CategoriesADHD - Psychiatry Medication

Our son finished high school thanks to Ritalin

They say that the most important job in the world is being a parent. For a long, long time, I thought that it is one of the corniest things anyone has ever said. However, when we my wife and I got our first child, our daughter Mary, I started to see what those people were talking about. That moment when you first see your child is the moment like no other. Everything becomes different. You live in a completely new world. You also realize some things.

First of all, you realize what fear is. You do not know how strong fear can be until you see that little person, all pink and squishy. You start fearing for the world, you start immediately fretting for that little pink thingy. And then you realize another thing. You realize that this little pink thingy is your only shot for immortality. It is very likely that you are not a genius scientist or an artist and that you are not going to create anything that people will remember you by. Your child will. It is your only shot for eternity.

And you realize that it truly is the most important job ever. You have to make sure your child gets everything you can hope to provide and you have to make sure it grows up to be a decent person. However, sometimes things just do not work out as you wish they would.

Namely, our second child, our son Jeff has been suffering from ADHD for years now. It was first diagnosed when he was in primary school. And it took a while. First, both us and the teachers thought that he is just a mischievous boy, always doing stuff he shouldn’t be doing, always wondering round, never sitting still. My wife and I first thought that we have maybe spoiled him too much. We were realistic enough to recognize it as a possibility. However, when things just seemed to stay the way they were, we started thinking that there may be something the matter with Jeff.

We went to a child’s psychologist and she told us that it is quite possible Ritalin is suffering from ADHD. He was 11 at the time. All the signs were there. He simply couldn’t concentrate on a particular task.

He couldn’t cooperate with other kids and his grades suffered. He suffered as well. We wanted to make sure, so we went to a number of experts and specialists who have ruled out every other possibility. Jeff had ADHD.
To an extent, it was a relief. We knew that it is a condition that can be managed and we were happy that there isn’t something more serious with our son. We first tried with behavioral therapy, visits to the psychiatrist, cognitive behavioral therapy, but somehow nothing seemed to have any effect. And then the doctor prescribed Ritalin.

Jeff started taking it at the lower dosages possible and things soon improved greatly. Jeff was able to finally concentrate on his tasks. He found it much easier to interact with other children as he was finally paying attention to what they were trying to communicate. His grades also improved. Over time, he started high school and we are proud to say that he finished high school with very good grades. He is currently looking at colleges. And it is all thanks to Ritalin.

CategoriesADHD - Psychiatry Medication

Treating my narcolepsy with Ritalin

It is a funny thing how media have taken over pretty much every part of the modern life. One of the strangest and potentially the most dangerous ways in which media affect our lives is when you take a look at different medical conditions. For instance, you may remember when AIDS was the “hot topic” so to say. It was the most important thing in the world. And then it just got kind of boring and people stopped talking about it. It no longer attracted viewers and readers. And it is not like it has become less of an issue, on the contrary. It is just the cold and outright dangerous, irresponsible way in which media dictate our lives.

Take, for another example narcolepsy, a condition that I am suffering from. It affects the same number of people like, for example Parkinson’s disease. And yet, very few people are even aware of the illness. At best, people view it as that funny illness from movies that makes people fall asleep unexpectedly. In fact, this condition is much more debilitating and much more serious than that. I am talking from my personal experience.
Namely, I was diagnosed with narcolepsy some five or six years ago, when I was fresh out of college. I later learned that it is quite rare for it to occur later than in teens, but I was one of the few cases when this happens.

The first sign that I noticed was that I started feeling sleepy all the time. I would go to work and after an hour or two, I would find it absolutely impossible to keep my head straight. Unfortunately, I attributed this to my new job that was quite stressful and strenuous. However, as things didn’t seem to improve, I figured that there was something more at hand here. I also started noticing that I just cannot get enough sleep during night. I started waking up regularly and it was all contributing to my feeling of fatigue during the day.
I decided that I need to visit someone and I went to my doctor, a guy I knew since I was a kid. At first, he didn’t think it was narcolepsy because I was not an adolescent. He thought I might be depressed or something like that, maybe simply exhausted. However, after a while, it became quite obvious to him that it might be narcolepsy.

