At 10.22am I took my first dose of Concerta XL. This may change the way my life runs each day, this may improve my concentration, organisation and motivation. This may do nothing. Let me go back a bit.
I am 32 years old and have got this far without any diagnosis or treatment for what I have now confirmed as ADHD. As with any condition like this, I thought everyone dealt with daily life in the same way. That everyone had two trains of thought all the time, that we all remembered all the things we hadn't done as soon as we sat down and that we all lost our phone, keys, bag etc every day. The music that plays in the background to my thoughts is there to keep me on track, but it doesn't stop me remembering to do something and then not actually doing it, it doesn't stop me thinking that seeing my friends is hard because I probably sound stupid or annoying and people have better things to do than have me turn up for a cup of tea.
But anyway, I am married and have three kids aged 9, 7 and 3. They are great but it turns out they all have difficulty with dealing with the world too. My 9 year old was diagnosed with ADHD just before her seventh birthday. It was a relief in a way as it explained a few things but it also triggered my thoughts. She is like me, really like me, in fact she drives me mad because she makes me realise what I was like as a child and I know why I was never in a group of friends until I was older. I don't want her to have a teenage life like me because I was miserable, I was worried about my weight, and had a very low value to my life, so I want things to be better for her.
She takes Medikinet twice a day during school to help with her work at school so hopefully she shouldn't have the same trouble with getting her work finished but she still feels it's hard to make friends and I don't have a magic answer. So with her diagnosis it got me thinking about me. In fairness there was already a suspicion but it was getting harder to ignore. I was in two minds as to whether to talk to a doctor about it or not (well I'm usually in two minds as I said earlier but you know what I mean). There was the 'if it's ADHD and a magic tablet will fix it, how awesome would that be' vs. 'will it make me completely unemployable to have ADHD written on my notes'. I honestly don't know the answer to the second question but I guess it's too late now!
I meant to go and see the doctor but kept somehow not getting around to it. People without ADHD often find that hard to understand. How can you be impulsive and yet put things off all the time. Well, you just can! I finally, very nervously, rambled my concerns to my GP early last year and last week I suddenly received an appointment letter with a Specialist Registrar on Monday.
Luckily I only had the weekend to get nervous about the appointment and I was able to get my mum to come with me as they wanted someone who knew me growing up to help answer the questionnaires and fill in the background. There were lots of questions and some hard truths to admit, like my spending on new hobbies for lots of stuff that gets put in a corner when the next hobby kicks in, and also things that I might not have wanted to mention in front of my mother, like the fact that I smoked cannabis when I was 16, but it was a bit late for worrying about that and I didn't feel the need to lie if it helped with the diagnosis.
The Registrar felt it looked pretty solid for the case of ADHD, with a couple of autistic tendencies which surprised me as my 7 year old has Asperger's Syndrome and my 3 year old has ASD, and I totally blamed my husbands side of the family! More about the Asperger's and ASD another day as that's a whole other kettle of fish. The Registrar called in the consultant and he agreed and surprised me by suggesting I immediately try medication. He thinks it will have a very positive impact on me and has prescribed Concerta XL. 18mg once a day for the first week, doubling to 36mg if it seems to be going well. He would fax my doctor, and see me in four weeks. I dropped by the surgery this morning, my prescription was there so a quick trip to Boots and I had them.
At 10.22am I took my first dose of Concerta XL. And here I am, with the good intentions of writing a blog about my experiences for other adults who may suspect they have ADHD, for those who've been diagnosed but not tried medication, and for anyone who is curious to see what happens. Usually writing a blog, diary etc would not go well with me, a few days and then I'd forget, but with the tablets, I guess we'll find out.
I'll be checking in later so thank you for reading a bit about me, you may find it interesting to know that at 11.17 I became aware of my heartbeat for a few seconds and the music stopped in my head while I was typing. That, for me, is very curious indeed.
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