This podcast discusses how I decided to get tested for ADHD, my diagnosis and initial experiences.

Transcript thanks to Alicia: Welcome to conversations with Kerry: a series of audio interactions with people and things in my world that I find interesting. If you have any comments, queries, questions, or feedback, you can find me as @khoath on Twitter, or email me, [email protected]. Thanks for listening, and I hope you enjoy the podcast.

Welcome to the podcast. This episode is entitled ADHD and Me.

Story time: I have recently been diagnosed with adult ADHD, and it was quite an interesting journey to get to this conclusion, so I’m going to cover a little bit of that, in the hope that it may be useful and instructional to others.

Now, as a child, I was always reasonably intelligent, and I did reasonably well at school. But I discovered that I really had a problem with procrastination, and getting me to do homework was like pulling teeth. It never seemed to get done. I always found other interesting and more wonderful things to do. And some would say that’s true of any child, but as the years progressed, I discovered that procrastination was a huge problem for me. I would put off important things even if those things were going to pay me lots of money, even if those things were extremely important, even if those things would negatively impact me if left to chance. And I also noticed that I was having trouble focusing on tasks that I wanted to do. I could hyper focus, I could sometimes get into projects and complete them, but I would always jump from project to project and rarely complete anything.

So it was late last year on YouTube I was watching a humorous video about adult ADHD. And they basically have a comic asking you a whole series of questions, and getting you to mark off the behaviors that you experience. And I realized that the actual examples would occur to sighted people more than blind people. But I decided to try this quiz, and see what I actually scored. And I scored quite highly, which got me thinking. And I wondered over the years how many things at my job I had delegated to other people, and how many things in my job that I hadn’t actually done, and how efficient was I at working. And I came to the conclusion, not very. And I got to thinking that there may be a reason for all of this sort of behavior.

So I started to research, and I discovered that a lot of these traits were, in fact, typical of people with ADHD, although ADHD symptoms could occur in other mental conditions, such as bipolar and schizophrenia. So I decided that this required further investigation. And I spoke to some people on the Internet, and got some personal stories, and decided to go to my general practitioner, and get a referral to a psychiatrist. And I got the referral to the psychiatrist, and booked an appointment only to find out that the appointment was going to be 473 dollars. But I was pretty sure that there was stuff going on, so I decided to put the money aside and go to the appointment.

And I went to see the psychiatrist, who was an older fellow. And he asked me lots of questions about my family. Did I live with my family? How closed was I to my parents? Did I experience abuse? Was I depressed, anxious? Had I had psychosis? A whole range of questions. And I discovered through some research that the reason they ask about psychosis is because some people do experience psychosis when they take dexamphetamines or similar stimulant medication. There are a number of non-stimulant medications for ADHD, but the first line of defense is usually stimulant medications because they work for 70 to 80 percent of people that they are prescribed for.

Now when I was seeing the psych, he asked me if I had any of my old school reports, and that if I did, could I please bring them in to the next appointment, and that he would see me in seven weeks’ time. I have to say that was a little demoralizing. So first appointment down, 473 dollars, got some back from Medicare obviously, see me in seven weeks. So, and fill in this questionnaire on adult ADHD. So I got my support workers to fill in the questionnaire on ADHD, and I also got together the school reports, which luckily my mother had saved for me and sent across to me. And we spent a couple days scanning all of the reports, and getting those into the computer and getting them into JPEG files. And I filled in the ADHD questionnaire and scanned all of its pages into PNG files. And I went to try and email in the documentation for the psychiatrist, and discovered that the system would only accept PDF as input. Not only that, that the PDF’s were limited in size as to how big they could be. And I’d initially sent them a Dropbox folder with all the necessary documents in it, but that wasn’t acceptable. So I ended up getting on to a site called PDF Candy, which can convert JPEG’s into a PDF, and I made a PDF of about 13 pages of the school report, only to find out that it was too big to upload. So, I found three pages of the school report, and put them into a PDF and emailed that through, and discovered that that would actually be accepted.

Now as a case of interest, when we went back through my school reports, and looked at the comments that the teachers had left over the years, many of them said, “If Kerry paid better attention,” “If Kerry paid more attention to class,” “If Kerry was more focused.” And I’d seen those reports over the years, but hadn’t really thought anything of them. I thought well, teachers usually say that about kids and their class. But I took all of those reports into the psych in paper form, because I didn’t trust the technology that the medical systems that they were using was using.

