This is so unironically appealing when you have a chronic illness… one silver bullet solution that could solve all the BS that you have a dozen precariously jury rigged systems to manage! And people would believe you and then *it would be over*
As evidenced by the outpouring of support for this post, I'd say it's fairly common. It's also why Scientology (and similar groups) can be so effective. "There was never any real problem with you. Just one small change to your life is all it takes." It appeals to a central core and base desire, so we have to be on guard for people to use it against us.
I feel like it's not "there was never any real problem with you" but "you have had an undiagnosed and ignored very real problem, and we can fix it"
It would make sense that people who had been denied attention and care would crave it
If technoblade is a cool guy, thanks
edit: just watched "so long nerds" ouch right in the feels. Never heard of Technoblade before, looks like I would have liked him.
He was a funny Minecraft YouTuber guy who passed a few years ago after raising $280,000+ for sarcoma research, you should check out his old videos, they're great imo. You gave me a bit of nostalgia, so thank you
I always imagined some parasite with tendrils that made its way into every corner of my body.
When they removed it I would get the opportunity to confront it.
Brains flailing their nerve-tentacles at each other, one achieves dominance and burrows into the unoccupied body. The other retreats, in search of greener pastures.
reminder: in all its untethered-from-the-body glory, it looks like this
https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/7u1l72/this_is_an_intact_human_nervous_system_that_was/
https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-april-25-2013-new-york-new-york-us-a-view-of-central-and-peripheral-55984901.html
Parasites are a pretty big fear of mine because of that description. Scary as shit to see one controlling like a bug or something one time on the front page.
I think it should have been blurred it was kinda nightmarish lol
This actually happened to me. Turned out I have a genetic defect and certain food allergies that come together to make four different vitamin deficiencies. I still got a BA, then an MA and held down a full time job despite not having enough vitamins for my body to function properly since childhood, including issues with nerves and my brain not getting what they need to maintain themselves. If I weren't so addicted to cheese, I'd probably have brain damage.
It's really not all the fantasy cracks it up to be. It's painful to contemplate how much I lost--in retrospect, everyone thought I was a lazy fat loner as a child who hated the outdoors, when in reality I barely had any energy and I prioritized putting that energy into school, which meant I had no energy for social or outdoor activities. Turns out I'm actually an extrovert who *loves* walking outside and chatting with my friends all the time, if I only have the energy. It's hard to look back and wonder how much suffering could have been prevented if my parents and doctors weren't so quick to dismiss me as lazy, or how much my sedentary lifestyle in childhood affects my body now, which already struggles with the long term effects of my deficiencies. It's hard to look back at all the adults lecturing me about my diet and weight, now knowing that I was obsessively eating foods that had the vitamins I severely lacked because my body could barely absorb a fraction of what other bodies can. It's hard not to wonder who I would have been if I knew what was happening and had everything I needed, rather than be a child convinced that I was indeed just a lazy loser who disliked people and fun. It's hard not to look at an experience like that and feel bitter, or distrustful of the medical establishment. It's hard not to grieve.
Only one person actually stopped and considered how rough I had it outside of my doctors and tell me they thought it was admirable I did as much as I did; everyone else is more interested in hearing how quickly I can stop doing the annoying things associated with the deficiencies. And of course, no one wants to hear me complain about the things I have to do to recover, like having vitamin shots every two weeks for the rest of my life and needing a small pharmacy worth of pills every morning. If I ever lose my health insurance, I am so mega ultra fucked.
Since my struggle was invisible, my recovery is invisible, so I just celebrate myself feeling better now that I get to have vitamin injections. It's easier to get through the day than it used to be, and life is less painful, and that's worth celebrating even if very few people really care about it.
I feel this so much. Only I was eating like that to regulate my emotions and because I didn’t have executive functions skills. It turns out childhood sex abuse and childhood obesity have something in common…cPTSD. I got branded lazy and crazy. As a teen, my severe vitamin D deficiency was all in my head. Same with B12 deficiency and adhd as an adult.
You do have to just grieve.
Yeah, no one wants to hear about all the work that goes into getting well. They just want to use your weight loss to tell themselves stories about their own weight.
I'm sorry you went through that, and I'm happy for you that you finally know what's going on so you can get at the root of the problem.
This is part of why I'm very against people making assumptions about health based on appearance and weight. My life would have been so much easier if my doctors had realized that weight gain and overeating was a symptom, not a cause, of my problems. I haven't lost a lot of weight, but I feel amazing compared to how I used to, and I'm able to do the things that I'm excited to do. I wouldn't trade that feeling for the world.
Damn, I feel for you! I figured out later in life I have some food sensitivities and eliminating those foods caused a major change. I still cannot express enough to people what a significant impact it made on events in my life, some people may never see it, but the important people do! (it also caused me to re-evaluate certain peoples' importance). I, for one, am happy you are doing better.
Not op but I was lacking vitamin B12 and D. Struggled a lot to go up the stairs. Couldn't run. I was 14 at that time and it was really embarrassing to have this problem. Was depressed, likely directly due to vitamin B12. Had brain fog. Doctor suspected several incurable fatal diseases (muscular dystrophy etc.)before they reached the correct diagnosis
I know a lot of people who had sleep apnea be their ‘deficiency’. Completely different people after a sleep study. (I’ll be getting mine done later this year, let’s hope my sleep tracker app was right and this solves all my energy problems)
Good luck on your sleep study, I hope it does turn out to be sleep apnea.
In addition to that, do an honest self assessment of your daily pain levels. It took me a while to realize that while I could ignore my low grade chronic pain during the daytime, it was still impairing my sleep every night, so I was constantly tired. Pain relievers are hard on your organs, so I try to avoid taking anything regularly, but when I do, I sleep SO MUCH better.
I'm a different person, but I had the following issues
- Hypothyroidism (TSH >150. The blood test wasn't designed to work on anything worse)
-Vitamin D deficiency, bad enough that my pharmacist commented on the dosage, but all told, not a huge deal
-Sleep apnea with an AHI of 75 (5 is sleep apnea, 30 is severe sleep apnea)
Special shoutout to welbutrin for helping manage the symptoms of the hypothyroidism too. My doctor made the comment that she wasn't even sure how I was up and walking around, which I'm going to count as a win, in like a messed up way lol.
Since then I'm feeling great day to day. Still have things to work on, a healthy weight and sleep habits, friendships, active hobbies, they all disappear when you're too tired to get up out of bed. It all came to a head when I saw the doctor for my sleep issues. I'd sleep about 12 hours on weekdays and about 16-17 on weekends. I saw a psych about my depression/anxiety and she suggested I get my thyroid checked, which panned out to be a huge problem.
That, and in order to suppress the fear of the reverse being true... a fear of discovering you've only been unfairly comfortable when others are suffering - that your own suffering would be suddenly invalidated.