I went to a sleep specialist who ran some tests and the verdict came in soon. It was definitely narcolepsy. Luckily for me, I was one of the minority of narcolepsy patients who didn’t also suffer from cataplexy as a symptom, losing muscle tone. My doctor immediately prescribed Ritalin, a stimulant medication that affects certain chemicals in the brain and thus helps people with Ritalin. It truly changed my life. I know, it sounds like something from TV commercials, but Ritalin truly made a huge difference, and still does. I can finally go to work without fearing that I will fall asleep during a meeting, or something like that. It is a whole different story now, thanks to the medication called Ritalin.

CategoriesADHD - Psychiatry Medication

Our daughter suffering from ADHD and Ritalin made her active

I am well aware that all moms say this, but my Julie has always been one of the cutest kids the world has ever seen, without a doubt. When she was little, she was a cross between Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen and that girl from My Girl, you know the movie where Dan Akroyd is her dad and the kid from home Alone is her “boyfriend”. So yeah, my Julie has always been such an angel that I couldn’t even imagine something going wrong. Ever.

However, I did start noticing stuff when she was about 4. She somehow couldn’t find a place where she could be still and quiet for a second. She would always go here and there, looking for stuff, only to leave them behind after ten seconds. She was always full of questions and her questions came in piles, one over another. And being parents that could never find a fault with their daughter’s behavior, my husband and I thought that she was just very intelligent and that this erraticness of hers is a product of that.

And then she started school. She started coming home with bad grades and we were lucky enough that her teacher noticed that Julie could do much better, but that she just seemed uninterested in anything that goes on at school. The teacher also told us that Julie has troubles making friends. Once again, we thought that they might be overreacting and that there is nothing wrong with Julie. We started thinking how all other kids are mean and jealous of her.

Still, when things didn’t change and when the teacher insisted that we go see someone, we decided to do the smart thing and an objective thing. We went to a child’s psychiatrist and after less than an hour spent with Julie; she came with a diagnosis that was a definite one. Julie was suffering from attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. We didn’t want to start Julie on any drugs and so we tried all kinds of therapy, cognitive therapy, behavioral therapy, you name it, we tried it.

After half a year or a whole year, it was a long time ago, Julie showed no progress. She had the same problems at school and she was getting more and more erratic and impossible. We decided it would be best for Julie if she started taking Ritalin, which we heard was the best medication for ADHD. She started taking it and after less than a month, we could see the progress. She would sit still and talk with us for hours, paying attention to what we are saying for the first time. The teacher was also thrilled with Julie’s progress; she said she did much better at school. And then, one day, Julie came home with a friend, Patsy, her new best friend. We were too happy to describe. To this day I cannot thank enough people who came up with Ritalin.

CategoriesADHD - Psychiatry Medication

Narcolepsy almost ruined my life

I am pretty sure that most of you are pretty unacquainted with the condition known as narcolepsy. Well, I can let you in on a few things, all from personal experience. First of all, it usually occurs sometime in adolescence. For me, it was a bit different than that. Namely, I was almost thirty when I discovered I had narcolepsy. Another piece of information – it affects more people than you would think. Or at least as many as some much more publicized conditions like multiple sclerosis affects.

Another strange fact is that the scientists still do not know what causes narcolepsy. There are a number of suggestions, but there is still no consensus on what it is that actually causes narcolepsy.
As I already said, I was almost thirty when I started experiencing first signs of narcolepsy that I didn’t even dream could be signs of narcolepsy. It all started with me becoming unable to sleep properly. I fell asleep like a log, immediately. Not like usually, when you first have that half sleep and then you actually go out. I also started dreaming the moment I fall asleep. And all of that I could have ignored. However, I started waking up all the time during night. It was really a nuisance.

And then the nuisance became a real problem when I started being unable to stay awake during the day. I would fall asleep at my desk at work. Of course, my boss had no patience for this and he thought that I was drinking or taking drugs, something like that. I myself didn’t think it was an illness or anything. I thought I was just exhausted and that it is a phase.
However, when it continued for more than a month, I decided to talk to someone. My doctor sent me to a sleep specialist who ran some tests, monitoring me during sleep. He also asked me if I experienced loss of muscle tone, or cataplexy as it is also known, when you suddenly feel certain muscles going limp and everything. I said that it never happened and that made him doubt his diagnosis that was up to that point narcolepsy.

