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I've had ADHD throughout my child hood and high school career. I graduated High School 2 years ago with about a 3.5 gpa. You people saying "don't give your kids drugs" obviously do not have ADHD or you'd realize not having your perscription drastically changes ones grades. I always thought of ADHD as a bad thing in high school, I hated it I thought I was weird and so different than everyone else. With Adderall I could concentrate better resulting in my grades becoming good. I still had to work my ass off to do good, but the Adderall helped me concentrate. I wish I would have realized earlier that ADHD wasn't really making me a retard, I would have enjoyed high school much more than I did. So to any kid out there in high school with ADHD don't doubt yourself work hard in school, make friends, which can be a hard thing for a kid with ADHD who thinks he doesn't fit in with people who don't have ADHD.

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This is a very good story and for the most part mostly true. However, I didn't get a chance to finish reading it, because it became boarding. So I thought I would write about it on this comment section. However, this doesn't really fulfill me. So I went to my hot girlfriend and ask her to ....

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Apparently Zyban (the drug for helping people to quit smoking) is making quite a positive impact on ADD patients. It has many less side effects than Adderol or Ritalin and helps promote focus in the brain and a big huge side effect that is positive, it helps ADD smokers quit smoking!

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Brain Blood Perfusion may be the key. I saw a new Dr recently when I could no longer cope with ADD (I kept being distracted at my programming job), and he suggested Clonidine. The brains of ADD kids are hyperactive in some parts, but other parts are depressed. He suggested that perhaps there was not enough blood and the necessary resources (oxygen, neurotransmitters, nutrients etc) were not getting to the other parts of the brain. Clonidine is an antihypertensive. Taking it allows constricted blood vessels to relax, leading to increased blood perfusion to the brain. Sure enough it worked. The next day, I could notice more things, I was able to get to work on time, and importantly I was able to finish my tasks. My Dr mentioned that in the tests that NASA have done on astronauts, they were not able to finish their tasks when there was lower levels of oxygen, and they behaved very similarly to ADD people. I have been taking it for the last week (100 micrograms at night). The effect is not as pronounced as when I first took it. But I am able to sleep better at night (and I don't wake up early), I can finish my tasks, and I able to see the overall picture better. My unpredictable dyslexia has improved. My reaction time is faster, and I remember things sooner.The reason why I am slow with ADD , is because I have to force myself to concentrate, and I have to slow myself down to prevent mistakes. My Dr has the theory, that with the clonidine, the blood vessels in the brain are not constricted, the blood takes less time to reach the parts of my brain with the necessay information, and I can process the information properly, and I don't have to go back back and forth between different sets of information. I think a lot of problems with ADD stem because of lack of confidence, and the stress with family and other people, sometimes because we are different, and sometimes because we cannot concentrate, keep our rooms messy, isolate ourselves so we can do the work etc. I realized after taking this medication, that my main problem is not ADD. Being ADD means we are smart, we are open minded, and insightful. Its wonderful. I used to always to think that is the cause of my problems, But now I realize it is who I am, and I don't want to change it (and really I can't). I am still distracted, and now I'm letting my mind race at 100 mph but I am able to finish the tasks I want to finish.If you would like to know more, write to me at eljinn at gmail dot com , or add the address to msn

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ADHD does not only affect those spazoid kids that need to get beat by a sober father. I believe ADHD (at least the attention deficit part) is man made evolution in the making.

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I'm a member of the club too, undiagnosed, completely absorbed with knowledge gathering, but unable to continue long term study on any one subject. I've also been called all kinds of names from "genius" to "scatterbrain". I don't think i'm actally very smart, just very interested in stuff, so I know more "things"than many people around me.

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This is news?

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I have a Ph.D. in engineering... and I speak five different languages, paint, play the piano, practice kung fu, do activist work, and am learning to dance and play the guitar. It always baffles me how bad people's memories are, and how much time it takes for the average person to do the simplest of tasks... especially when it involves solving problems. It's the boring repetitive tasks that really shorten my life.I have a mild case of ADHD... I'm eternally thankful that my freakishly all-natural whole-grain hippie parents bought books instead of drugs when I was a hyperactive toddler in the 70s. It's a gift, they said, if you can master the ADHD your mind will be SEVERAL times faster than everyone else. Bonus! Mastery wasn't easy, but simple in concept: since I don't have natural organizational abilities, I must learn to use tools that help me become organized, like files, post-it notes, databases, spreadsheets, calendars... and be conscious and disciplined about it. The other thing is to acknowledge that I can actually memorize things much better than the average person because I don't limit what I memorize. We're only using 15% of our brains anyway - it's illogical to think that one can "fill up" one's head with memories. I think there are studies that sees ADHD as a lack of hippocampal constraints. The hippocampus evaluates every stimulus and decides if it's new enough to be memorized. To ADHD folks, everything is new. We are perfect for learning languages!!

