Undiagnosed ADHD in adult women

[HundredMilesAnHour]

Does anyone have experience of inattentive ADHD in adult women?? Ideally I'm looking for a recommendation of a specialist with experience in diagnosing adult women, preferably in London.

Any experience is very welcome please!

If you look on the Psychiatry UK website there have guidance on if this happens. It's awful but some GP's just don't have the knowledge or understanding of neurodiversity.

From my understanding through colleagues, GP's cannot really refuse to refer as it is not their area of expertise and usually if you ask for a letter with their reasons why they will not refer you, they usually will. Good luck

I was diagnosed in my early 50s not long after my 21 year old daughter. I did go private to same clinic as my DD’s psychiatrist because it would have been a huge wait otherwise. To get to the point t of diagnosis I had three initial appointments plus the psychologist assessment (in total about 2750) which was on insurance, which I know isn’t currently an option for OP.

Your GP sounds terrible. Clearly has no idea about the long term stress and comorbidities of spending 40 years masking the problem and blaming yourself for getting things wrong again, and again… Ask for a 2nd opinion. Do what you can to get the help even if you have to go private. You will feel an enormous sense of relief and self awareness. Once you have hormonal imbalances as well, it can exacerbate the ADHD (or maybe I just became less resilient 😟). I can’t take HRT (for other reasons) but if you can, do.

My DD has found out much younger and therefore got the right help at Uni (once she got over the wobble of having to go through the door marked Disabilities) then aced her degree.

NB once you have a diagnosis and treatment plan (meds and/or CBT plus mindfulness…) you don’t have to run up huge bills: I have a yearly appt with the private doc to check dosage etc but have now switched to getting my prescriptions via NHS GP repeat requests online. This saves me the £75 per month fee to the consultant just for writing the prescriptions, and I can access medication at NHS rate. The meds do help. I am now
wondering about doing another degree, now I understand my brain better…

I stopped the CBT (as it wasn’t particularly helpful for me personally) and try to find my own ways of doing things, to work around the ADHD. You could start trying this anyway. There are lots of apps out there but I recommend Headspace and Inflow. And the newsletters and resources from Additude are really helpful.

Good luck

ADDitude magazine online

Just to update everyone - my employer has agreed to pay for me to be assessed and diagnosed privately (despite me having already exceeded my insurance limit) and today I was referred by our Occupational Health team to our private provider. I understand that once all the initial screening paperwork is completed by me (assuming they think I tick enough boxes) it could be up to 12 weeks before I get an appointment with the doctor/psychiatrist but at least something is happening! If they confirm me as having ADHD, they will also start me on medication if appropriate (will worry about the costs etc if we get to that point). My employer has also agreed to pay for 8 sessions with a business psychologist who specialises in ADHD/ND in the workplace to support/coach me.

Thank you all very much for your support, encouragement and wise words.

A business psychologist who specialises in ADHD sounds wonderful! When I was diagnosed the psychologist recommended finding an ADHD coach which I think would be similar, but I haven't got round to it... of course shrugs

I can't take meds, so I work on strategies, making my life easier, and acceptance.

I'm not sure if this helps you @ZZTopGuitarSolo but my employer's OH dept uses a consultancy specialising in ND at work called Lexxic. Might be worth a look for you? I'm not sure if they take direct clients (rather than company referrals) but worth a quick scan of their website for you maybe? Their psychologist who first assessed me actually has ADHD himself. They definitely know their stuff!

https://www.lexxic.com/

Thank you - I'm not in the UK, so I don't think this company specifically would help me, but I'm now inspired to see what equivalents we have here in the US.

You never know, they might help? All my dealings with them have been remote over Zoom/Teams. Maybe worth a shot if you don't find any US equivalent. They definitely offer coaching for ADHD remotely as that's one of things my employer is paying them for (and I just finished the paperwork online for it).

Was this in person or video link? Can't do video calls. 😬Iv'e been waiting 13 months. I am going to ask about right to choose, but it has to be in person.