate the prescription.

See, this is the sort of thing I despair of

Not just screens. It’s normal for young children to want to run around and not sit down. In private schools this is mitigated by having PE and sports everyday (sometimes more than once) & by combining academic subjects with PE