However, when the results of the test were in, he had no more doubts about the fact I am suffering from narcolepsy.
I told him that I want a solution as soon as possible and he told me I should start taking Ritalin, a great medication for narcolepsy. So, I started taking Ritalin and it really worked like a charm for me. During the day I stopped feeling sleepy and my nighttime sleep became much better. I was also able to explain to my doctor what had been happening and he even apologized. So, an apology from the boss and a treatment for an illness. All Ritalin’s doing. Not bad at all.

CategoriesADHD - Psychiatry Medication

Ritalin made my fears go away

I have been a worrier my entire life. Even when I was a little girl, I would obsess over the most stupid things. For instance, I read this book when I was 8, explaining how you can get different illnesses. It freaked me out like nothing before. Whenever I would cut myself or scraped my knee, I would imagine that all those bacteria were inside me and that I was going to develop sepsis or whatever. Things only got worse as I grew up and as I learned new stuff about different illnesses and things about the human body.

For a while I thought I was suffering from a syndrome I cannot even recall now. It took quite a few visits to the psychiatrist to convince me that I was simply anxious and a bit of a hypochondriac. And the worst thing that could happen to a hypochondriac is that actually something happens. That is when you go all mental and start imagining stuff that is way worse than what is actually wrong with you.
To cut a long story short, I started suffering from narcolepsy when I was about 16, at the worst possible time. I didn’t have the experience and knowledge I have now, but with all the hypochondriac obsessions.

The first thing I noticed was that I was getting sleepy all the time. And I mean all the time. I would wake up and then, an hour later I couldn’t hold my head up straight. It was enough cause for alarm, but the next thing that happened nearly made me scream in panic.
Namely, one day, I was waking up and I had this hallucination that was so scary I don’t like thinking about it now, ten years later. It was so vivid and so scary that I was convinced I was going crazy. I knew it wasn’t a dream, but it was still like the worst nightmare you can imagine. I told my parents that I was going crazy and that I should visit a psychiatrist. They knew that the only way I would calm down would be to actually take me to the psychiatrist. So, we went.

He told me that it was most probably narcolepsy, but he sent me to a specialist who confirmed the psychiatrist’s suspicions. I had narcolepsy. First of all, I was so happy I was not going crazy, and I was so happy that there is a medication that actually works for narcolepsy. The doctor prescribed Ritalin and I started taking it religiously. After no more than a week or two, I started feeling my old again. No symptoms of narcolepsy, but even Ritalin couldn’t help me with my hypochondria.

CategoriesADHD - Psychiatry Medication

Wouldn’t have gotten into college without Ritalin

It seems so strange now that I am actually working as a teacher, but there was a point in my life when I thought that it was all over. If you have never felt that your entire life was crumbling right before you, then count yourself lucky. It is the most harrowing experience that you can imagine. And I am not talking about overreacting to something that is not that serious at all. I am talking about a justified fear that your life is never going to turn out the way you wanted it to.

Namely, I cannot remember the time in my life when I didn’t want to be elementary school teacher. While other girls pretended to be princesses, doctors, veterinarians, or whatever, I always pretended to be a teacher. I would get my toys to sit and listen to me teaching them stuff. I guess it is nice to know what you want to be and stick with it. Throughout my elementary school and the best part of high school I was hoping so much that I would one day be the teacher.

However, it turned out that Chance had something different in store for me. Namely, when I was in my senior year in high school, I started experiencing strange things that really got me worried in no time. In about a week or so, I went from being a completely healthy girl to someone who is having problems staying awake in school and sleeping properly. Still, it was only a beginning. Namely, I started having cataplexy attacks, as I would later find out those were called. I would feel weak in my knees and then I would fall down. It happened every time I felt any strong emotions.

