First experience with ADD medication.
As the title says, I finally got on this on the 21st of June, and started taking on the 22nd of June, this post will be updated for however long I feel like, cataloguing my experience with it and any updated. I hope that this will be a somewhat useful source of information to any of you who also struggle with AD(H)D and are looking to get on medication, but are afraid / unsure exactly as I was.
June 22nd 2023:
First day, I took it in the morning, 20mg of Medikinet. Woke up at about 7:40 am or something, and took both my antidepressants and that ADD medication in one go about 25 minutes later, without eating anything which is generally against what’s recommended but that was on purpose, because I wanted to see exactly how it would hit all by itself in a raw manner, god that came out wrong. Anyway, the medication has a list of side effects longer than Apple’s history of design flaws, so INCREDIBLY long. The medication is stated to take about 30 minutes to 1 hour to start taking effect, it could have been me imagining it but I THOUGHT I started feeling SOMETHING happening at around the 30 minute mark, but couldn’t tell exactly why. Luckily I was in a Discord call with a friend at the same time and watching some shit, and as time went on, that feeling I had became more pronounced and eventually at around the 1 hour mark and onwards manifested in me simply becoming more and more dead, calm, and mellowed out, much to my friend’s amusement and to my surprise and pleasure. It really felt good to finally have a mind that was finally empty of stuff, I was literally like a slob in my chair with 0 worries. I also realized what I believed to be a better ability to multitask soon afterwards, in that I was able to finally and CLEARLY plan ahead and into the future, and actually keep it in my mind and follow through. Namely, I was actively focused on watching this video with my friend, and looking at it, however my hands were entirely independently typing away exactly what I wanted to say to a 2nd friend of mine about this ADD related stuff, on my 2nd monitor, without even looking or paying attention to it. A bit over a couple hours of watching and calling with my friend later, I set out to go to the gym as on schedule. That enhanced ability of multitasking and general calmness persisted more or less throughout the day, even while I was at the gym I noticed that I was able to once again focus clearly on multiple things at once, and not get stuck on doing 1 thing at a time, but rather be able to efficiently switch between them. So for example I have a bad habit of just sitting on my phone in between sets, just being afk and typing away with whoever instead of working out. However this time I was able to briefly shoot off a response on my phone, and then actually put it away and not feel compelled to go back to it, and go back to doing my exercises and talking to my gym mate.
What I was really hoping for this medication to improve though, was my ability to focus on, and engage with scientific material. Which I also had time to test out on my way to and from the gym, however, though there were improvements, it was nowhere near as good as I hoped it would be. My mind still tried to, and wanted to just rush into things far too fast, however this time I actually had the control to pull it back and keep it slow, but I really felt like I wasted more time doing that than actually focusing on whatever the scientific article I was trying to read at the time. So I guess in that regard there was progress? But not at all what I was looking for. A bit after I got home from the gym I crashed hard as hell and just went to sleep at like 5 pm, which in retrospect is also another side effect of ADD medication since it’s a stimulant. Thanks to that my sleep schedule got fixed instantly, and has stayed that way for now.
June 23rd 2023:
I got up a bit later than the previous day, at about 8:50 am or so, and followed the same routine as well. Took my medications on an empty stomach again, and was in a voice call watching some stuff with the same friend as yesterday, however I decided to skip gym because for a few days I had been a tiny bit sick with the cold, only affecting my nose but also affecting my strength, and I really did not feel like putting up with that during leg day of all days, any other day like the previous one, I could tolerate. The medication took 30 minutes again to kick in, but in an even more pronounced manner than yesterday, and in a funny but not unexpected twist, it had the exact opposite effect as it did yesterday, instead of calming me down and making me tranquil, it made me far more energized and hyper. And on top of that, also gave me anxiety, so that was great! After about 45 minutes of sitting here on voice call and twitching all over the place, because my Tourette’s were severely worse too, which normally never even surface, I decided to hit an upper body home workout with some little dumbbell and weight plate collection I have in an effort to calm me down. That worked pretty well, I was a lot calmer afterwards and proceeded to calm down even more, but did not notice any improvements to the clarity and speed of my thoughts, and I did not try to confirm or deny that either since I did not feel like engaging with any complex subjects or whatever. After about 4 pm I crashed once again, and at about 5 pm decided to go to bed and fall asleep. So yeah, not much happened on that day.