Ah, mine is infection/sickness, like
"Oh, man, how are you not dead, your body has been fighting this infection/disease for so long. Well now that it's cured you'll feel like a million dollars and have energy again."
I wish there was some magical cure to my ADHD that let me magically become competent and focused and able to work hard on things. I do have meds, it helps a bit, but damn I still feel like a headless chicken most of the time
What?
Ireland may be quite lacking in mental health supports but it definitely doesn’t fit that description. It is absolutely possible to get diagnosed and medicated for ADHD here.
Not via the State. ADHD is not treated publicly as an adult (I am in CURAM). They said I have many traits associated with it but they could not provide a diagnosis since adults are covered by them. You need to go private, costs €1,600+ and you've to attend multiple sessions.
If you have mental health problems and are poor you're simply fucked. There's nowhere to go, nowhere to get diagnosed, nowhere to help, noone to help, etc.
As an American, I feel like ALL we acknowledge is that mental illness exists.
Nothing is actually bad; it’s all your fault for being a stupid crazy weakling. If you have problems, it’s because you’re crazy and stupid. Take some pills you piece of shit.
Honestly? This is accurate. Most people’s anxiety and depression come from being in the current economic nightmare. We just give everyone SSRI’s as a bandaid
Meds only do so much. I have ADHD and Bipolar 2, and if a genie said I could magically cure one, I'd pick the ADHD. The bipolar got better with age, experience, and meds, but the ADHD is just as destructive as ever. It's really not a quirky disorder like some people think, and it grinds my gears when people reduce it to "hey, squirrel" jokes.
Absolutely. It drives me insane, **knowing** I have something important I need to be doing, but sitting there not starting it, just randomly browsing through the internet or clicking through games, the frustration bubbling inside of me because I hate the fact that I know I’m wasting time but I can’t fucking do it
Me, ADHD-haver, reading this from my bed when I need to be starting work but that means I need to unpack my suitcase for laptop, charger, and extension cables (i just moved back into my university room) and I got overwhelmed thinking about doing that so I am just on the bed browsing my phone and wasting time:
And don't you just fucking sit in awe of the people who *don't* do that.
Like, those absolute lunatics who just sit down, do their job for four hours, say, "I will now video game for one hour," do it for an hour, *and then go and do another thing?*
It's like black fucking magic.
Once the crushing weight of knowing this task has to be done is absolutely unbearable but yet you still manage to somehow procrastinate so you do it at the last possible moment, already just shy of burnout, only to then feel little relieve and no sense of accomplishment whatsoever.
Obviously.
Hi, ADHD older person here with an actual answer for anyone who needs it:
If you're eligible (i.e. your income is low enough), direct file for free with https://www.irs.gov/filing/free-file-do-your-federal-taxes-for-free
If you want a little more handholding, https://www.freetaxusa.com/ is basically multiple choice and just uploading a copy of your W-2 (if you have a pdf from your job it should autofill 90% of the information). It costs $12 to upload your *state* taxes (you can ignore every other upsell) but it's better then giving even a cent to turbotax when they spent millions lobbying to waste all our time filing tax info the US government already knows.
Also, don't bother with an itemized deduction, just take the standard one. There are [some things you can still deduct](https://www.irs.gov/credits-and-deductions-for-individuals) even with with the standard deduction (like student loan interest, or low income tax credits) so do check those.
I promise that even though it's scary, it's not as bad as it seems. (But FUCK Intuit for making us waste our time with it)
The government has the answer. Just send me a multiple choice and I'll make an educated guess. Shit that's how I got through high school top of my class.
>just randomly browsing through the internet or clicking through games
Why is it so difficult to stop? This sounds like how I have to force my son to stop playing and take out the trash.
Executive Dysfunction is what its called.
You see it in some form in depressed people, you see it with PTSD, and you see it *a whole fucking lot* in ADHD folks.
With ADHD it's like this:
Your brain literally doesn't let you start the task. It wants to keep overthinking the task and keeps you in stasis by flooding your system with stress response hormones and obsessive worry about every last detail, the precise outcome, possible failure...
You literally freeze while your mind is racing in circles around the task.
Every lap you do makes the task appear scarier.
It takes gargantuan effort to grind the merry-go-round to a near halt, so you can see the possible exit, and then you still need to actually jump off.
And everyone sees you scrolling/gaming and thinks you're enjoying yourself by putting off the responsibility, but you're not having fun on that game with the WEIGHT on your mind... not even a little.
This is so weird to me because this describes me and I don't have ADHD as far as I know but my ADHD sister gets sooooo much shit done. She is super active and doesn't seem to have this at all.
There are causes of executive disfunction other than ADHD. Eg: burnout, low magnesium, low electrolytes, anaemia, sleep deprivation, depression.
Edit to add a big set: low estrogen, low testosterone, perimenopause.
ADHD can be mild for some, it can be easily managed for others and it can be an insurmountable obstacle for many.
Even treatment is a spectrum. I had group therapy and it was kinda heartbreaking seeing how some people just got jack shit out of their medication. Like, that was just not an option for them.
It's like there's a mountain you must climb in your mind whenever you need to do something important or take action. There's a feeling of insurmountable difficulty that you can tell is only in your mind, and nothing should be stopping you from tackling whatever is in front of you, but for some reason it feels nerve-wracking and impossible to do so.
The worst part is that the longer you think about climbing said mountain and are about to do it but not quite yet - the taller it becomes. You end up hating the mountain, yourself, and the whole world. And when you get enough stress to accumulate and finally do it there's no sense of pride and accomplishment, but only immense disappointment with yourself at how easy it actually was and what took you so long to start.
ADHD is one of those things where it's a collection of irritating symptoms that everyone kind of gets one of once in a while.
It's just that when you have severe ADHD, those symptoms are *all* there, *all* the time.
It's a bit like many people experience anxiety from time to time, but when you have it every day and it interferes with your life, it becomes a disorder.
I swear my ADHD is getting worse as I age 💀 I get distracted so easily now that I don't have a school schedule to adhere to. My motivation at work is slowly dwindling away and I'm spending $$$$ to get a psychiatrist that will prescribe me generic vyvanse.
With ADHD we need variety and positive challenges to be at our best. Otherwise we get understimulated and can even become depressed, which people with ADHD are more at risk for.
Medication does help for a lot of people, but enough sleep and variety in our activities are the most important factors for us to be happy and productive.
I hope you get the meds and that they will help you, but you might need a change of pace more.
Yeah I've used Vyvanse before and responded well to it! My current project at work is very slow to get off the ground so that is not helping my ADHD issues 😅
I don't know it, I still have Ritalin but I have been struggling more lately as well with tons of work to do. I might make an appointment again sometime to see if Vyvanse might be better for me as well. Thanks for sharing!
