In the beginning of 2024, I have been diagnosed with ADHD. Since then, I started treatment with medicine and therapy.
Over time, I acquired a few technologies and developed a few strategies to cope with ADHD.
This is my 4-week update on my treatment.
4-week checkpoint
The doctor and I agreed to run the treatment for about four weeks, after which I should check back for any adjustments. I agreed to document how things were going to make the adjustments easier.
For the first four weeks, I diligently took the prescribed Ritalin dose, usually at 8 AM. As you would expect with someone with ADHD, I forgot to take the medicine a few times. When that happened, I usually remembered before 11 AM. During the 28 days, I completely forgot one time, took it by 11 AM five times, and took it at 1 PM one time.
I noticed a few things when taking the medicine. The first is that I flush a little. When I looked at online forums like Reddit, I found that this seems to be a common side effect that disappears over time. The second is that I usually feel wiped out at the end of the day, even more than usual. Interestingly, this helped me sleep better.
The other side-effect we talked about was insomnia. Taking the medicine at 11 AM didn’t seem to make any difference in my tiredness or productivity, but on the day I took the medicine at 1 PM, I was awake until 1 AM, which is unusual for me (I’m usually up early at around 6 AM). Insomnia is a known side-effect of stimulants, and definitely something to monitor. After that experience, I decided to completely skip the medicine for days I forget to take it before 11 AM.
Because I keep track of almost every one of my tasks in a to-do list, I was able to notice that there was some small improvement of my symptoms, but it was minimal. The main improvement was that I was able to tackle some tasks that were “annoying but easy”, like scheduling someone to clean the dryer vents of my house. Incidentally, Thumbtack (no affiliation) has been pretty good for scheduling those “annoying but easy” home maintenance tasks. As for the other symptoms, my overall levels of forgetfulness and fidgetry didn’t seem to change.
I met with my doctor again, and she suggested increasing the dose to 20 mg of long-acting. which is the default dose for most people. I will start with this new dose on Monday. The long acting version is supposed to work for 8-12 hours.
Therapy
The therapist I’m working with can only meet every other week. I think that now, in the beginning, it would be beneficial for me to meet more frequently, especially as try to recast a lot of the things that have been problematic for me over my life under the new lens provided by a diagnosis. For example, sometimes I would think that I was not interested in some things, but it was just a period of my life where a lot was going on and I was easily distracted. We are still trying to find out a schedule that works well for both of us.
Verdict
I think the initial doses of therapy and medicine were not sufficient for improving the symptoms substantially, but at least the side-effects haven’t been bad. Now that the medicine dose has increased, I plan to increase the frequency of my therapy and document my progress after three months.