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.

Research is also a superpower but there are caveats- I have to be interested in the subject, and it will take over all of my spare time. I didn’t do well in further education as I chose things that didn’t suit me - I stifled to write essays and theories about things that didn’t interest me. I’m very good at learning things I enjoy, and becoming very informative about it - like a special interest.

I feel like I’m talking about myself a lot here. But I’m finding this post both helpful and enjoyable, and hope my posts can help someone!

Many of us are good at spotting patterns in chaotic information. I can't find it for the moment but there was a recent piece of research which showed measurable differences in tests between people with ADHD and without it.

Gosh, ditto.

I personally think, based on my career, family and experience, adhd is more of a spectrum than autism.

I have a young relative who is diagnosed ADD. Needs meds. Others who we now look at a say “oooh.” But for whom it hasn’t affected their mental health and ability to get through life somehow. And as a result they’re very successful. That said, the men… who rely on the women to do the bits in between.

I find it interesting that one of the worlds most well known autism (male) researchers recently said he “fitted the profile for autism but am unaffected.”

I personally think that personality type beneath (or above?) any executive function difficulties adds fuel to the fire for how someone copes in life or doesn’t. If you aren’t hugely affected by your challenges and manage to carve a role for yourself in society, you don’t necessarily need a diagnosis. (Though life stages later in life can affect things.)

Obviously this is outside specific LD or speech and language difficulties.

Agreed!

I've managed to put myself in remission for rheumatoid arthritis, proved by blood tests, due to my passion to research health issues, which is my current one. I dug into all the research papers to find what substances are in what supplements that would work. I tried to give the most powerful one up recently because it can affect the kidneys and got a very bad result, so it's working! I also got my husband to push for a change of medication for his epilepsy and that's been utterly life changing. (If anyone has themselves or a relative on Keppra with the typical anger and anxiety side effects, please push for them to get put onto braiveracetam, it's a newer, better, much more expensive drug that the NHS deliberately doesn't tell people about.

It is recognising patterns in lots of different aspects of life. People for example respond to things in their environment in certain ways and overtime become quite predictable in how they will respond to certain emotional stimuli. So once you have a decent amount of empathy and can have a decent insight into how they might feel you will have good insight into how they will respond. Those patterns are what make up character and personality.

This trait carries much further, I was extremely good at Maths for this reason. Learning processes/systems is similarly easy.

Should be brivaracetam in post above.

That is very useful my son took keppra for years but thankfully is now seizure free and off medication but he has neurological differences that are likely linked to the seizures so this is always on our mind.

Yes, it is in everything, not just data.

Plus I have heard our condition described as "like having 20 windows in your browser open at once" and some of us can match patterns across those windows even when they are ostensibly totally unrelated areas of interest.

Did you ever pretend that you hadn't learned as quickly as you had, because people didn't trust what you'd come up with when you appeared to do it too quickly?

It's a great benefit of getting old and being retired not to have to do that any more.

I don’t pretend but also I quickly learned not to share with everyone what I know. I am incredibly selective about information I share and with whom.

No it is only now we are able to unmask ourselves and be our authentic selves, not exaggeration at all it is allowing ourselves to just be us without judgement. Well - mainly without judgement anyway. 🙄

Yes this I was on sertraline as I thought I was depressed and I was also on bp meds and my psychiatrist promised me that going on concerta for my adhd would help so I came off the sertraline went on concerta and now I am also off the bp meds. My anxiety at masking was causing me so much stress that my bp was too high but with understanding and the concerta now I am bp med free also. It has been very liberating.

Personally I’m not sure about that.

I think the unmasking thing has been a bit of a disastrous message for those of us with ASD and ADHD.

From what I’ve learned over the years a degree of discernment about what we share with others and explicit communication around that would be a much better message for the community.

I know with challenges around social skills that is much harder for us to learn but it is a skill and I think it is worth at least trying to learn it.

Everyone masks in a variety of contexts, we just struggle to figure out where we can get away without masking so we don’t get enough of the pressure release valve but there is no way a world full of unmasked people will improve cooperation and general getting along.

I agree with you. I think the big difference between now and decades ago is the reduction in jobs and lifestyles that naturally fit a person with ADHD. Everything is so full of forms and bureaucracy and fewer and fewer jobs provide physical activity. Even cows milk themselves when they choose to wander into the machine and unmanned machines plant and pick crops.

Retirement is a great benefit for ADHD as long as you have enough money to make it work for you. Few people criticise a retired person for having a nap in the afternoon, but you get sacked for doing it at work.

Great thread 😊

The relevant part was that you claimed to be part of the ‘first cohort’ diagnosed. You were not, you were only diagnosed 5 years ago. It was misleading.

I thought like pp did, that you were among the first to be diagnosed with adhd.

If you’d said ‘first cohort of adults growing old with an adhd diagnosis’ it would have read more clearly.

Interesting!

I quite often get told I am incredibly logical and analytical and extremely quick at providing a short incisive summary. Do you have this too?

So for example, I could be having a debate about some topic with a group of people and each one of them will ramble on for ever about their thoughts but invariably, although making valid points, not really hitting the nail on the head. I will be able to see through all the tangled threads and have a clear vision
of the answer and will be able to express it very briefly. I am currently doing some volunteering work for one of the big London hospitals and this is why they asked me to help.

I was in a similar dilemma with BP and family history of CVD vs ADHD meds (from my own online research) and my friend who is a GP said it just means you will be closely monitored.

Maybe it will be the same with your glaucoma vs dementia risk - managed and dosed differently.

I am interested in your ‘strategic withdrawal from society’ - is this just standard retirement changing pace - because the other issue with dementia is withdrawing from communication - which is what happens with mild hearing loss and dementia develops.

Where did you learn about your amino acid supplementation and have you seen this studied head to head with prescription ADHD meds?

Also are there any experts that you rate? Do you have any opinions on Dr Amen?

Oh do go please away if you can't understand that I said that I was the first cohort to grow old with a diagnosis.

I can't help it if neither of you could read the words

AND GROW OLD

How old were you when you were diagnosed and did you struggle to find support as an adult with a learning difficulty? My husband is retraining as a counsellor because he and my brother were both diagnosed with ASD in their 20's and both found that there was plenty of support for children or parents but little support out there for adults.

I'll update this when I got home but it started with seeing the effects on a horse!

Meat eating is a pretty well known ADHD caller for don't people and meat is full of amino acids.

Yep, you could be describing me!

I don't have any learning difficulties. I was 62 when I was diagnosed.