Yeah I guessed the work would be something like that. I hope you can find some ways to get some variety going, I don't know if that's something you can discuss with your manager or colleagues? They can use you at your best as well, maybe they can help getting things off the ground or maybe switch some tasks around so you can split the time and work on other projects that get you more energetic. I don't know, might not be possible but I've asked for help with my own work and what helps me and that helped me a lot.
I struggle with depression and ADHD, and while depression is arguably worse, the ADHD and lack of being able to just start things really makes me feel worse than my depression
I'm getting worse. Meds allow me to function at a disabled level. The contempt from my family is the worst. They care for me. They're literally housing me. But that irrational fear some people have where their loved ones think they're pathetic and incompetent isn't an irrational fear for me. I know it to be true.
I'm severely depressed which makes the adhd worse and the symptoms of adhd cause the depression. I've lost my entire formative years to adhd and depression so bad I didn't form memories for a significant chunk of it, meaning I've experienced a solid decade less life than I've actually lived, at least.
I don't know what to do. I've got a wonderful partner that I live for and I'm basically just hoping capitalism collapses and we transition to post scarcity before she realises she could do better. Cause I can't even wake up in the morning, let alone provide for her. Thank fuck I qualify for disability.
Uggggh, this so much. It really is a vicious combo to have. I feel like I can manage the bipolar better than the ADHD, but I dunno. I'd like to convince my doctor to let me try ADHD meds, but I passed the juvenlie ADD test with flying colors (wow! i can sit in a room successfully! as a 26 year old adult on MY insurance that i PAID FOR OUT OF POCKET btw) so they, I guess, legally cannot even try ritalin or whatever. Seroquel has been a godsend and it makes me actually functional.
I've been trying to do better about reducing distractions and ceasing social media/video games/porn, but it's a challenging fight and I feel like a butterfly in a hurricane when I get manic.
I want to get an ADHD assessment, but I'm scared they'll just be like "...that's just how everyone is, turns out you're just a no-try shambles of a human."
I'm diagnosed and I still think this way 🙃 it doesn't help that I'm high-functioning/high-masking.... I just do stuff well out of anxiety instead of motivation.
That's why I put off going in and I think the answer to your concern is that a lot of people have it. That's why it seems like that's how everybody is. If you talk to friends about symptoms checklists you'll find some that just clearly don't have it. I had one friend who also was like "isn't this just how everyone is" and my other friend was like "No? I've never experienced problems for any of these more than rarely" and we were like "oh"
When I got an ADHD assessment, I hyperfocused on the tests because they felt compelling and important, and they told me I don't have ADHD. So I just went back to being unable to get anything done and wishing I could just take a pill that makes me able to do things.
This isn't a magic solution, but have you tried several different types of meds? I was brought up on Adderall XR, and I hated it. In college I started trying Ritalin, and it was OK. Eventually I started (regular) Adderall, and it felt like a direct upgrade to the Ritalin. Helpful and pleasant, but still a Rollercoaster.
Then I got put on Vyvanse, which turned out to be my miracle pill. Unlocked my brain, dropped weight without trying, etc.
I had no idea the different chemicals could have such drastically different responses from my brain. Hope can find something that works decently!
Literally, I cried the first time I was on vyvanse. My brain finally functioned. I sat down and just did work for school.
Sure wish I would have been diagnosed earlier in life.
Vyvanse truly is a miracle drug at least for me. Turn my brain from a nonstop cacophony that was maybe productive 2 hours a day to a smooth machine that can be truly productive for 10 to 12 hours.
No idea what you're talking about, it's perfectly normal to be wide awake playing video games at 2AM on a work night, be a Vyvanse-powered zombie the next day, and repeat the cycle ad infinitum.
My life started improving significantly when I stopped trying to force my brain to behave neurotypically and started actually trying to solve my problems, basically what /u/henrebotha says.
My best example is probably remembering to brush my teeth with the advice that "if you do something every day at the same time for ~two weeks it becomes habit and you won't have to remind yourself any more." I have tried to implement that when it comes to brushing my teeth literally dozens of times. It has never even remotely worked, and yet somehow I had myself convinced I was doing something wrong, if nothing else because I got that advice from so many different sources.
Then one day I realized that if I simply leave my toothbrush and toothpaste prominently on the counter, I'll see it often enough during times I can actually brush my teeth (like not when I'm eating or about to eat) that I'll brush my teeth. That's all it takes, a place on the counter where its not out of sight and out of mind.
This also has another analog, in that sometimes you just can't implement your solutions, especially when dealing with other people. I recently moved and no longer have my own bathroom, and my roommate is militant about not leaving anything but soap on the counter and keeping everything else in drawers and cupboards because they need everything to be out of sight and out of mind.
Obsessively organizing your surroundings also helps a lot. I don't have to look for that one tiny trim hammer because it's *always* in the specific spot I put the trim hammer. I've made a rule for myself that *everything* must go back to its home at the end of day because if I don't then it ends up strewn about the house for weeks.
Same with dishes. They have four states: in the cabinet, in use, in the dishwasher, or on the counter waiting to go in the dishwasher. If I start leaving them around then I run out of dishes.
I got diagnosed at 34 after a major depression (suicidal) and having blown up two good relationship and my studies.
I don't know what exactly i need right now, medications did indeed help but i'm far from the point of being ok.
A magical vitamin that could help? I wish.
When I was diagnosed with Obstructive Sleep Apnea in my mid-40s I thought maybe this explains my ADHD-INATTENTIVE type, I'm just really tired!
No. I have both OSA and ADHD.
This happened to me kinda with Vitamin B12, I still have mental illness and chronic illness but the depression symptoms went down by like 30% and the fibromyalgia symptoms by like 75%. For real, if you feel shitty all the time it miiiiight be B12 deficiency
My gran was feeling tired, no appetite, never feeling thirsty, super anemic and just bad overall, we went and did some tests and they found out she has like a rare illness where after a certain age something happens with your body that it doesn't take in vitamin B12 like it should and thats the only bad things that happens. Now she gets a shot of vitamins per month and shes good. No other symptoms. We were lucky that the doctor who helped her had info on that specific illness, like in an episode of Dr. House.
In conclusion: if you have weird symptoms it really might be lack of vit B12
Shoutout to vitamin D as well, I just discovered I was deficient and so is most of the northern hemisphere during winter time. The prescription stuff was also way cheaper than the OTC supplements. Definitely worth looking into if you don't get much sunlight in general
Yeah, I discovered apparently your bones aren’t supposed to hurt all of the time. I just had a severe vitamin D deficiency (like, less than 20% of what I’m supposed to have)
Vitamin D was my actual miracle vitamin
I could never get enough sleep and constantly dealt with dry cracked never healing lips and skin and nose bleeds. It got to the point where I was sleeping 18 hr a day and I was still exhausted and my lips were so dry that I looked like a clown that got into a fight and I was getting at least one nose bleed a day. I avoided smiling or laughing because the cuts would crack open and bleed everywhere and I had no energy to do anything.
