On high doses

I wrote this post (actually a comment) months ago, but I am posting it only now, because then I was worried that somebody will read it and will think that I am being too whatever.

If it helps, the dose is right, no matter how high it is. I think that undermedicating is not any better than overmedicating, I’ve read someone’s post where they said that their doctor told them that, and they were on 180mg or something like that. If he says he can’t concentrate otherwise, obviously it’s important for him and no surprise he wants to stay on that dose, I would too, knowing how bad it is to not being able to concentrate. I wouldn’t be surprised if he will need to go higher but if not, that’s great.
 
To me personally, being ADHD causes WAY more pain than many possible physical things that can happen including headache, feeling shaky or something else. Way more. I would agree to have a bad headache every night for 3 hours if it would mean that I will be able to live normally during the day. Physical things like headache or feeling cold are just physical things. Me, I didn’t even bother often to wear warm clothes because to me cold never was a scary thing even if it was really uncomfortable by other people’s measures, it’s not really uncomfortable for me because ADHD is what made me always feel worse than that. Emotional pain from not being able to socialize normally and do all things that are hard with ADHD is way more serious and damaging than physical stuff. Surely, not all physical stuff, but you know what I mean.
 
To me the issue of fear of high doses for people with ADHD feels much like a fear of overdosing on water, when a person needs 3 liters a day, let’s say, and they give him only 1.5 liters because they fear if he goes higher he might decide to overdose and go crazy. I think most of people with ADHD don’t give a slightest crap about overdosing, at least those who are smart enough to understand they have this issue and what it is. They need what they need to get that balance that lets them focus. And sadly if they ask for 3 liters they risk to look like addicts to other people even though that’s really just what they need! If I need 3 liters of water a day and I’m given 1.5, then I will feel like I need more. At first if I didn’t get 0.5 liters a day before I might feel very happy after I get it, very happy. But it doesn’t mean that my body will stop wanting more. It doesn’t mean that I will be focused on water after I get the normal amount. If I’m too focused on it right now then it’s only because that’s what I need. Does it mean that I will become a water addict once I get the right amount of it? Do you know many water addicts other than people in Africa who have real water deficit? I wouldn’t be surprised if they are obsessed or at least look that way to people who don’t get it, running around with their buckets searching for it, trying to make it clean like it’s so important. So what should we do, treat them like they have an addiction or understand that they just aren’t getting enough of it?
 
I feel sad that people with ADHD are often misunderstood like that, and the absolutely normal need to get a higher dose might actually result in the opposite happening because someone doesn’t get it and decides that’s wrong. The difference is between chasing high feeling and chasing an ability to concentrate, and these are very, very different things. What I’ve read from doctors and my own logic says that no matter how high the dose looks, if it doesn’t give you an ability to concentrate it’s not the right dose. In my case, if it works at first and doesn’t work later, it’s not the right dose.

1. pichaaass likes this
2. torreywang said: If you want to try absurd, I had my own physician once suggest to me that he didn’t agree with me going higher than where I was at because he thought that I was getting an “unfair advantage,” as if it was wrong to want to be driven.
3. torreywang likes this
4. cleverliteral posted this