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Just getting back to reading this it makes me laugh... back in my fourth grade year i moved to a new school absolutely hated the teacher, was the class clown and my grades went from A's to F's.... my mom thought i had ADD had an IQ test scored a 144 and the lady said i didn't have ADD yet after reading that article it makes me believe i have ADHD, set aside from my IQ I've always known i was a bit different from everyone else around me. anyways i think its 100% true that having ADHD is a gift, creativity definitely isn't a problem for my and when in a pinch i can think of a way to get me out of something. Problem solving feeds my hunger, that's why i enjoy reverse engineering code....and building computers/fixing them :D.

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I have ADHD. I am an avid reader as long as it's interesting to me. Otherwise it's so boring I'm almost in tears. Which brings me to a question. I love PCs, working on them, learning about them (guts and all), programming, and games. My question: How to get thru the boring parts of learning to program? I'm not on meds of any kind. Except over the counter stuff for migraines. Any suggestions?Ninajean

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Ninajean,Hello I have a question for you. I have an 11 year old son who may have ADHD and my question is how do I tell him? He has been to a concilor a few times for other problems and did not do well, in fact he was very upset because I made him go, so I do not think he will do well with this. I need someone elses opinion who has been there. As for your problem read it and make cue cards to review before the test. It keeps you busy and it will make things easier when you have to take a test or need to remember what you have read. It helped me get through the boring stuff in college.

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Dude...where's the article...http 404, did you misplace it?

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If corrective action can be taken without medication, then that should be the first option. For many children and adults, medication is needed to aid in their success as students, parents and employees. Many times children do not need to be medicated after a certain amount of time because they have learned to either control their behaviors or have begun to outgrow the most severe symptoms. Ritalin, Adderall and Concerta is all methylphenidate. Although they might be a derivative of amphetamines, the neuropharmacological effects of both drugs are completely different. Furthermore, some symptoms of ADHD resemble characteristics of OCD, depression and anxiety. To say that they will end up with one of those disorders is ignorant, because shy/anxious/fearful, poor relationship quality, recovery/soothability issues and fixations are possible symptoms of ADHD. ADHD symptoms vary from person to person and almost no two cases are alike. *See my post at the end of this thread for more information about my personal situation with ADHD.

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You were either prescribed too high a dose of Adderall or your symptoms are very mild and can be corrected through behavior modification

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I am a ADHD researcher at University of California, Irvine. I teach social skill classes to 3-5 year olds and screen them for ADHD. Our goal is to teach basic social skills before they enter school, reducing their likelihood of aggressive treatment later on. In the past 6 years, we have had over 3,000 children graduate from our program and a fraction were diagnosed with ADHD. This program is important to me because I have ADHD and was not diagnosed until 26. I feel if I was able to learn how to better stay on task as a child, it would have saved me a lot of frustration and tears as an adult. I believe I went undiagnosed for so long because I am not hyperactive. My biggest problem is inattention and impulsivity. Staying on task- on any task, has been the most difficult obstacle for me. As a child, I was a constant daydreamer, labeled "spacey" and had to be redirected/reminded constantly, by parents or teachers. High school was even worse. By this time, I had no idea of how to get where I wanted to go and almost didn't graduate. Just last week, I somehow lost $20 walking from the bank to my car. I didn't notice that it was gone until I was at the gas station 30 min later and on an empty tank. I try to constantly keep my goals ahead of me, but continue to get preoccupied with life in general, and a year later...I haven't made any progress. These are just some of the negatives of ADHD. The positives are an endless list of characteristics that contribute to the foundation of my unique personality. I'm an innovative, creative, think-outside-the-boxer with an individuality all my own. Although I would never trade my ADHD, I really wish could remember what I wanted to say 2 minutes ago because it was perfect.

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The dumbass here...and only person who needs to be smacked...is you.

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I haven't been prescribed Ritalin until recently and i definitely helps me organize my thoughts and actions in a manner thats efficient with minimal side effects. I only take it when i have allot of studying to do but i would agree that adhd kids are more creative and most have other strengths.

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I have ADHD and man i totally know what your talking about. the biggest issue with me was the social problems as well. About 5 years ago i got my medical marijuana card in California for ADHD (No Joke) and i have been using medical marijuana to ease some of the issues associated with ADHD. I used to never be able to sit down and watch a whole move all at once but now i can watch 2 movies in a row after smoking some ganja. I wrote a whole article about how it changed my life . <a class="user" href="http://howtogrowbud.com/budforums/index.php?topic=197.0&quot; rel="nofollow">http://howtogrowbud.com/budforums/index.php?topic= ...</a>

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