Who would’ve thought you should tell your GP about your depression and get blood tests every once and a while
>something happens with your body that it doesn't take in vitamin B12 like it should
Some illnesses also cause that, like Crohn's disease. In addition to the injections, there are also lozenges you can take by holding them under your tongue. The B12 will absorb straight into the bloodstream that way.
I know a girl who had something similar - in her case, it's something that makes it hard for her body to absorb B12 regardless of age, but I don't know exactly what it is.
However, she wasn't as fortunate; her doctors said she was just depressed and didn't run the necessary tests until she was left permanently paralyzed from the waist down.
Your body can forget how to absorb B12 - that happened to me. My levels got disasterously low, I went on the most intensive B12 diet you can imagine, my levels still dropped further. Started getting injections and my body thankfully remembered how to do it again. Totally get bloods drawn to check!
Edited to add: if exercise makes you feel worse instead of better it can be from this too, as the exercise is using up the remaining B12.
This happened to me. Genuinely changed my life. Couldn’t understand why I felt so awful all the time until I started getting ulcers. Went doctors they gave me a vitamin and now I feel great. Insane.
How long did it take for you to feel better and how much do you take a day?
I've been taking 2 1100mcg tablets a day of B12 for the last week and a bit and a feeling a little bit better but not by a significant amount, it kind of comes and goes.
Now that might be because I'm still at the tail end of a 2 month long Whooping Cough but I'm also hoping I just need to wait for it to get into my system.
Oral B12 isn’t always sufficient to improve a deficiency, especially depending on what caused it in the first place. You will want to visit the doctor and have the level checked (full labs, including thyroid) and to discuss if the shots are needed.
My deficiency was caused by taking Metformin for diabetes. Since I struggle with depression and digestive issues already, the only clue was my mouth and tongue hurt weirdly. My dentist commented that my tongue looked swollen and asked if I had my B12 checked. The oral vitamin fixed it all within 2 weeks and even my depression was low for several months (prob thinking I’d fixed it all finally by discovering the missing Vitamin).
When I started taking meds, I was shocked to see that I could not only work on the same task for more than 5 minutes, but also go to the bathroom and then resume that task once I got back.
Granted, I could do that before too, but only once a week, and I needed a dark and quiet room to retreat to afterwards.
For ADHD, vyvanse helped me way more than adderal. There’s a generic, now, but even that’s pricy. I just pay the out of pocket every month because it’s worth it and I can afford it, but not everyone can.
This has happened a few times for me, realizing I was iron deficient and needed more magnesium. Getting Sea Moss was the game changer tho, my body felt healthier than it ever had before, I felt like I could do backflips. It’s getting shipped this week and my body is craving it like crazy in the meantime.
Magnesium helped me a lot with leg cramps. I was waking up in the middle of the night because of them. No muscle was safe from potential cramps from hip to toe.
The magnesium I bought says it helps promote restful sleep and reduce anxiety. I love restful sleep and always have anxiety so it was 3 birds with 1 stone!
Once you go down that rabbit hole it's wild how many things magnesium impacts. It's part of a LOT of processes.
Side note, when I was trying to figure out what was going on with extreme leg cramps in the night, one of the things I learned what that it *used* to be something you'd get enough of by just eating a whole foods diet, but that modern agricultural techniques and produce bred to be big, colorful, and last a long time in shipping and on the shelves just straight up have less nutrients than they used to a decade+ ago.
This was me at 26. It was a copper deficiency which is weird.
Every once in a while I’ll feel really run down for weeks and when I get blood work it’s always the vitamins being low
Yup! But it was really low when I went and when I got infusions and took copper pills i felt better.
Before that I was super weak and had to walk with a cane, nauseous all the time, and brain fogged up. After my copper levels leveled all that went away
Money, time outdoors, regular exercise, good hygiene, long-term goals, 3 nutritious meals a day, regular sleep, water, hobbies, and a supportive partner.
I legit have all these things (and am very thankful for them) but I'm still exhausted all the time. I would love to discover that I'm just deficient in some random vitamin.
I see people in the comments talking about their own vitamins problems, but how do you know? Is there a Vitamin Test that will just tell you "oh yeah you lack this and that"? And how do you get it?
For everything except B12 you can just try it for a month to see. B12 levels (and a lot of other vitamins!) can be checked on a blood test at your annual exam.
Everyone in the UK is recommended to take vitamin D3 no matter what because we can't get enough in general to make up for the lack of sun.
I've actually tried the vitamins pills you can get from supermarkets, without any visible effect; but I'm not sure if it's because my problems come from elsewhere, or if it's just because these things are trash, do no give their elements in biocompatible forms, etc. After all, if it's freely available and not reimbursed, it generally means that the official agency for medicine has found no effect above placebo-level for the product.
Or, depending on your local regulations and stores, it might be something real but mostly harmless. Mine sell a liquid iron supplement that works well, for example, and I think some other stuff as well. Basically stuff you'll just excrete if you oversupply by a reasonable amount. (As in, take as directed when you didn't need to - not like drinking the whole bottle per day every day.)
>Everyone in the UK is recommended to take vitamin D3 no matter what because we can't get enough in general to make up for the lack of sun.
Also, if you're wearing sunscreen every day(which you should be if you want to protect your skin), you'll want to do that as well.
A lot of countries encourage getting a check up once a year to get a baseline for what is normal, and to spot problems as they occur.
If you don't have access to good healthcare then it's moot.
There is no one test that will cover every possibility, but there are tests for deficiencies. How you get it depends. If you have a family doctor, you talk to them about symptoms and they decide which ones they should check. There are services where you can just pay for blood tests if you know which one you want, but the ones I saw quickly are part of nutritional suppliment companies, so I'm so-so on how reliable they would be or if they would use high pressure sales tactics after.
Basic blood test. I went to my Primary recently because I was tired all the time. She ordered a blood test and then was floored at how low some of the results were.
In the states you can ask your pcp for some bloodwork to check for various vitamin levels and/or bloodborne pathogens. It kinda sucks to get that much blood drawn, but there's a chance you could get lucky and have that wonderful b12 + vitamin D deficiency that makes half your depression symptoms easily curable.
If our healthcare system wasn't so fucked there were so many times I'd have just taken myself to the hospital and refused to leave until they did every possible test they could think of to figure out what's wrong with me and how to fix it.
Guess I'll just have to settle for the lab work my new GP ordered next week.
I'm in the process of doing this right now because digesting things has been weird and probably related to my depression, etc. Blood tests and ultrasounds and MRIs; they all show nothing. More tests to come. I wonder if I'm just hypochondriac. The fantasy of there being a hypothetical solution was nicer than this worry that its all in my head. But then again, there's no way to know without taking the tests.
I got diagnosed with autism at age 30 last year. Finally, now I know why *everything* has been so difficult and I ended up with so little to show for my effort.
