Possible ADHD: can my GP help?

[JaneFondue]

Yes, I know everyone thinks they have ADHD! I am in my early 50s and never considered it before. But I have the following symptoms and always have had them, and getting worse now in menopause
Talk too much
Talk too fast and interrupt a lot
Excessively energetic
Always searching for distraction and find it very hard to sit still
Careless and forgetful.
Lose many things.

I am functional in my job and family life , so maybe I should just carry on at this age as I believe the waitlists for diagnosis are too long?

I have a GP appmt Friday which was very hard to get. Is it possible to get any help from them? I do have some private healthcare but I need a GP referral to see a specialist. Should I get my GP to refer me? No idea where to begin.

Yes. Ask your GP to refer you under Right to Choose.
They may ask what you feel you need a diagnosis for, so be prepared for that question.

My child has ADHD. Had to pay over 2K to get them diagnosed because there was SO MUCH resistance from GP towards right to choose. They are medicated now and doing my better behaviourally at school now.

I probably am too. All the same symptoms as my child plus a few of my own. But I'm a functioning adult coping with life so I'm not going to burden the NHS with doing that. Children need to be the priority to enable them to access education. OR individuals that can't cope in life, who would have an improved life with medication.

Read up about Right to Choose, that would probably be the way to get a diagnosis if you do have ADHD, if NHS waiting lists are too long (they will be), you have the right to be referred to a private provider, though that can be quite a wait too.

https://adhduk.co.uk/diagnosis-pathways/

Make sure you have done an adult ADHD screener so you know how likely it is to be ADHD - the GP would do one of these before referring you.

Also - menopause exacerbates ADHD, so it's worth thinking about HRT if you aren't on it already.

https://thinkadhd.co.uk/adhd-and/adhd-and-menopause/

I am very likely to have ADHD, symptom-wise, especially when I was at school and I have two children with ADHD. My doctor did agree to refer me, but I've decided not to pursue it at the moment. I have learnt a lot of techniques to function well and I can get the adjustment I need (to have an allocated desk at work and not hotdesk) without a diagnosis. I don't know how it would help me (I don't think I want to go on medication) and I am loath to have a label if the political climate keeps on going the way it is at the moment!

It might help you though, or even just getting some talking therapy to explore how you feel about it (that helped me too)

So very many people have the characteristics that you mention that I think you should seriously question why, as someone who is by your own admission functioning in life, would want to medicalise their neurotype.

I certainly meet all those characteristics, and it causes me stress. I have in the past made the mistake of going down the medicalising route and the specialist I saw said that I was probably just within the diagnostic thresholds but that is was hard to be definitive based only on my recollection of my own childhood (this was a few years ago now, when they were prob more geared up to diagnosing children, not adults, and on the basis of clinical observation,
not patients' self-report.

These days, I see how hugely many people are seeking diagnosis just to make sense of their life, or to generate a shield against guilt and self-blame, or against their perceptions of other peoples' judgements on them.

This isn't what medicine is for. If you are struggling with those sorts of need for repaired self-esteem, I'd suggest counselling would be a better strategy. It would improve your sense of agency, rather than surrendering to a defensive partial denial of agency.

Do you have excessive anxiety and overthinking- I am a late diagnosis ( older than you 😘) and that and rejection sensitivity are the worst traits of it for me personally ❤️
look after yourself xx

Thanks all.
I should have mentioned that I have done the adult ADHD screener and scored a 4, which warrants investigation.
I am on HRT.

If I do have ADHD, I probably have a very mild version as I was functional in school and am ok at work. DH recently has been saying he can't get a word in when I am on a rant. This is true! I have to restrain myself from interrupting, but I CAN do it if I am mindful. I am also overly reactive but who knows if that is menopause or ADHD!

Maybe I just need to learn techniques and not go down the long pathway.

Gp can refer but not diagnose.

meds are hard to access.

honestly unless you want meds you are better off not wasting time and money and assuming you have and working on strategies.

Have had this since I was a teen. I was always the catastrophiser and overthinker. This has continued.

That said, I am mostly functional. I don't collapse. I rant quietly to DH or my mum occasionally but not to the kids or at work. Mostly I work off anxiety with exercise.

Many, many people have commented on my fidgety legs and hands. This I have had no success in controlling, though I do it out of sight at work.