June 24th 2023:
I woke up WAY earlier than any of the previous days, at like 6:30 AM or something, however today I decided to actually try eating something after waking up, and before taking the medication. So I had a good bowl of cereal which is a good balance between being nutritious for me, but also not making me nauseous. After that I took my medications again, and it took the same window of time to kick in as all the previous days, however thankfully like on the first day, it made me calmer and more focused again, which I hope is because I decided to actually eat something first. I played a small bit of Forza Horizon 5, for about an hour, and then felt like I wanted to go engage with scientific stuff again, so I started watching a video from an excellent YouTube channel called “History of the Universe”, titled “What Actually Are Space And Time?” who by the way I recommend, excellent channel. As time went on and I was watching that video, I found myself again being able to multitask more efficiently, and focus on things individually and not be sporadically jumping between stuff, getting nothing done and just running in circles. I also noticed that I was better able to follow along with, and focus on the video without having to rewind because my train of thought derailed and I missed the previous 20 seconds or something. Actually the only time I did have to rewind was when I briefly had to focus on something else real quick, but forgot to pause the video. Good stuff. So despite being nervous about it, I decided to concretely test if my mind eye, imagination, and thoughts actually were more clear and consistent too, so I went to talk to ChatGPT, asking it to give me a thought experiment to think about that aligned with my interests, passions, and knowledge of said things. So it gave me a pretty good one that was actually quite damn complicated and just, so counterintuitive to everything I know. However, much to my happiness, I noticed that I was in fact able to consistently, and clearly imagine things in my mind, even if my mind was still going incredibly fast and just brute forcing through things, it was once again in my control at least, and it was actually clear and concise with whatever it was doing and thinking about, and was not hitting a wall every 2 seconds. And my intensity of focus was also made clear and confirmed by my Tourette’s flaring up like hell, and I was literally sperging out in my chair while having my eyes closed and diving deep into my mind, thankfully it did not interfere with what I was doing though, just served as a mild annoyance. Despite me being able to come up with a quite seemingly complex and in-depth solution to said thought experiment, I was INCREDIBLY unhappy and dissatisfied with the results for many reasons which at the time were unknown to me, which only served to make me more upset. Thinking a bit more about it afterwards, and talking to ChatGPT about it, I was able to come up with quite satisfying and true realizations and reasons for a lot of the core reasons why I was feeling the way I do, however all of that is besides the point. What matters is that I was actually able to fucking DO IT, and actually go through a thought experiment, and get lost in my mind without everything being just a random, incoherent, rushing blur. There was finally actual substance, structure, and order, even if it was all still very fast. So in that regard I am quite happy and satisfied. This feeling of mental clarity, and desire to engage with scientific subjects went on for like what, 8 hours straight? Even hours after I had crashed and become really tired, it’s like my conscious mind was very tired and sleepy and did not want to engage with that stuff anymore, but my subconscious mind was still full of energy and eager to tackle such complex subjects, ultimately I decided to go to bed anyway though.