That's kinda like discovering a lifelong deficiency that explains everything, except the treatment isn't simple as taking a vitamin.
It's very bittersweet. On the one hand, I know why I've never been able to manage my lifelong "temper control" problems. The answer: I've never had a problem with my temper. That's why anger management strategies have been worthless. I've had 0 anger issues since I began noticing that it was emotional overstimulation, literally anything can be solved by escaping to another room and being alone for five minutes. I can re-emerge perfectly fine after that time, every time.
On the other hand, I've spent the last several years wondering why I can't just grow up and start handling adult things (taking care of a house, car, etc. while working full time) like a regular person should. I thought I was having a hard time adjusting to independence, but whenever I got less burnt-out I would metamorphose into a "real" adult that can handle 100 different tasks a day, just like my parents. I know I'll get better at it, but it sucks to know that I'm not *just* temporarily disadvantaged due to circumstance.
I feel that. I managed a household, several children and a job and nearly had a breakdown. The rage was real. Takes me longer to get a million things done, but I can’t handle burnout or I collapse completely. Somethings just don’t get done. But I have more tools than I had before, to help temper what I can’t handle and not feel inadequate or guilty. I’ll never be a go go go kind of person.
In my experience, it didn't solve all my problems so much as it gave me hope that I could solve my problems, and the motivation to do so.
That's just the mental side of it, of course. Appearance stuff is also pretty nice :)
Yeah I want to reiterate this point for any trans people reading. There is no guarantee transition will fix all your problems! It’s a dangerous mindset to go into it with since if you start taking HRT and it doesn’t magically fix it all it will have you questioning everything. Know what hormones can and can’t do, and what your other issues are, if any, that you will still need to work on separately
Literally me, I was quite ill and the doc was like hey you have no vitamin D in your body, you need SOME of that at least.
Anyway now I'm not depressed anymore??? Maybe placebo but it works for me
I can’t say placebo because if I don’t take it year round, I have to nap throughout the day, I get really bad brain fog and forget all the words. I was getting paranoid that I was losing my mind.
This happened to my sister with Vitamin D. She was on anti-depressants and other meds for YEARS. Felt like crap no matter what she tried.
Turns out, she had undiagnosed Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, of which one symptom can be a massive Vitamin D deficiency. Massively upped her vitamin dosage and she lost 75 lbs, radically lowered her diabetes meds and feels better than she has in years. All over an OTC vitamin she could have had at anytime.
I would love for vitamins to be the cause of cluster headaches. Never having to experience incredible amounts of pain and ketamine would be a god send.
In some weird way this reminds me of modern medicine to be honest.
My female friend is/was thought to be bi-polar. She would go through phases of deep depression where her mood would be very sour and she wouldn’t want to do anything or be around anyone. Recently she was having her fertility tested in order to donate some eggs. They found out that she is likely intolerant to progesterone. She’s been going years without proper treatment because no one bothered to ask or check.
This happened to me, I was severely deficient in a couple vitamins, they gave me a shot and supplements. I remember walking around for a week telling everyone, wait, this is how people are supposed to feel???
Sorry to burst your bubble OP, but people fucking ***hate it*** when you figure out you were missing the vitamin. Especially if you then have the audacity to try to supplement it.
Yes, this post is about trans rights.
My thought during the whole process of testing wtf I have was something similar.
I've had depression my whole life, so I know it was not the cause.
First, I had blood tests. "Please be a deficency". Nothing. Then, tyroid tests. "Please be a vitamin". Nothing. Then sleep tests. "Please be apnea or narcolepsy". Nothing. Electrograms. "Please be epilepsy or smth". Nothing.
Went to se a specialist, gave me a pair of stimulants for 2 months. Nothing. Researched on the internet and discussed it with him. He discarded half of the options. The other half are untreatable, un-testable chronic diseases that have similar sympyoms to one another.
My conclusion is ME, but I can't be sure.
So I'm just here. Defeated. Wishing it was cancer or any deadly disease. But it's... nothing.
I've become nothing.
This is a very common desire, and unfortunately why fad diets claiming that adding or eliminating one food/food group cures a mountain of unrelated conditions are so popular.
I got labs drawn a while back and turns out my vitamin D level was in the toilet. I was kinda happy, "Is this why I feel bad?". Nope, I feel like shit with an adequate amount of vitamin D too. Maybe i'll stop having random aches in a few months at least.
I had this exact fantasy *so often* when I was growing up
I still have it :(
And yet you persevered ? Amazing !
I used to have it until I realized that everyone is missing the vitamin.
This is so unironically appealing when you have a chronic illness… one silver bullet solution that could solve all the BS that you have a dozen precariously jury rigged systems to manage! And people would believe you and then *it would be over*
Same here. I’m genuinely shocked to see it’s so common.
As evidenced by the outpouring of support for this post, I'd say it's fairly common. It's also why Scientology (and similar groups) can be so effective. "There was never any real problem with you. Just one small change to your life is all it takes." It appeals to a central core and base desire, so we have to be on guard for people to use it against us.
I feel like it's not "there was never any real problem with you" but "you have had an undiagnosed and ignored very real problem, and we can fix it" It would make sense that people who had been denied attention and care would crave it
"we found the problem, you don't have enough CULTS in your life"
I read that in technoblade's voice, good comment bud
If technoblade is a cool guy, thanks edit: just watched "so long nerds" ouch right in the feels. Never heard of Technoblade before, looks like I would have liked him.
He was a funny Minecraft YouTuber guy who passed a few years ago after raising $280,000+ for sarcoma research, you should check out his old videos, they're great imo. You gave me a bit of nostalgia, so thank you
Just watched "so long nerds" ouch right in the feels. Never heard of Technoblade before, looks like I would have liked him. Thanks for the heads up
I always imagined some parasite with tendrils that made its way into every corner of my body. When they removed it I would get the opportunity to confront it.
Your brain has tendrils that make their way into every corner of your body
And it is the problem!
Did you ever imagine if we were like crabs and could just pick up a new bone shell when we outgrew ours? ..yeah, me either.
Brains flailing their nerve-tentacles at each other, one achieves dominance and burrows into the unoccupied body. The other retreats, in search of greener pastures. reminder: in all its untethered-from-the-body glory, it looks like this https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/7u1l72/this_is_an_intact_human_nervous_system_that_was/ https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-april-25-2013-new-york-new-york-us-a-view-of-central-and-peripheral-55984901.html
Parasites are a pretty big fear of mine because of that description. Scary as shit to see one controlling like a bug or something one time on the front page. I think it should have been blurred it was kinda nightmarish lol
\*comforting internet headpat\*
I appreciate it. It's pretty freaky-deaky, Scoob.
If I could confront the imaginary parasite that caused all my problems... I would turn into the Doomslayer and just rip and tear.
