Diagnosed with ASD but someone suggested I might have ADHD?

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So I got diagnosed with ASD at age 29 last november and so far its helped me a lot as I have been able to get help from a local ASD charity. Anyway a friend who has a son with ADHD said I should maybe look into it as i show signs, after a lot of looking I seen that ADHD and ASD can show very similar symptoms and sometimes its hard to distinguish or even a waste of time to look into the other if you already have one diagnosis.

Does anyone have any experience with ADHD while having ASD? Im a bit reluctant to ask my doctor as i dont want to look like those people who almost WANT a condition, i would hate to give off that vibe.

In the case of either diagnosis, it's just an opinion, albeit a professional one pinned to observable traits.

I've had it explained to me that traits of ad(h)d often co-occur with asd, I've also heard traits of asd co-occur with add.

I think it's ok to tell a professional "these are the things that myself and others noticed".

I was also told it can come down to trying add medications and taking note whether they help or not (all under professional guidance naturally).

An online test that I did gave me results that suggested that I might have ADHD, and I asked my psychologist about whether he thought I might have that as well. He denied it, but didn't seem very convincing in his denial. It more seemed to me that he didn't want to discuss it.

As I understood it, the two main reasons that he gave me for telling me I don't likely have ADHD are:

1) Given that I'm already diagnosed with ASD, a diagnosis with ADHD wouldn't really do much for me other than give you access to ADHD drugs, and he doesn't think ADHD drugs would be good for me (I happen to agree - I don't like the idea of drugs that might change my brain's chemistry).

2) Apparently, until a few years ago (I guessing with the introduction of the DSM-5), he wasn't even allowed to co-diagnose ASD and ADHD. People were diagnosed with one or the other, but not both.


While neither of these reasons particularly convinces me that I don't have ADHD, the second point is interesting. I'm pretty sure some people HAVE been diagnosed with both Asperger's and ADHD under DSM-4, but I'm guessing these were done at different times, and likely by different psychologists.

To a certain degree, I can see that might make sense, since there does seem to be a pretty big overlap between ASD and ADHD, so I can see saying that all one's signs and symptoms should be explained by one or the other, but not both.

I've also heard rumors (and they are nothing more than rumors) that there is talk of collapsing ADHD into the Autism Spectrum in DSM-6, the same way as Asperger's was in DSM-5.