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.

Sorry, rheumatoid arthritis. It's a bugger when you use exercise for managing your ADHD. I'm currently testing just how much jogging I can do without setting off my joints. I've got my blood markers fully under control and no longer have systemic inflammation, but I still have autoimmune and osteo arthritis and enthesitis.

I think it can be quite personal what works for people but at least the amino acids have a high safety profile. But if you do have ADHD please consider the prescribed meds because as this thread has informed me, they are protective against later dementia.

I'm on an absolute cocktail of supplements for the RA, all of which contain proper pharmaceuticals and have been clinically tested to work.

What's your anxiety like? Mine is through the roof and I'm two decades behind. I am scared.

I first applied to be diagnosed in 2023 (July) and was advised it would take around a year. I rang them for an update recently and was told they are currently assessing those who applied in December 2022. Meaning mine will be roughly another 5-6 months. Not great.

But do you have any pointers that may help me through the assessment ? I tend to forget things if I'm put on the spot, what sorts of things may they want to know?

Make notes of everything you can remember that fits the profile, right back to your childhood.

I showed photographs of me being hyperactive as a child (tiny girl child climbing the pillars on the front of the house), I wrote down my memories of my childhood nicknames "ants in her pants" and "donamoan". I showed him a tooth I broke risk taking at 7 years old. I wrote down some of the weird things I do/did, like getting up at 2am and running on a treadmill, leaving things out to fall over if I had something important to remember, turning up at an airport with an out of date passport, fines for non payment of credit card bills when I had plenty of money. I listed all my many broken bones and my history of rapid moves from one job to another. The social problems I've caused by my mouth saying what my brain just delivered to it without putting it through a filter.

Their job is to assess you, they'll ask you the right questions, just have any actual evidence you can gather with you.

I am very sorry but I must answer honestly. My anxiety levels are getting worse as I get older and get more and more knowledge of stuff to be anxious about and less and less ability to go for a run to purge it.

I've just finished Talking Therapies person-centred counselling and it was useless, she didn't have a clue what to do with me and grabbed at a chance to drop the last two sessions.

I've doubled my Alcar, which is an amino acid which is anxiolytic and stimulant and that helps but not enough.

I made an appointment with my GP yesterday and see him in 3 weeks.

Having said that, you may be different. I've had 4 years of relentless health problems with my husband and I haven't slept properly for those 4 years. Initially through stress of a very bad house move and then because my husband developed epilepsy and fits at night and every odd breath, noise and movement he makes wakes me. Then again it could just be the ADHD and age stopping me sleeping.

I'll update about what the GP says. Take care.

My anxiety was stopping me leaving the house ,and I used to go to bed in the day to hide ,and I was counting down from 2 pm to when I could go to bed, usually 6 pm..it was embarrassing and life limiting .
Going on methiylthenadate has improved all that for me
I do worry about taking stimulant medication..I've been getting occasionally episodes where I can feel my heartbeat..which I don't like ,so I've been taking my blood pressure lots of different times during the day..which has been reassuring as it's absolutely fine ...so those are the side effects of the stimulant medication.
So far it's worth it .
Anxiety had ruined my life.and I couldn't tolerate antidepressants,they zombie me .
So I'm so greatful to have this medication

thank you, that is useful to know. I wasn't particularly as a risk-taker as a child but as a teen I most definitely was. And from being a baby I would NOT sleep, I still find it difficult now. I struggled with school despite being academic, I sometimes forgot I'd done the work already and did it a second time!

Today I got back from staying over at a friend's to discover my door had been left open (not unlocked, OPEN!) the whole time. Luckily nobody had been in got nowt worth nicking !

I will add that person-centred counselling, psychotherapy and CBT have all been useless on me too.

Those are exactly the things you need to record. The younger you were when you were symptomatic the more obvious it makes the diagnosis. I was also academic. My coping mechanism was always to do my homework on the night I was given it, not the night before it was due in, otherwise it wouldn't get done.