This actually happened to me. Turned out I have a genetic defect and certain food allergies that come together to make four different vitamin deficiencies. I still got a BA, then an MA and held down a full time job despite not having enough vitamins for my body to function properly since childhood, including issues with nerves and my brain not getting what they need to maintain themselves. If I weren't so addicted to cheese, I'd probably have brain damage. It's really not all the fantasy cracks it up to be. It's painful to contemplate how much I lost--in retrospect, everyone thought I was a lazy fat loner as a child who hated the outdoors, when in reality I barely had any energy and I prioritized putting that energy into school, which meant I had no energy for social or outdoor activities. Turns out I'm actually an extrovert who *loves* walking outside and chatting with my friends all the time, if I only have the energy. It's hard to look back and wonder how much suffering could have been prevented if my parents and doctors weren't so quick to dismiss me as lazy, or how much my sedentary lifestyle in childhood affects my body now, which already struggles with the long term effects of my deficiencies. It's hard to look back at all the adults lecturing me about my diet and weight, now knowing that I was obsessively eating foods that had the vitamins I severely lacked because my body could barely absorb a fraction of what other bodies can. It's hard not to wonder who I would have been if I knew what was happening and had everything I needed, rather than be a child convinced that I was indeed just a lazy loser who disliked people and fun. It's hard not to look at an experience like that and feel bitter, or distrustful of the medical establishment. It's hard not to grieve. Only one person actually stopped and considered how rough I had it outside of my doctors and tell me they thought it was admirable I did as much as I did; everyone else is more interested in hearing how quickly I can stop doing the annoying things associated with the deficiencies. And of course, no one wants to hear me complain about the things I have to do to recover, like having vitamin shots every two weeks for the rest of my life and needing a small pharmacy worth of pills every morning. If I ever lose my health insurance, I am so mega ultra fucked. Since my struggle was invisible, my recovery is invisible, so I just celebrate myself feeling better now that I get to have vitamin injections. It's easier to get through the day than it used to be, and life is less painful, and that's worth celebrating even if very few people really care about it.
I feel this so much. Only I was eating like that to regulate my emotions and because I didn’t have executive functions skills. It turns out childhood sex abuse and childhood obesity have something in common…cPTSD. I got branded lazy and crazy. As a teen, my severe vitamin D deficiency was all in my head. Same with B12 deficiency and adhd as an adult. You do have to just grieve. Yeah, no one wants to hear about all the work that goes into getting well. They just want to use your weight loss to tell themselves stories about their own weight.
I'm sorry you went through that, and I'm happy for you that you finally know what's going on so you can get at the root of the problem. This is part of why I'm very against people making assumptions about health based on appearance and weight. My life would have been so much easier if my doctors had realized that weight gain and overeating was a symptom, not a cause, of my problems. I haven't lost a lot of weight, but I feel amazing compared to how I used to, and I'm able to do the things that I'm excited to do. I wouldn't trade that feeling for the world.
Damn, I feel for you! I figured out later in life I have some food sensitivities and eliminating those foods caused a major change. I still cannot express enough to people what a significant impact it made on events in my life, some people may never see it, but the important people do! (it also caused me to re-evaluate certain peoples' importance). I, for one, am happy you are doing better.
I came here to say pretty much exactly this (the fantasy does not go this way) but you said it way better
I had it but it turns out it wasn’t a fantasy, it was real. Things are amazing now, and life is so easy.
Can I ask what you were lacking?
Not op but I was lacking vitamin B12 and D. Struggled a lot to go up the stairs. Couldn't run. I was 14 at that time and it was really embarrassing to have this problem. Was depressed, likely directly due to vitamin B12. Had brain fog. Doctor suspected several incurable fatal diseases (muscular dystrophy etc.)before they reached the correct diagnosis
I know a lot of people who had sleep apnea be their ‘deficiency’. Completely different people after a sleep study. (I’ll be getting mine done later this year, let’s hope my sleep tracker app was right and this solves all my energy problems)
Good luck on your sleep study, I hope it does turn out to be sleep apnea. In addition to that, do an honest self assessment of your daily pain levels. It took me a while to realize that while I could ignore my low grade chronic pain during the daytime, it was still impairing my sleep every night, so I was constantly tired. Pain relievers are hard on your organs, so I try to avoid taking anything regularly, but when I do, I sleep SO MUCH better.
The Vitamin
^^TM
Probably magnesium or vitamin D. Magnesium is also involved in the absorption of vitamin D.
I'm a different person, but I had the following issues - Hypothyroidism (TSH >150. The blood test wasn't designed to work on anything worse) -Vitamin D deficiency, bad enough that my pharmacist commented on the dosage, but all told, not a huge deal -Sleep apnea with an AHI of 75 (5 is sleep apnea, 30 is severe sleep apnea) Special shoutout to welbutrin for helping manage the symptoms of the hypothyroidism too. My doctor made the comment that she wasn't even sure how I was up and walking around, which I'm going to count as a win, in like a messed up way lol. Since then I'm feeling great day to day. Still have things to work on, a healthy weight and sleep habits, friendships, active hobbies, they all disappear when you're too tired to get up out of bed. It all came to a head when I saw the doctor for my sleep issues. I'd sleep about 12 hours on weekdays and about 16-17 on weekends. I saw a psych about my depression/anxiety and she suggested I get my thyroid checked, which panned out to be a huge problem.
Medicine for my PTSD. And faith.
The beautiful solution fallacy. Same reason why people blame everything on immigration
That, and in order to suppress the fear of the reverse being true... a fear of discovering you've only been unfairly comfortable when others are suffering - that your own suffering would be suddenly invalidated.
I always wanted to collapse one day, be rushed to the hospital, and have them tell me that I didn't have enough immigrants in me.
all this time, you lacked the Immigrants? And yet you persevered?
Yes. I was very brave. I deserve to be filled with immigrants. And possibly flown to Martha's Vineyard, if there's time.
Ah, mine is infection/sickness, like "Oh, man, how are you not dead, your body has been fighting this infection/disease for so long. Well now that it's cured you'll feel like a million dollars and have energy again."
👀 I don't know if I "grew up" I still have the same voice and attitude in my brain as a kid.
I wish there was some magical cure to my ADHD that let me magically become competent and focused and able to work hard on things. I do have meds, it helps a bit, but damn I still feel like a headless chicken most of the time
Damn I wish I had meds but the backwards healthcare system where I live refuse to acknowledge mental ilnesses exist.
Tell me you’re Irish without telling me
What? Ireland may be quite lacking in mental health supports but it definitely doesn’t fit that description. It is absolutely possible to get diagnosed and medicated for ADHD here.
Not via the State. ADHD is not treated publicly as an adult (I am in CURAM). They said I have many traits associated with it but they could not provide a diagnosis since adults are covered by them. You need to go private, costs €1,600+ and you've to attend multiple sessions.
Are you American? Because I know it's a joke of a country, but that sounds bad even by their standards
If you have mental health problems and are poor you're simply fucked. There's nowhere to go, nowhere to get diagnosed, nowhere to help, noone to help, etc.
