Insomnia

caseopele wrote: If someone without ADD took it, they'd be flying.

Sweeeeet! I really need to do some late spring cleaning, care to share? (I kid I kid!) :P

littlegal wrote: caseopele
I really feel for you. I too have ADD and take high doses of Ritalin to function. I found that long-lasting Ritalin and Adderall only made me "hyper-focused" and lasted well beyond needed into the times when I wanted to unwind. Its a hard fought battle figuring out what works for you. Even then, insomnia and other problems still plaque me. I am glad to hear of someone else who deals with the same issues I do, and wish you all the best.

littlegal, some days I feel like Elvis. A pill to wake me up in the morning and a pill to help me sleep. Although, to be fair, in his case it was a hell of a lot more than one pill!

The Adderall has worked the best for me even though it's not great. The XR was awful, I had to take more to get sort of the same effect as the regular one. It's funny because my mom has ADHD and takes it too but in a much smaller dose. She's way more sensitive to it than I am, it's the same with caffeine. She drinks a half a cup of regular coffee and is Speedy McSpeedersons, I can drink 5 cups of coffee and take a nap. I guess everyone's body chemistry is different, although my mom and I both have insomnia.

Well, one great thing about us ADD/ADHDers is we're great multi-taskers!

caseopele
Its funny how closely I relate to what you are saying. Nothing else works for me. Plus my husband can drink a cup of coffee or even a soda and be bouncing off the walls while I could drink ten of each and have no such effect. I guess that's just the true ADD showing its ugly head.
You're also right on that some days I need a pill just to wake up and/or go to bed. Its hard.
And, we surely are multi-taskers...Its the middle of the night and I am online, dusting, and decorating for the holidays all while I 'pay attention to" a movie playing in the background.
I'm just glad to connect with a kindred spirit out there. Write anytime and thanks.

I didn't think you were ranting. I actually understand how cognitive blips can negatively affect your life because I have a similar problem, which I don't care to mention, but it's not ADD.

I have found, though, that diet modification really helps, though I would imagine your dietary needs would be different than mine. First thing, I had to figure out what I was allergic to. Corn syrup makes me batshit crazy, so I had to cut that out. I ended up pretty much eliminating processed food altogether. I've found for me that a mostly macrobiotic diet plus extra B vitamin, calcium and magnesium supplements are what I need to feel practically normal, and once I instituted this regimen, people were really surprised how calm I got. I am nowhere near as reactive as I used to be.

I'm not perfect of course. I've eaten WAY too much sugar tonight, but that happens when I work too late and have too much downtime. But I can tolerate it a bit better now because I don't eat this stuff every day. Plus I'm in a room by myself and all the lawyers in the rooms around me are already totally loopy from lack of sleep, so if I get a bit antsy, no one's going to notice.

I just think that it's worth trying. All my ADD friends just inhale huge quantities of sugar all the time and I can't think that that's helping them any. I would think it would only make them worse.

Grr!!! Just when my workload picks up and gets gnarly, the lawyers decide to watch South Park and play video games next door. It is really hard to correct Term Sheets to with South Park blaring in the background.

I hate lawyers.