Anyone here have Add/Adhd aswell?

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If so how do you manage it? have tried everything and I mean EVERYTHING! to help with my scatty disorganised mind. I take fish oil tablets and evening primrose tablets and vitamin B and I try to make a juice everyday and i also have an excellent diet no junk etc and have done and tried everything and over the years just about everything under the sun and they haven't helped me one bit. Oh and also did the elimination diet, waste of time and money also.

I've tried the Flylady system it helped a bit but wasnt the answer. Read books on becoming organised, keep a diary, use visual clues everywhere, you name it I've done it.

So 2 weeks ago the psyche prescribed me Ritalin and My God it works like a charm BUT now I;m also getting side effects, cramp like pains, stomach pains etc.

being on Ritalin has really opened up my eyes and made me realize just how tired I was, how bad my self esteem is, how anxious I am, etc all these traits are gone when I'm on the tablet.

There just has to be another way other than being on a med? please tell me how you cope with it?

Aw! I have had no medicine for my ADD. Well, technically it's ADHD, but I'm a classic ADD example. I try to exercise. It helps with sensory int.,too, which I also have. I mean, you physically work out your anxieties. It doesn't help when I'm at work, but it helps when I'm at home. Speaking of which...

EDIT: Try wall-pushups, something simple to get you started. It should make you tired enough to keep focused. It is a way to channel your excess energy. Plus, you might get in shape.

I take my dogs for walkies everyday up to about an hour.

Push ups? ??????

I tried the fish oil but was making me sick, I was on dexedrine which did
help with my focus, but not enough to warrant staying on them for to long.

Were you on odourless fish oil or just plain fish oil? I cant take just the plain fish oils they make me sick also. I'd prefer not to take them at all but the alternative is flaxseeds and avocados and walnuts which costs a lot more and you can't always get avocados in season.

dha fish oil in the jell caps, I was getting bad heart burn

Well, I had my first diagnosis of ADD/ADHD at two years, and after years of stimulants followed by a stimulant drug self-medication, I'm rather against many chemicals. However, for those who are not former drug users, which I assume shall be most reading this thread, they have modulated most ADD drugs into extended relief formulas. So those are ideal, if your brain can cope.

For myself (I can use no stimulant medication, and only myself to blame), I find medicating my anxiety helps, and a combination of cognitive technique and caffeine and taurine aid in the rest. But I was surprised to find how much anxiety treatment helped; in my adult life, I denied/never realized the full impact.

I was diagnosed with ADD a few years after I was diagnosed with Asperger's. My half-brother has ADHD.

Because of my ADD, I usually receive more time to complete tasks at school. My teachers are way more lenient with me than they are with all their other students.

I have ADD and I don't take anything for it. I am able to get myself back on task. I feel I don't need to take anything for it. I was on pills for it as a kid but they messed me up and my parents took me off them. I over came being distracted easily by sounds around me. Sometimes I question if I really have it or not.

I'm sorry, but I've found that the only think that really works is ritalin. (but you can minimize your dose of ritalin over time, and organize taking it just in times of dire need).

Sometimes going for 20-30 minute runs helps me. Short but *vigorous* (I think the vigorous part is important) exercise. Going for a stroll or doing a few pushups doesn't do much, you need to get the adrenalin pumping to increase your focus. Ritalin does work better though.

If I'm studying during the day (off ritalin) I go for a 20 fast run about once every two to three hours. I also have the occasional small piece of chocolate (for the caffine) but I try to minimize my reliance on that because it's not healthy.

50 laps of the pool can work too, if you're a swimmer.

How long have you been taking ritalin? Sometimes you get side effects before your body gets used to the med. They may go away after a few weeks.
I'm getting evaluated for ADHD in a few weeks. My problems are concentration, memory and just looking at the state of my room makes me break down. I've got no idea where to start with cleaning it.

I've only been taking it for a week and a half? and not everyday now because of the side effects. I'm a reall health nut and taking this makes me sooo nervous but at the same time OMG what a joy to be able to think clearly, get organised, not live in a foggy state, do things that need doing, have energy and not feel tired, feel happy, have self esteem, even my common sense kicks in aswell, truly and honestly i never expected it to do all these things.

About 3 weeks ago before this I decided to clean up my pig sty of a room I started at 12 noon and I was still going till 12 midnight and still hadn't cleaned up everything, I mean how bad is that?

What sort of dosage are you on?

In year 11 I started by taking 40mg twice a day, every day, for a few weeks, then dropped to 20mg twice a day, every day for almost a year (except for school holidays). Then in year 12 I took 10mg twice a day, every day for that time (again excluding holidays). From year 10 to year 11 I went from a C/D grade student to a B grade student, and from year 11 to year 12 I went from a B grade student to a student getting straight A's.

