First cohort of adults diagnosed with ADHD and growing old. AMA

[Imdunfer]

I'm in the first cohort of adults diagnosed with ADHD and growing old with it. It has definite challenges related to aging that I'm dealing with daily. Ask me anything as long as you don't suggest that you think ADHD doesn't exist and that it's just a variety of neuro typical.

Have you taken medication and what was your experience? Has the diagnosis stopped you doing anything you wanted to do?

What's the age group?

And how do you find it challenging in relation to age

I don't take prescribed medication because that has issues of is own.

I take an amino acid called acetyl l carnetine which is a mitochondrial stimulant and happens also to be an anxiolytic which knocks the edge off anxiety. I discovered by accident that it worked much better than an SSRI for me. I take another amino acid theanine which moderates mood and helps with sleep. Red meat consumption also helps but I have to moderate that as I have a condition which means I shouldn't eat much of it, rheumatoid arthritis. Tyrosine used to be good for my anger levels but I can't take that with RA. I also self medicate with coffee as a lot of people with ADHD do.

The diagnosis explained a lot but I'm not sure why it would have stopped me doing anything I "want" to do. It has stopped me blaming myself so much for things I got wrong in the past.

What is the first cohort of adult?
I have ADHD so wont hijack your post but im not clear what that means

I'm 68.

It's giving me big problems.

Like many people I moderated the effects of ADHD with heavy exercise (heart rate over 140 for at least 10 minutes), risk taking, and novelty.

At 68 you really are beginning to run out of new things to see and do. Especially when you put it together with the fact that many/most of us are great at pattern matching, we see patterns in everything. So once you've seen one gothic cathedral, you've seen them all, it's very dispiriting.

On the exercise, you just can't do it if your joints are failing you. Being up at 2 in the morning for a 3 mile run on a treadmill just isn't possible as a way to calm the brain any more. I miss that terribly.

On the risk taking I used to jump 7 ft hedges on horses. I now have a 3.9/5 osteoporitic vertebrae in my back and I would be mad to get on a horse again, and no other risk sport that would provide the adrenaline buzz will accept you for training with osteoporosis.

And the longer you live, the longer the list is of the times you've opened your big mouth without being able to hold back your brain and the more things there are in the list to beat yourself up about. That's not fun either.

There's nobody much older than about the age I am now with an ADHD diagnosis. It was a term cloned in 1985 and at that time believed only to apply to children.

Aging with ADHD is a new thing.

Coined not cloned.

@Imdunfer yeah that does sound very difficult

I have a friend who was diagnosed with ADHD in her late 50s and she's now 65. She was initially really pleased with the diagnosis because she felt it explained a lot of things and it meant that she didn't blame herself for certain things anymore

But the practical management of life seems to be getting harder for her

She was never the one for running or horse riding or whatever, but the pattern matching thing you mentioned she feels that very strongly

I also have an acute sense of nothing ever being new, but I don't know how much that's ADHD and how much that's age

I don’t think aging with ADHD is a new thing, it can’t possibly be as ADHD has always existed. Do you simply mean with the new ‘ADHD’ label, rather than the previous names for it?

Thank you for replying. I was born in 1986!
This something I was unaware of and possible a new hyperfocus!!

Im very interested in your post and will follow x

I am not looking forward to aging. I already know what you’re talking about due to pregnancies and the good ole third trimester

Of course it has existed for all time, it wasn't recognised though and when it was it was only considered in relation to children.

I hope it goes OK, I chose to avoid them, I don't think I would have been a good parent. Plus no maternal urges at all.

Interested in your experience thanks for posting. ADHD here late diagnosed. How did menopause impact you & any challenges around that w/Adhd?

I mean, either ADHD is a made up condition or people have been aging with ADHD for thousands of years.

What do you imagine your retirement will look like? I struggle to envision mine because of the novelty seeking you mentioned.

Yes but we haven’t been able to name it so getting the perspective of someone older who meets the diagnostic criteria is helpful to those of us who are also diagnosed.

What were the previous names for it?

I sailed through the menopause with some night terrors and night sweats. I don't think my oestrogen levels were ever very high. But my anger levels during that time went off the chart. I'm talking kicking holes in walls through frustration, there was one in a pillar at Hilton services for years! I thought I would hurt my foot and the pain would put my brain straight for a while, but it was plasterboard and went right through.

My risk taking was also sky high, dangerous horses, dangerous fences, risky investments, some risky driving (though never risking other people).

I got diagnosed, wrongly, with depression (was so many women are) so of course antidepressants didn't work.

If I had known at the time I was ADHD then I would have requested prescription medication.

I can relate to this because although I'm not yet old I have an endocrine disorder which means my body is not able to effectively deal with stress and getting injured could be very serious for me. Trying to balance my personality (need for excitement and novelty) with my body (will literally start shutting down if I overstress it) is not easy.

My understanding is that it was only in 1985 that the hyperactivity and attention deficit were linked and the problem become known as ADHD. I was already 27 by then.

I'm very sorry you're struggling with this too.

I am in the middle of testing just how far I can push my joints before they react. I've bought a treadmill and after 6 weeks I am jogging at 10kph for 3 k. I've had three bouts of autoimmune enthesitis but so far that periodic 12 hours of extreme pain is worth the mental boost I'm getting.

I hope you find some solution for yourself.

It is not a label it is a diagnosis.

My cousin was diagnosed ‘hyperactive ‘ when he was quite young. He’s early 50s now. Held down a trade job but never had a relationship. Still lives with his dad. Struggled with depression his whole life.

Very interesting to read your posts. I am younger than you but late diagnosed and nodding with most things you are saying. The pattern recognition is possibly the best and worst really. Best when you can read people, worst when someone suggests a museum and you feel you have been there 400 times before. I walked through a museum last week in 15 mins trying to stop and be 'present' but I just felt like I had been there before as I have been to many similar and my brain got bored. My 'entourage' got a good 2 hours out of the same place. Thankfully we are not vampires lol