The door thing is so familiar! I've had to fit split spindle locks to the doors of our new house so they weren't constantly being left unlocked. You also need to fit a key safe so as not to get locked out but that's a small price to pay.

Good to know I'm not alone!

I'm glad they're helping. I'm going to ask the GP as they are supposed to be dementia protective but there are issues with starting them late in life and I can't afford to risk a raise in my eye pressure.

Aging with adhd is not a new thing at all. It’s been a thing for as long as humans have lived

being diagnosed makes it easier than ever. At least now you know why you have certain difficulties. And have the opportunity to understand how best to live

Could go for more often eye tests ,to keep an eye on that

I'm on monthly at the moment!

But if the NHS drops me back to 6 monthly, you only get one a year from the optician free and to fill in to say, 3 monthly you have to pay and it's a pain in the arse to do a full eye test when you only want your pressure measured. They won't do it.

Once you've had one emergency eye operation, and I've now had two, you really don't want to go taking drugs that risk another.

Yes we covered that up thread.

What's new is aging with a diagnosis.

Please don't tell me that aging with ADHD is "easier than ever". Modern life and ADHD are hugely incompatible.

I do understand how best to live. Unfortunately my best way to live involved a level of exercise that my aging joints and thin bones won't tolerate.

When I lived with my parents I was so so often locked out (I.e. Had forgotten to take my keys. The whole thing was just too overwhelming for me to remember that I had to get back in.. I'd have to wait in the shed until they got home, freezing to death sometimes and then I'd be shouted at repeatedly. But it didn't help. I remember doing my homework at school, because I'd rather get it over and done with. I once did it in class and the teacher gave the whole class extra homework as she spotted me doing it, which I still don't understand. Was making sure it was done a bad thing?

I always used to forget my keys. It's normal to be forgetful. I had to climb over the garden gate and sit in the garden until my parents came home many many times.

Do you mean with ADHD? It's not normal to be forgetful to the extent that people with ADHD are forgetful. .

Someone gave that example as a trait of adhd. Im saying that I think forgetting keys is normal as in not something that means you have adhd.

Of course forgetting your keys occasionally isn't an ADHD diagnosis.

I tried to do the homework thing too. We can do it because we were able to do the homework at the same time as listening to the lesson the teacher was teaching. But the teacher spots it and thinks you aren't concentrating on the lesson, because most people can't do that.

That's another thing to mention, since you seem to have it. The ability to talk to someone while writing a completely unrelated email, to hear and understand two conversations at the same time. While simultaneously also being unable to remember to pay the gas bill, take a matching pair of shoes to a wedding, lock your car and get to the dentist appointment all in one week!

I am most definitely often overwhelmed with appointments. I have three on Friday (two I was aware of and had got my head around, one sprang on me this morning) and I am already dreading that day even though there's several hours in-between them all. Is that ADHD or just normal?

I run a small business and work part time for an employer. I have to constantly check for things due with the small business too, just right now I realise I've missed two important things and have had to hurriedly find the right channels to go round to sort them out!

That picture taken as a whole fits ADHD. Of course everyone forgets an appointment now and then. There seems to be two ways of coping with meetings, be early or be late. If you're a "be early, never be late" person then multiple meetings in one day all requiring you to be early can be stressful.

It doesn't sound like you've asked for an assessment for no reason!

Yes, this is definitely it! Everyone might get locked out once in a while, forget an important appointment or task, or find themselves overwhelmed after a busy period. It's the whole lot, put together among other things that made me think. And then I looked at my Mum who might as well be a walking advert for ADHD, and started reading up on things more and decided I'd like to get an assessment. I spoke to my recently (then!) diagnosed friend who said that a better understanding along with the meds, had really, really helped her. And that made the decision for me!

I'm as certain as I can be that mine is inherited from my mother.

I've just seen research saying they now reckon that 80% is inherited.