This was the signal that there was something really wrong with me and I feared the worst, some incurable disease that will have me in a month or so. It turned out I had narcolepsy and like many people who do, I also suffered from cataplexy, the weakness in the muscles that is. My doctor told me it was quite serious and that I will have to start taking medications, Ritalin for my narcolepsy and Xyrem for the cataplexy. This combo really did it for me. As my narcolepsy became almost negligible thanks to Ritalin, my cataplexy episodes became really rare. I am still taking my combo of drugs and I am living the life I always wanted to live. I am a teacher. And a good one at that.

CategoriesADHD - Psychiatry Medication

Kept the business running thanks to Ritalin

When I started my car dealership some 20 years ago, I never dreamt that a medical condition might put it at risk. When my grandma left me some money, I decided to put it to good use and I opened my own dealership, as I always wanted to sell cars. And it turned out great. I managed to make quite a nice little business out of it and I am at present employing more than 10 people, counting only sales guys (and girls).
However, some time ago, I think it was six years ago, it almost all went away due to my illness. Namely, I was diagnosed with narcolepsy six years ago and it was quite a strange case.

It was a strange case because this condition usually starts between the ages of 6 and 25. This was also the reason why it took the doctors some time to diagnose it. For a long while they all thought I was depressed or simply exhausted. One doctor thought that I simply suffer from insomnia and that my daytime sleepiness is due to that.
One day all of this changed as I had an episode that the people who were around me at the time described as an epileptic attack. I went stiff in a second and I fell over like a plank, hit my head quite hard in fact.

They say I was lying on the floor for about a minute or two. I told the doctor from the ER that I have been feeling weird lately and that the doctors think I am depressed or insomniac or something like that, thinking about my sleepiness and sleep disturbances. The ER doctor immediately sent me to the sleep specialist and told me it was most likely narcolepsy, complete with cataplexy.It turned out he was right. I told the specialist that I have a business to run and that I have no time for alternative treatments. I needed a solution that is going to work at once. He gave me two solutions. Ritalin for narcolepsy and Xyrem in case I still had cataplexy episodes. It turned out it was the first and the last one. However, I am still taking my Ritalin and I cannot imagine my life without it.

CategoriesADHD - Psychiatry Medication

Ritalin keeps my narcolepsy and my weight in check

I am an ordinary guy. I always have been. Since I was born, there hasn’t been a single remarkable thing about me. On the other hand, I never had any big problems. Let’s put it this way: if they made a movie about my life, 99% of the audience would want their money back at the end of the projection. My life truly has been this boring. I have a couple of great friends, I get along with my family, I am not too dumb, I am not a genius. I can tell a joke, but no one’s sides are going to split. If there ever was an Average Joe, then it is me.

And to tell you the truth, I was quite content with it. I didn’t mind it. As the guy from the Office said, “I am on a three right now. I could roll the dice again. It could turn out to be 6, but it can also turn out to be 1.” Or something like that, I don’t remember it precisely. In the period between 16 and 22 I put on a few pounds, like most guys do. You are just not active and you sit much more. So that was also quite ordinary.
However, when I was 22, I stopped being your true Average Joe and I became your Average Joe with Narcolepsy. It turned out that I developed narcolepsy for some unknown reason and I have been living with it since then. And it is an average narcolepsy. Not too mild, not too serious. I am lucky I didn’t also develop cataplexy, so that’s a plus.

And like the most people do when diagnosed with narcolepsy, I started taking Ritalin.
And like it does for the most people, it worked great for me too. The excessive sleepiness has gone, I got my sleeping in order and I am pretty much free of any symptoms. In addition to this, Ritalin also helped me lose a few pounds. The thing is that its effects on the certain chemicals in the brain, besides treating narcolepsy, are also great for losing weight. Now, I am not suggesting that you should start using Ritalin as a weight loss pill, but it sure made me lose a few pounds. So, a double benefit from Ritalin. I just hope I didn’t bore the living hell out of you with my unsensational story. But that is what most stories are like.

