[ouch]

When I first started getting treatment for how I was feeling - zip concentration, losing things, not able to concentrate even on work, I thought maybe it was ADD, but my Dr. said it sounded like depression (also felt like in a black hole, sad and was isolating myself from the world). She put me on an SSRI and it totally cleared all of my concentration problems - so does that mean it was depression and not ADD?

[zoidy]

Sounds quite possible - depression often causes those symptoms and most doctors will want to exclude depression as a cause before jumping to ADHD as it is a much more common diagnosis in older folks (judging by your typing you're out of primary school ). Also for ADHD to be "official" some symptoms of it have to have been present since childhood.

I sort of went the other way. Treated for depression (which was definitely depression) and hoped that sorting that out would give me an attention span. Wrong! Somehow I made it through high school and pharmacy school without listening to lectures or doing any study at home.... but this year I started med school and it requires a bit more of me. When I discussed the possibility of ADHD with my psychiatrist he agreed and said he'd had it in the back of his mind for a while.

Then at my first visit to him after starting Ritalin he said it was the first time he'd ever seen me sitting still!

However back to the original topic (oh golly gosh there's me getting distracted!!) - depression causing my lack of concentration was much more likely than ADHD. However in the end it seemed to be both! One of the favourite sayings at med school is "When you hear hoof beats, think of horses not zebras"....

[Meta]

Ouch,
I have similar questions. I was recently diagnosed with ADD and the focalin xr I am taking seems to have cleared up my residual depression and anxiety for which I take paxil and clonazepam. I like what zoidy said. I think depression is more common and needs to be ruled out first. (I think this is what zoidy is saying). I am wondering if I don't have ADD but rather if the focalin xr is just helping my depression. I am not sure how to sort this out.

[logan10]

Meta,

I see that you are on paxil and some other ADHD medication. I have read that some people do take two meds to control their gift. Do you have any side affects?

Like myself, I was taking Ritalin when I was younger and until middle school I stopped. But, unitl I got into my final semster of college, I began to take it again and then quit after.

I have had the bouts of depression and I have sunk really low, where as I have had the Dr. put me on Paxil. In which the drug worked for awhile, but I tried to cut cold turkey and I started to go withdrawl symtoms. They were sort of nasty. It felt like my head and neck where tense and I felt constantly dizzy. Well, to make this short, I am no longer on the stuff. I think the FDA has been looking into certain situations in regards to withdrawl symptoms from Paxil.

For right now, I have been taking Stratera and it some what keeps me focused. I did see a coach in regards to my gift, but the funds ran out. I did think the coach sort of helped, but we really didn't get in touch with ADD that much. I really think that he wasn't all that good, personally.

People with ADHD usually have something other than their gift. Depression, addiction and learning disabiltities are some of the things that coexsist with ADHD.

It's a never ending story with me ADHD. i forget %#@&#! all the time, it drives my wife nuts.

KJ

[zoidy]

I like how you call it a gift logan. That makes me smile

And yes meta, that was what I meant

I have been pondering a bit today about how psych diagnoses are rarely clearly cut. I often wonder if I have "depression" or am just depressed or if I have AD(H)D or just don't have a very good attention span. Maybe I have Zoidy Syndrome, which is characterised by depressed mood, issues with food, lack of attention span and extremely good ranting ability.

Also sort of related to that is that psych medicines do lots of things because they act on neurotransmitters that have many functions. So although we classify drugs as "anti-depressants" or "anti-psychotics", they actually have much broader uses. So at the moment I am taking an antidepressant (Efexor), an anti-psychotic (Seroquel) and a stimulant (Ritalin). The Efexor is for depression but probably helps with concentration. The Seroquel is for sleep but also helps with depression. The Ritalin is for ADHD but probably also helps with depression.

And then there are also factors like how depression affects concentration and how lack of sleep affects depression etc. It is all very intertwined. And I have no idea what my "official diagnoses" are. Maybe I will suggest Zoidy disease next time I'm at the psychiatrist... or when I'm a doctor I will "discover" it and write papers about it and be famous!!