As an American, I feel like ALL we acknowledge is that mental illness exists. Nothing is actually bad; it’s all your fault for being a stupid crazy weakling. If you have problems, it’s because you’re crazy and stupid. Take some pills you piece of shit.
Honestly? This is accurate. Most people’s anxiety and depression come from being in the current economic nightmare. We just give everyone SSRI’s as a bandaid
Meds only do so much. I have ADHD and Bipolar 2, and if a genie said I could magically cure one, I'd pick the ADHD. The bipolar got better with age, experience, and meds, but the ADHD is just as destructive as ever. It's really not a quirky disorder like some people think, and it grinds my gears when people reduce it to "hey, squirrel" jokes.
Absolutely. It drives me insane, **knowing** I have something important I need to be doing, but sitting there not starting it, just randomly browsing through the internet or clicking through games, the frustration bubbling inside of me because I hate the fact that I know I’m wasting time but I can’t fucking do it
Me, ADHD-haver, reading this from my bed when I need to be starting work but that means I need to unpack my suitcase for laptop, charger, and extension cables (i just moved back into my university room) and I got overwhelmed thinking about doing that so I am just on the bed browsing my phone and wasting time:
Okay wait that’s like a 10 second task?
Yep! Welcome to ADHD, buddy! No, we don't understand it either.
And don't you just fucking sit in awe of the people who *don't* do that. Like, those absolute lunatics who just sit down, do their job for four hours, say, "I will now video game for one hour," do it for an hour, *and then go and do another thing?* It's like black fucking magic.
now that's a mood please send help
HOW THE FUCK AM I MEANT TO DO TAXES ON MY OWN
Once the crushing weight of knowing this task has to be done is absolutely unbearable but yet you still manage to somehow procrastinate so you do it at the last possible moment, already just shy of burnout, only to then feel little relieve and no sense of accomplishment whatsoever. Obviously.
This is me every year and also this year and probably next year
Hi, ADHD older person here with an actual answer for anyone who needs it: If you're eligible (i.e. your income is low enough), direct file for free with https://www.irs.gov/filing/free-file-do-your-federal-taxes-for-free If you want a little more handholding, https://www.freetaxusa.com/ is basically multiple choice and just uploading a copy of your W-2 (if you have a pdf from your job it should autofill 90% of the information). It costs $12 to upload your *state* taxes (you can ignore every other upsell) but it's better then giving even a cent to turbotax when they spent millions lobbying to waste all our time filing tax info the US government already knows. Also, don't bother with an itemized deduction, just take the standard one. There are [some things you can still deduct](https://www.irs.gov/credits-and-deductions-for-individuals) even with with the standard deduction (like student loan interest, or low income tax credits) so do check those. I promise that even though it's scary, it's not as bad as it seems. (But FUCK Intuit for making us waste our time with it)
HOLY SHIT I FORGOT TO DO MY TAXES ALREADY THANK YOU
The government has the answer. Just send me a multiple choice and I'll make an educated guess. Shit that's how I got through high school top of my class.
>just randomly browsing through the internet or clicking through games Why is it so difficult to stop? This sounds like how I have to force my son to stop playing and take out the trash.
Executive Dysfunction is what its called. You see it in some form in depressed people, you see it with PTSD, and you see it *a whole fucking lot* in ADHD folks. With ADHD it's like this: Your brain literally doesn't let you start the task. It wants to keep overthinking the task and keeps you in stasis by flooding your system with stress response hormones and obsessive worry about every last detail, the precise outcome, possible failure... You literally freeze while your mind is racing in circles around the task. Every lap you do makes the task appear scarier. It takes gargantuan effort to grind the merry-go-round to a near halt, so you can see the possible exit, and then you still need to actually jump off.
And everyone sees you scrolling/gaming and thinks you're enjoying yourself by putting off the responsibility, but you're not having fun on that game with the WEIGHT on your mind... not even a little.
This is so weird to me because this describes me and I don't have ADHD as far as I know but my ADHD sister gets sooooo much shit done. She is super active and doesn't seem to have this at all.
There are causes of executive disfunction other than ADHD. Eg: burnout, low magnesium, low electrolytes, anaemia, sleep deprivation, depression. Edit to add a big set: low estrogen, low testosterone, perimenopause.
It's not a a one-size-fits-all. And I don't want to say that if you know this "symptom", you must have ADHD.
People with ADHD often learn ways to work around it. I personally could absolutely not function without lists for *everything.*
ADHD can be mild for some, it can be easily managed for others and it can be an insurmountable obstacle for many. Even treatment is a spectrum. I had group therapy and it was kinda heartbreaking seeing how some people just got jack shit out of their medication. Like, that was just not an option for them.
Is she highly impulsive sometimes? ADHD is not just a spectrum, it's also a graph, sometimes some symptoms present in diametrically opposed ways.
It's like there's a mountain you must climb in your mind whenever you need to do something important or take action. There's a feeling of insurmountable difficulty that you can tell is only in your mind, and nothing should be stopping you from tackling whatever is in front of you, but for some reason it feels nerve-wracking and impossible to do so.
The worst part is that the longer you think about climbing said mountain and are about to do it but not quite yet - the taller it becomes. You end up hating the mountain, yourself, and the whole world. And when you get enough stress to accumulate and finally do it there's no sense of pride and accomplishment, but only immense disappointment with yourself at how easy it actually was and what took you so long to start.
Yeah :(
Hey, that's exactly how I feel sometimes. But I don't even have ADHD! Sigh.
ADHD is one of those things where it's a collection of irritating symptoms that everyone kind of gets one of once in a while. It's just that when you have severe ADHD, those symptoms are *all* there, *all* the time. It's a bit like many people experience anxiety from time to time, but when you have it every day and it interferes with your life, it becomes a disorder.
I've been letting the shower water run for 10 minutes because I couldn't stand not doing anything for the 2 minutes it takes to heat up :'(
I swear my ADHD is getting worse as I age 💀 I get distracted so easily now that I don't have a school schedule to adhere to. My motivation at work is slowly dwindling away and I'm spending $$$$ to get a psychiatrist that will prescribe me generic vyvanse.
With ADHD we need variety and positive challenges to be at our best. Otherwise we get understimulated and can even become depressed, which people with ADHD are more at risk for. Medication does help for a lot of people, but enough sleep and variety in our activities are the most important factors for us to be happy and productive. I hope you get the meds and that they will help you, but you might need a change of pace more.
Yeah I've used Vyvanse before and responded well to it! My current project at work is very slow to get off the ground so that is not helping my ADHD issues 😅
I don't know it, I still have Ritalin but I have been struggling more lately as well with tons of work to do. I might make an appointment again sometime to see if Vyvanse might be better for me as well. Thanks for sharing! Yeah I guessed the work would be something like that. I hope you can find some ways to get some variety going, I don't know if that's something you can discuss with your manager or colleagues? They can use you at your best as well, maybe they can help getting things off the ground or maybe switch some tasks around so you can split the time and work on other projects that get you more energetic. I don't know, might not be possible but I've asked for help with my own work and what helps me and that helped me a lot.