CategoriesADHD - Psychiatry Medication

Ritalin helps my son finish elementary school

There are people who say that being a parent is not a difficult thing to do. I would just like to see their kids. It is hard work. And I am the husband. I can only imagine how difficult it is to be a mother. I know this sounds sexist, but the fact is that it is more time and nerve-consuming to be a mom than a dad. Even though I have been trying to make sure this is not true in our little family consisting of my wife Claudia and our only son Clive.
It is hard work and you have to make sure your child grows up to be a human being. That is all. Your child needs to be nice to other people, as that is most you can do. Everything else is not up to you. You especially come to realize this when God, Nature, call it whatever you like it, call it Chance; when it throws you a curve ball.

In our case, the curve ball was ADHD. Now, my wife and I are both educated people and we have already known a thing or two about this condition. This also helped us recognize it in Clive as soon as he started showing symptoms. He was about 9 and a half when we first started noticing his attention wondering when we wanted to talk to him. He also started getting bad grades in school and he became somewhat of a menace. We didn’t want to panic, but we still called our family friend who happens to be a psychiatrist.

He told us to bring Clive over. We did, he did all kinds of tests and queries to make sure it is really ADHD. We begged him to be sure as we have read all the stuff about ADHD and the fuss that is raised about this condition. It was definite. Clive had ADHD and he would have to take medications. Our friend told us that the best thing would be Ritalin as it has shown great results in children with ADHD. It has also showed great results in our case. Before we knew it, Clive was his old again, talking to us and listening to us. His grades improved and in the last year or so, he stopped taking Ritalin altogether. It was that efficient.

CategoriesADHD - Psychiatry Medication

Living with ADHD with a little help from Ritalin

Some of you may now be thinking that they are going to read a testimonial written by a 12-year old. Do not worry, I am a full grown man and I want to let as much people as possible know that ADHD is not only a condition that affects children and adolescents. In fact, some scientists say that about 12% of adults are living without ADHD, many of which do not even know that they are suffering from this condition. I am one of the lucky ones who know what the problem is and who are getting it fixed. However, it wasn’t always like this.

It is an understatement of the century to say that I wasn’t good at school I did pretty much every grade twice. However, living in a small town and being from a blue collar family, no one even dreamed that there was something wrong with me. I was simply considered not too bright, destined to do manual job for the rest of my life. In fact, when I finally managed to finish high school, after years of bad grades and troubles on every corner, I even tried enrolling to the local community college.

And the weirdest things was that I managed. However, it went even worse than high school. I simply couldn’t sit still for more than 10 minutes, which is pretty much the prerequisite for doing anything in college.
I guess I had enough sense to give it up after no more than three months. I got a job as a night watchman at the local depot and it was a job I could actually do. No one was around and I could do anything I want, as long as I was there. I would bring a basketball with me, a BB gun for chasing off stray cats. I would keep myself busy, as there was no way I could sit still and do nothing.
In addition to this, I was never quite able to have a long relationship with the ladies. I guess no girl wants to be ignored most of the time, with her boyfriend looking around and paying as little attention as humanly possible. My life was as erratic as a life can get. I would constantly miss on any appointments I had, I would have troubles organizing my life in any respect.

However, I guess it was my time to catch a break. I met this guy; a friend of my sister’s who was a psychiatrist. He was a cool enough guy and I got to talking with him. I told him my life story, mostly because we had already knocked back half a bottle of bourbon and then he told me that it was quite possible I am suffering from ADHD, in fact, that I have been suffering from the condition my whole life. He told me to go visit this specialist and I did. I managed to make that appointment.
The specialist ran a dozen tests in order to rule out other conditions that might result in the same symptoms as ADHD and when those results came back negative and when I told him about my childhood, there was no doubt anymore. I had ADHD. Have had it the whole time. He started me off on Ritalin and it was the beginning of my new life.

In less than a week, I discovered that I could concentrate much better. I started paying attention and after a while I could sit still for hours, which had been something unheard of for me. However, the Ritalin treatment, no matter how beneficial and how crucial, was just the beginning. I had to learn stuff that resulted from my condition. I had to learn to organize my life much better. It took years, all the whole with the help of Ritalin, without which I simply do not know how I would have made it.
Today, I am leading a normal, healthy life. I have a girlfriend of three years now, we are thinking about getting married. I got a much better job and I am even thinking of trying enrolling into college once more. It is difficult, but Ritalin helps greatly.

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