June 25th 2023:
Woke up quite early again, at around 7:30 or 7:40 AM or so, had a bowl of cereal again just like yesterday. Around 8 AM I took my medications, and then sat down on my computer and again played a tiny bit of Forza, and then went back to watching scientific videos from the previously mentioned YouTube channel “History of the Universe”. This time it was a video titled “Where Are All The Hidden Dimensions?”. Surprisingly, despite the medication not having taken effect at all yet, I still felt quite calm already, and was easily able to follow along with the video and stay focused on it without having to rewind or anything, after a bit of watching it I felt ready and the desire to go back to discussing quantum physics equations with ChatGPT and learn more. And once again, to my surprise, I was able to follow along quite easily and stay focused and calm, however, I think the clarity of my thoughts was not that good yet, evidently because the medication had not yet kicked in fully. While I was solving exercises given by ChatGPT regarding whatever equation we were talking about at the time though, I think I noticed myself becoming a bit calmer and more tranquil? Though not as much as yesterday, I think I was also starting to be able to think about, and visualize complex and abstract things and thought experiments in my mind again. Specifically, I came up with quite a cool, clever, and intuitive way to visualize the Heisenberg’s uncertainty equation, and how it worked, on a two-dimensional coordinate graph (so with only the X and Y axes), in a three-dimensional space. I was able to move it around and navigate it, tweak and change stuff as I saw fit, and actually see the results without everything being a rushing blur of noise, static, and chaos. My mind definitely still wants to rush and cross that threshold of coherency into chaos and uselessness, but once again, it is under my control finally, and I can prevent it from happening and somewhat make use of the rapid speed. Though to be honest, I would rather trade that speed for slowness, but be incredibly exact, clear, and focused. As for side effects, I have yet to notice any today, besides of course the usual being that my Tourette’s are acting up, but again that also happens whenever I am very focused on / engaged with something anyway, so tomato tomahto, hard to say if the medication itself has any effect on it or not, at least currently. Other than that, there is currently no new developments when it comes to side effects or the desired effects of the medication, today has been quite smooth again, and I feel like it is going to stay that way. Though I also noticed both yesterday, and today, that I can actually finally CHOOSE to calm down if I wanted to, and start focusing deeply and consistently, even stopping my Tourette’s, it sounds mundane and obvious in retrospect but all I’d have to do is simply empty my mind, and start breathing deeply, slowly, and consistently. It might be mundane and obvious to any of you all who do not have the misfortune of having AD(H)D, but to me being able to do that let alone willingly is quite a big achievement.
I ran another thought experiment similar to the one I described about my Heisenberg’s uncertainty equation, however instead of being a two-dimensional coordinate graph, it was a three-dimensional spherical coordinate graph, so X, Y and Z. And instead of talking about and imagining the uncertainty equation, I was talking about and imagining the angular momentum operator equation in that spherical coordinate system. It was REALLY hard, and once again my mind was still trying to rush and become chaotic, but I was able to still hold it back, and despite some of the background noise, I was able to quite clearly imagine that scenario, keep it in my mind, and manipulate it, to get the answers I needed. I am quite happy about that. I was also do something I’ve never been able to do really because of my chaotic and blurry mind. Namely drawing down whatever image is in my mind, in this case, I decided that I would try to draw that spherical three-dimensional coordinate graph, on a two-dimensional surface, so in this case a computer screen and MS paint. I have never drawn such a complicated coordinate graph either, so I just opened MS paint, and put like next to no effort or time into imagining how I would go about it. Namely, I make two lines in the form of an X and make sure they are symmetrical with each other, and then I take a 3rd line and draw it vertically through the intersection point of the X, and then draw a circle around it. Or even better, I drew an empty circle, then I used my mind to split it into quarters and keep it that way, then I was able to use that to accurately position those 2 lines forming an X, and then pull a 3rd line through, and it looks amazingly beautiful and accurate to me. In fact, here’s exactly that drawing.
Yes, yes I know it’s not PERFECTLY symmetric, but that’s not because of my mind eye being off, that’s simply as good as I can make it with a tool as crude and dumb as MS paint. To me it looks good enough.