I won't undervalue the transformation ritalin made to my life. I found the dosage I was on in year 12 was ideal, it was a minimal dosage spread out so that it lasted the whole day (took two pills a day, one in the morning and one at lunch) It is a drug, and obviously there are side effects. But if you take it right and take it responsibly it can change your brain for the better. These days (I'm a university student now) I don't take it on a regular basis at all, in fact I only take it for a few days every couple of months, normally during high pressure assignment writing times. I take the same dosage I took in year 12. I find in the inbetween times, when I am not on it, the improvement in my concentration has lasted, and although I am still better on ritalin, I am better off it than I was up to grade 10. And I probably wouldn't have passed grade 11 and 12 if I hadn't gone on it. By the end of grade 10 I was falling apart, dropping subjects, and seeing psychologists because of my exhaustion and inability to get my work done.

I have ADHD. My blackberry has been very helpful for me. I have a "to-do list" app that lets me make a list of things I need to do, when I need to do them, and set an alarm to remind me to follow through and do it. I don't remember if the app came with the phone or if I bought it later. The calendar/schedule that comes with the phone is also very helpful for me. It also helps me that my job is something I actually enjoy doing. I have very little ability to sustain attention to something that doesn't interest me. For me, it's absolutely critical to have a job that I enjoy.

In spite of all of that, I still have days when I just can't focus. To deal with that, I keep a list of "mindless easy tasks" that need to be done but that can be put off for a while. When I am having a particularly unfocussed day, I do a bunch of these tasks. That way, I can be productive even if I can't concentrate very well.

Im taking Ritalin 10 and its 10mg each tablet. I started off taking 1 tablet 3 times a day but have tapered off to now just taking half or a quarter tablet once a day.

Yesterday was the first time i only took a 1/4 tablet and it did work but today when i took the 1/4 it didnt seem to work aswell.

Does anyone else here also feel really tired with adhd? I was reading how adhd and chronic fatigue a lot of the times go hand in hand. I think I've been tired for so long that I must have thought it was normal or something.

I've always struggled with exhaustion but I always linked that to AS? hmm. Yes I've had serious issues with exhaustion my whole life.

I'm not sure about taking a 1/4, not sure if that would be a large enough dosage to take effect. It's different for everyone though. I found either taking one Ritalin 10, 10mg tablet twice a day, or just one once a day (in the morning or afternoon, depending on when I was trying to work) worked best for me. The psychiatrist said that they normally last about 4 hours, so you'd want to take whatever dosage you're on (be that one tablet, 1/2 a tablet, or 1/4 tablet) about once every four hours during the time you need to focus (I always timed it so that I was on it from around 8am till 4pm).

If you're taking less than 20mg a day I certainly wouldn't be stressed out about it damaging your health - I was taking double that every day for almost a year and four years on I've had no health issues or any damage or anything from it (as I said, I'd actually say my concentration span has improved). Again, I'm no doctor, and it obvious is going to affect everyone differently, but if it makes you feel any better when I was first put on it the normal starting dose was generally 80mg a day! (which is what I started on), so you're definitely on a very small dose. The best thing to do is to keep minimizing your dose until you find the smallest dose which is effective, and stick with that dose, it sounds like half a tablet a day works for you, and if that's the case I wouldn't be freaking out that you're taking too much - that's really good! I tried half a tablet twice a day and it didn't do anything for me, the minimal dosage that works for me is one tablet for each half day I'm working during.

I think that over time, you start to recognize the state of mind you're in when you're on ritalin and you start learning to generate that state of mind independently. That's what I feel like I've begun to achieve after 5 years of smaller and smaller doses. I'm a psychology student and in some recent advances they've done on plasticity they've discovered ways the brain can be rerouted, and how thinking can be adapted and changed to rid people of learning disabilities, increase IQ, and fix anxiety disorders. I think in some way the same thing can be applied to ADHD and even AS, where you can train yourself into new types of thinking, and create new pathways in your brain after much repetition, practice and focus. Once you have that "feeling" you get from ritalin (the one you described, where suddenly you can focus and it feels so wonderful - I still remember when I first went on it!) you know for the first time what it feels like and you can start practicing trying to recreate that feeling, and once you succeed you reinforce it by repetition.

I found a little trick that works is if you have a simple repetitive type of game, such as snake (it has to be really basic and repetative), you can use it to refocus your attention. If I'm typing an assignment, and I find I can't focus/lose my focus and my attention is all over the place, or 'bouncing off the screen' so to speak, then I quickly pick up my mobile phone and do the repetitive actions of directing the snake to pass through the maze and apples, or doodle jump (where I'm just jumping the screen figure from platform to platform without falling), and after a minute or two my brain sort of calms and starts to stabilize and focus (it's sort of like ADHD meditation), and I turn back to the screen and am able to focus on the assignment.

^^ The above technique has worked for me since year 7, it's really effective so long as you have the right type of game (it has to be really simple and basic and non-addictive, such that it involves repetative motor actions with simple thought processes and you lose interest after a brief period of time). A game that's too complicated just ends up distracting you more and tiring you out, and a game that's simple but frustrating and not 'smooth' or satisfying just exhausts you as well and doesn't fix your flicking attention.