So I had a second appointment, and I was prescribed 30 Mg Lisdexamfetamine. And this is a medication that basically has a Lysine molecule which is um, a molecule that’s attached to the dexamphetamine molecule. And it’s an amino acid, and basically when you take this medication, the red blood cells strip off the Lysine, and then release the Dexamphetamine into your system. And so they had to call the script through to clearing place for scripts, (Medicare clearing place), provide my Medicare number, my script number. And I picked up the medicine on Wednesday afternoon, and discovered that you actually had to get it from the same pharmacy. You had to get the repeats from the same pharmacy as the original medication. If you didn’t do that, they actually had to do a transfer of script form to actually send the script to another pharmacy, because this class of medication is Schedule 8, and is very restricted because of its abuse potential, and people selling it on the streets, and doing all sorts of illegal things with it.

So I went into the pharmacy on Wednesday afternoon, picked up the script after my psych appointment. And I found out that Lisdexamfetamine, (or Vyvanse as it’s known), has recently been added to the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme as of February this year. So I managed to pick up my script for $6.60, and I took the medication home for the night. Frustratingly enough, this medication, due to the way it works, because the red blood cells actually strip off the Lysine molecules to liberate the Dexamphetamine into the system, the medication has a two-hour onset time. So I couldn’t take any of my capsules on the Wednesday night.

But Thursday morning, as in yesterday, I got up, had some food, took my first Lisdexamfetamine capsule, and waited. Now, any of you who’ve been listening to my previous podcasts will perhaps notice that my vocal tones are different than what they were on the previous podcasts. No, this is not some acting or some voice that I’m putting on just for the podcast. When the Dexamphetamine is in my system, I am significantly calmer, more focused, I have executive function, I can plan tasks, I can figure out what I’m doing with my day. I have a lot more patience, slower to anger, and I’m much happier.

So this is the second day of my medication, so two capsules down, 28 to go, until I go to the pharmacy and pick up the refill. I’m not saying that this is the perfect medication. It does have its drawbacks. The two-hour onset time is inconvenient because if I take the medication at eight o’clock in the morning, it does not take effect until ten o’clock. And interestingly enough, the medication wears off around 6:00 PM, which means I essentially get eight useful hours of calm, focus, peaceful brain, lucidity. So that will be something to talk to him about when I go back to see him. Luckily I have not had too many of the side effects listed on the websites. Just one out of ten nausea, and the sort of crash when the medication comes out of my system. But I will be talking to him about options, and whether there are other options I can take that will allow me to have more useful time in a day. Whether there is either something I can do with the current medication, or other medications that would be more suitable. I know that I was given the Lisdexamfetamine because he thought that taking one capsule per day would be simpler for me. And I didn’t have to dose myself or manage dosing, which I have no problem doing. But I understand his point of view.

So for the next seven weeks or so, I’m seeing how Lisdexamfetamine affects me. I’m finding my life so much more peaceful, so much calmer. I’m actually able to get things done, which is why I’m recording a podcast today. You may see more of them in the feed over the next seven weeks. And then when the next seven weeks are up, we look at our options, and see what is possible as far as any modifications to my medication, and things that I can do to make a fundamental difference to that.

So I’ve shared this podcast in the hopes of sharing a little bit of my journey on the way to finding out that I do in fact suffer from adult ADHD. And I would encourage anyone who feels that they may be in the same predicament as me to consider doing the necessary investigation, providing the necessary information, and going through the necessary steps to get themselves diagnosed, if they feel that would be beneficial to them. For me, the diagnosis has been life-changing. And unfortunately at the moment, I haven’t found ways to get hypnosis to help me with ADHD. I have found the medication helpful, but I am also looking at other modalities and things that may be able to assist me, especially if I don’t have any other options as far as the Lisdexamfetamine is concerned.

So I realize it’s been a bit of a personal update this month. Hope people have found this interesting. If you have any queries, comments, questions, @khoath on Twitter, or [email protected] is the email address. Happy to answer any questions, queries. Thanks for listening, and I hope some of you found this an interesting podcast.

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