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Ptsd And Adhd

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Ruby5

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This is my first post to the forum, although I am a long term lurker. Is anyone here treated for both PTSD and ADHD? I take adderall for ADHD, and a psychiatrist started me on Lexapro. It kept me awake for days. The psychiatrist told me to stop the Lexapro, and that all SSRIs would likely have the same result. He said a mechanism in the SSRIs extends the stimulant effect in the brain. He said I have to treat one or the other. Does anyone have any experience to the contrary?

1 year past my diagnosis, 2 years past the onset of symptoms and the tape in my head that's stuck on repeat telling me to kill myself is getting old. If anyone knows a good therapist in the SF Bay Area, would love that information as well. Been through about 7 so far.
 
I have an ADD diagnoses from my teens, but it's untreated. I'm not sure it's true ADD, or the result of long term, repeated trauma. My brain actually has suffered damage to the frontal lobe as a result of the trauma.

SSRI's don't really work for me, they make things worse.

Interesting about what you were told, the mixing of the two meds. My son is showing early sings of bipolar. He also has an intense case of ADHD(as well as other issues). We use adderall for him, but his psyc said not to ever add SSRI's to his meds. They would likely make things much worse.
 
ADHD brains generally do very badly with certain classes of drugs.

To oversimplify ... Most antipsychotics tend to cause psychosis, ditto mood stabilizers (&/or wild emotional swings), while anti-depressants tend to trigger suicidal impulse.

^^^ Is the major reason why when ADHD or Bipolar Disorder are suspected (they're sister disorders, sharing so many symptoms that it can sometimes be impossible to tell which it is without testing with meds), good psychs always trial a stimulant, first. If it's calming/clarifying? ADHD. If it trips the person into a mania? Bipolar disorder. And the resultant mania has an easy fix: mood stabilizer &/or antipsychotic.. Which are 2:3 of the exact meds used to treat Bipolar Disorder (antidepressants, mood stabilizers, & antipsychotics). But do it the other way? There's no fix for it. Nothing to do but to wait for the drug induced psychosis to wear off (and some of those meds take months!). That's also the short hand why one will never find ADHD & Bipolar Disorder comorbid. The meds used to treat the symptoms of one cause the symptoms of the other!

That we have opposite stimulant reaction (why stimulants are calming & clarifying) is another quirk of our neurochemistry... It's just one we make good use of ;)

We don't react weird to all meds. Some perform exactly as expected to for the general population, and some even work "better" than for the general population. (Anti-anxiety meds, specifically benzodiazepines, for example).

But simply knowing ahead of time that you've got ADHD gives you a leg up in how your brain will react to many classes of medications. Even if it's a quirky result, we do know what the expected results will be. :D Which is pretty durn cool, IMO. Even (or maybe especially) if the expected result is "Yeah, this will probably cause you to kill yourself." Or "These here? Expect to be in a locked psych ward for 60-90 days until the psychosis breaks."
 
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2 cents worth:

I like FridayJones' response.

Sounds good to visit a few psychiatrists. I hope there is a way to calm the suicidal voice.
 
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It's my understanding one has to treat whatever is worst/ potentially more lethal first. But also to discriminate between whether the depression is biochemical, or a result from something else (eg being worn down/ depressed trying to deal with eg unmanaged adhd). I can't recall which but I know there are other drug(s) for the depression with adhd that aren't SSRI's. (Personally without an adhd diagnosis but tendencies I've always had a gut feeling that an SSRI would put me over the edge asap.)
 
ETA... Sorry... Forgot to mention: Yep! ADHD + PTSD. Stimulants for ADHD, & when I'm smart emergency meds (in my case Valium) to keep on hand, if rarely used, for PTSD.

There are no medications to take long term for PTSD. The piece of good news there, however, is that PTSD symptoms are super malleable. They're not like ADHD where the symptoms you have you'll have at roughly the same strength for life. Nope! Coming from an ADHD background that was jaw dropping surprise for me. I figured, in the beginning, that this was just going to be the way it was from now on. So I started applying the same kind of improvise/adapt that one does with ADHD (okay, how do we work around this?) & Voila! Ha. More like OMFG ;)

Instead, one can actually learn to reduce and even eliminate -almost completely- every single durn symptom there is. It is a lifelong disorder, but it's a super adaptable one. To my understanding, the purpose of meds with PTSD are a band-aid used to treat a crisis long enough to get a person into therapy, to learn how to do that. Learn how to do it on meds, then peel off the meds and learn how to do it off meds / only having them as a safety-net.
 
I think if they worked though anti-anxiety meds + PTSD lifelong or not could be useful? Because I think for one thing ptsd is destroying my kidneys. Or maybe beta-blockers, or something to reduce adrenaline when the body can no longer exercise the same.
 
Thank you all for the responses (esp FridayJones), there is such little information available about treating both. I am also having a host of body issues, which seem to be common on these boards (low tsh, developing autoimmune disorder, kidneys failing). 26 going on 100 over here.

I was planning on consulting another psychiatrist or two soon, but based off of the responses here I am thinking it best to avoid additional psych drugs. PTSD is awful, wouldn't wish this crap on my worst enemy
 
I posted a general reply earlier but I must not have been logged in. It may appear later after admin review, but to that token my kidneys are also failing. Im developing some kind of autoimmune thing, as well. Can't get out of bed or walk if I don't take 2000mg of ib profin throughout the day. I took a low dose of Ativan once, didn't do anything. Will have to read up on the biochemical action of them now
 
I got diagnosed incorrectly as bipolar by a doc that had never heard of ADHD. The meds literally almost killed me. I switched docs until I found one that didn't mind being questioned and challenged by someone who just needs to understand. He got me off meds completely and I never will go back. My new diagnosis is gifted with ADHD. I also have Hypoglycemia. It is worth mentioning cause some of the symptoms overlap with both PTSD and ADHD. From 40 years of experimenting on myself, I can say that diet helps me eliminate just about all symptoms. Add exercise (climbing stairs and walking fast) and minimize toxins (alcohol, caffeine, cigarettes) and you might look like 40 at 60 too. Been very disciplined but interesting enough when I stopped doing my routines, I ended up in the hospital.

“There’s no biological evidence to support the use of SSRIs for PTSD” (google: possible new weapon against PTSD). Its not only the side-effects that concern me. Google the withdrawl symptoms actually reported by others not just what they say. I hope to never see another bottle of Seroquil, Zoloft, Zyprexa, again. I have taught myself to read medical research journals cause I am one of those weird geek types. I in no way pretend to know more than a doc does but I can spot the ones that don't keep up with new findings.
 
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