I got diagnosed in my late 50s and went on medication which was life-changing. I hesitated for quite a while because I thought it wasn’t worth it at my stage of life but it absolutely was. I went private and it was worth every single penny. I also thought that even if I did get a diagnosis that I wouldn’t bother with medication but during the consultation, the psychiatrist said something like I would probably find it beneficial and at that point, I decide to try it because I had nothing to lose other than a few quid.

i feel soooo much better (much less anxious and more focussed) on the medication. The diagnostic report is was incredibly helpful because it highlighted areas of difficulty that I had not thought about before.

So ADHD is a significant diagnosis but highly treatable. With the benefit of hindsight, it is crazy not to get it diagnosed and treated. Nobody would say to you don’t bother diagnosing and treating diabetes or hypertension. And just like these illnesses, untreated ADHD can actually be a factor in the development of other illnesses- obviously depression but in my case it has been ME/CFS which has made me too ill
to work. (According to my psychiatrist and the doctor at the ME Association, ADHD and ME/CFS are probably comorbid).

OP, if your GP is unsupportive, please see a different one. I would go in to the appointment with a print of the results of screener. The ASRS is often recommended for women. There is also one on the ADHD UK website (which might be the ASRS). Obviously don’t take it if your results are not indicative of ADHD. And don’t worry if they’re not - DC2’s screener results all came out as normal but they do have ADHD.

@MyThreeWords and @Octavia64 I certainly see what you are saying.
Medication would likely be pointless or unnecessary or too expensive.
I have tried counselling in the past and couldn't take to it. Just made me ruminate and self obsess more.

Exercise really helps.

I’ve not found the meds hard to access although I was diagnosed privately. I had to pay for private prescriptions for around 2 months and then my GP signed a Shared Care agreement with the private psychiatrist. Although I realise many GPs are not willing to do this (OP if you are considering private or Right to Choose - I would discuss about their willingness to prescribe). I’ve been on the meds since June last year.

I am a bit low these days but hard to tell if it's because of the general state of the world, menopause, empty nest, aging mum or something else.

ADHD is a significant and highly treatable diagnosis, just like many others. It is not a “shield” - that’s like dismissing a broken leg as an excuse not to do housework.

Part of the diagnositic criteria is that it causes you significant difficulties and has done all your life. It’s
no coincidence that a surprisingly high proportion of those in prison have ADHD, people with ADHD tend not to have very successful careers, educational outcomes and are far more likely to be addicted to
drugs, alcohol or gambling.

Regarding medication, the various options all have some negative side-effects. And the stimulant versions also carry risks associated with raised blood pressure and heart rate.
An additional problem with the stimulant versions is that you can develop a tolerance over time and you can initially receive hits of improved well-being regardless of whether or not you have adhd. This is why several adhd meds (like other amphetamines) become drugs of abuse.

Like you, @JaneFondue I was in my 50s when I sought diagnosis. The specialist judged it appropriate to give me a non-stimulant med, but not a stimulant version, perhaps because I was of an age when heart/blood pressure starts to be an issue.

I didn't get any clear benefit from the meds he prescribed. I suspect that this is because, by this stage in life, the issue isn't really your neurotype at all. It is the psychological characteristics and life experiences that have supervened on your neuro-characteristics over a lifetime to create the personality that you have.

So even if meds were effective to some extent, counselling would still be indicated and resolution may never be had.

All this being the case, I really do think that the quest for diagnosis is, for very many people, all about finding a narrative designed to salve our self-image and our fear of judgement - in a context of social media contagion that has ramped up pretty much everyone's desire for such a shield (not to mention the context of social media harshness which makes everyone feel vulnerable unless they can armour themselves with a special identity).

Again, this is not what medicine is for.

The people who suffer most from this trend are those who are severely disabled by developmental conditions and having to deal with massively increased demand from the 'worried well'.

Sorry to hear that. Hope you feel better soon.

ADHD gets worse in the menopause because estrogen levels are falling and estrogen has an involvement in dopamine activity in the brain.

I hear what you are saying @MyThreeWords. Well expressed.

My dd has adhd.

the nhs is increasingly only accepting shared care agreements if patients have been seen on an nhs pathway.

see eg this one.
https://www.hweclinicalguidance.nhs.uk/prescribing-guidance/shared-care-adhd/

i’d advise googling your local area nhs and finding out their policy on shared care.

my dd was able to get shared care at university which meant she got nhs prescriptions but now she is back living with me my gp has refused to do it as my local area now has a policy of only nhs patients.

her private prescriptions are 70 a month plus reviews every six months which are 145 pounds.

for what it’s worth she is also medicated separately for anxiety and takes duloxetine for that. She didn’t find the adhd meds had an impact on her anxiety but some people do.

I agree