To add onto that drawing, I sat here staring at it wondering hmm, how would you have to be positioned in the real world in order to see the coordinate graph in this exact manner. I knew you had to be high up, but didn’t know exactly at what angle. So I pulled up a quick image of a circular degree chart, then I quickly took a mental image of it, and memorized it. Then I came back and stared at this image for like 10 seconds just saving it in my mind, then I imagined myself flying down from that point of view, and away from the scene far enough to where I saw myself and the graph. Then I overlaid the degree chart on the coordinate graph such as the center point of the degree chart matched up with the center point of the coordinate graph, and then angled it towards myself. Then I saw that I was high up at about 115 degrees, to the left a bit. Running it through some stuff, I was confirmed to be correct. Which was a massive shock to me since I didn’t even really put that much effort or time into it, it was more so a random hail Mary though experiment.
June 26th & 27th 2023:
I am bunching these days together, since they weren’t awfully different from each other, June 26th being particularly unproductive since I went to bed really early as I had been up since 4:30 AM or something, took my medication quite a lot earlier too, like about an hour later. I didn’t get a whole lot of anything done that day, besides trying a couple thought experiments, with relatively unsatisfactory results, going to the gym, and that’s about it. June 27th though, despite being similar to June 26th when it comes to the medication’s effects, has been far more productive. I woke up even earlier than on the 26th, freaking 3:30 AM or something and took my medication about 5 and a half hours later at around 8:50 AM. And as of the writing of this part, I have been up for like 15 hours now, and despite having quite a dang intense workout at the gym, and also getting a ton of mental exercise in by trying to learn calculus, I still don’t feel an ounce tired. Which is good to be honest since I am starting to slowly get tired of having to sleep idiotically early in the day, and waking up idiotically early on the next, I know that it’s technically not recommended to do it, but since it’s been like almost 10 hours now since I took my ADD medication, it’s effects have most likely worn off by now, I am thinking about grabbing a quick energy drink just so I can push my sleep schedule to be a bit less annoying.
June 28th - July 7th:
Yeah. Literally nothing changed after the last update hahahaha. Besides of course me succeeding in fixing my sleep schedule after I had that energy drink, which has stayed more or less stable since then. I wake up at around 9-10 AM each day, even on days where I don’t go to the gym, and go to sleep at around 12 AM. Other than that, absolutely nothing noteworthy has happened both when it comes to side effects, and how well this works, however that doesn’t mean that there’s not at least a couple of new things I’ve noticed. One thing I’ve found out through experimentation is that I should definitely NOT consume a single ounce of caffeine for at least a few hours after taking said medication, which might make you go like “Yeah no shit”, and it’s true, however some people can do that even when on such stimulant-type medications. I should also definitely eat something before I take the medication, even if it’s just a bowl of cereal, because if I don’t then the medication is going to hit all at once, and in both cases, it will result in me becoming INCREDIBLY irritable. Nothing else, thankfully I don’t develop anxiety or any heart related issues or anything else, but yeah it’s still quite terrible to constantly be in a state where you feel angry as hell, and like absolutely anything, even the slightest inconvenience will make you want to flip your shit. However, typically, me doing something that’s physically draining enough like hitting a quick workout, whether it be at the gym or at home, will usually calm me down. As for how well this medication has worked / been working, more or less nothing has changed since the previous update as well. My mental focus has been somewhat clear, of course depending on the day too, on some days I feel full of inspiration and desire to learn, or do something creative, but on some days my mind honestly feels blank and I just end up staring the at wall for the entire day. Another positive thing I have noticed, is that when the medication works well, my mood becomes even more stable than it already was. I can talk about basically anything I am passionate, opinionated, or just very emotional about, without losing my mind over it, regardless of what it might be. However, my next psychiatrist appointment is on the 21st of July, and I assume that we are going to increase my dosage, because this current dose I am on, which again is 20mg, seems to be just about enough for me, but not good enough. If my dosage does get increased, I will begin updating this post again with the updated dosage, and just like with this, I’ll keep it going until interesting stuff stops happening regarding side effects, and the medicine’s general efficacy.