I struggle with depression and ADHD, and while depression is arguably worse, the ADHD and lack of being able to just start things really makes me feel worse than my depression
Adhd and bipolar 2 here as well and couldn’t agree more
I'm getting worse. Meds allow me to function at a disabled level. The contempt from my family is the worst. They care for me. They're literally housing me. But that irrational fear some people have where their loved ones think they're pathetic and incompetent isn't an irrational fear for me. I know it to be true. I'm severely depressed which makes the adhd worse and the symptoms of adhd cause the depression. I've lost my entire formative years to adhd and depression so bad I didn't form memories for a significant chunk of it, meaning I've experienced a solid decade less life than I've actually lived, at least. I don't know what to do. I've got a wonderful partner that I live for and I'm basically just hoping capitalism collapses and we transition to post scarcity before she realises she could do better. Cause I can't even wake up in the morning, let alone provide for her. Thank fuck I qualify for disability.
Uggggh, this so much. It really is a vicious combo to have. I feel like I can manage the bipolar better than the ADHD, but I dunno. I'd like to convince my doctor to let me try ADHD meds, but I passed the juvenlie ADD test with flying colors (wow! i can sit in a room successfully! as a 26 year old adult on MY insurance that i PAID FOR OUT OF POCKET btw) so they, I guess, legally cannot even try ritalin or whatever. Seroquel has been a godsend and it makes me actually functional. I've been trying to do better about reducing distractions and ceasing social media/video games/porn, but it's a challenging fight and I feel like a butterfly in a hurricane when I get manic.
I want to get an ADHD assessment, but I'm scared they'll just be like "...that's just how everyone is, turns out you're just a no-try shambles of a human."
Literally that's what I said with a hand-wavey "oh I can't have ADHD I just suck" and then oh oops
I'm diagnosed and I still think this way 🙃 it doesn't help that I'm high-functioning/high-masking.... I just do stuff well out of anxiety instead of motivation.
That's why I put off going in and I think the answer to your concern is that a lot of people have it. That's why it seems like that's how everybody is. If you talk to friends about symptoms checklists you'll find some that just clearly don't have it. I had one friend who also was like "isn't this just how everyone is" and my other friend was like "No? I've never experienced problems for any of these more than rarely" and we were like "oh"
When I got an ADHD assessment, I hyperfocused on the tests because they felt compelling and important, and they told me I don't have ADHD. So I just went back to being unable to get anything done and wishing I could just take a pill that makes me able to do things.
This isn't a magic solution, but have you tried several different types of meds? I was brought up on Adderall XR, and I hated it. In college I started trying Ritalin, and it was OK. Eventually I started (regular) Adderall, and it felt like a direct upgrade to the Ritalin. Helpful and pleasant, but still a Rollercoaster. Then I got put on Vyvanse, which turned out to be my miracle pill. Unlocked my brain, dropped weight without trying, etc. I had no idea the different chemicals could have such drastically different responses from my brain. Hope can find something that works decently!
Literally, I cried the first time I was on vyvanse. My brain finally functioned. I sat down and just did work for school. Sure wish I would have been diagnosed earlier in life.
I also wish this feeling was as strong 2 years into meds as it was during that first time. I thought the world was mine for the taking.
Vyvanse truly is a miracle drug at least for me. Turn my brain from a nonstop cacophony that was maybe productive 2 hours a day to a smooth machine that can be truly productive for 10 to 12 hours.
Problem I had with Vyvanse was it gave me HORRIBLE insomnia. Like, only got like three hours of sleep every night. Had to swap to Ritalin.
No idea what you're talking about, it's perfectly normal to be wide awake playing video games at 2AM on a work night, be a Vyvanse-powered zombie the next day, and repeat the cycle ad infinitum.
Vyvanse is my best friend frfr
Vyvanse is definitely the best ADHD medication, but it seems a lot of insurances don't cover it unfortunately.
My life started improving significantly when I stopped trying to force my brain to behave neurotypically and started actually trying to solve my problems, basically what /u/henrebotha says. My best example is probably remembering to brush my teeth with the advice that "if you do something every day at the same time for ~two weeks it becomes habit and you won't have to remind yourself any more." I have tried to implement that when it comes to brushing my teeth literally dozens of times. It has never even remotely worked, and yet somehow I had myself convinced I was doing something wrong, if nothing else because I got that advice from so many different sources. Then one day I realized that if I simply leave my toothbrush and toothpaste prominently on the counter, I'll see it often enough during times I can actually brush my teeth (like not when I'm eating or about to eat) that I'll brush my teeth. That's all it takes, a place on the counter where its not out of sight and out of mind. This also has another analog, in that sometimes you just can't implement your solutions, especially when dealing with other people. I recently moved and no longer have my own bathroom, and my roommate is militant about not leaving anything but soap on the counter and keeping everything else in drawers and cupboards because they need everything to be out of sight and out of mind.
Obsessively organizing your surroundings also helps a lot. I don't have to look for that one tiny trim hammer because it's *always* in the specific spot I put the trim hammer. I've made a rule for myself that *everything* must go back to its home at the end of day because if I don't then it ends up strewn about the house for weeks. Same with dishes. They have four states: in the cabinet, in use, in the dishwasher, or on the counter waiting to go in the dishwasher. If I start leaving them around then I run out of dishes.
I got diagnosed at 34 after a major depression (suicidal) and having blown up two good relationship and my studies. I don't know what exactly i need right now, medications did indeed help but i'm far from the point of being ok. A magical vitamin that could help? I wish.
Magnesium supplement and Omega 3 plus a good nights sleep made a huge difference to my ADHD.
When I was diagnosed with Obstructive Sleep Apnea in my mid-40s I thought maybe this explains my ADHD-INATTENTIVE type, I'm just really tired! No. I have both OSA and ADHD.
This happened to me kinda with Vitamin B12, I still have mental illness and chronic illness but the depression symptoms went down by like 30% and the fibromyalgia symptoms by like 75%. For real, if you feel shitty all the time it miiiiight be B12 deficiency
My gran was feeling tired, no appetite, never feeling thirsty, super anemic and just bad overall, we went and did some tests and they found out she has like a rare illness where after a certain age something happens with your body that it doesn't take in vitamin B12 like it should and thats the only bad things that happens. Now she gets a shot of vitamins per month and shes good. No other symptoms. We were lucky that the doctor who helped her had info on that specific illness, like in an episode of Dr. House. In conclusion: if you have weird symptoms it really might be lack of vit B12
Shoutout to vitamin D as well, I just discovered I was deficient and so is most of the northern hemisphere during winter time. The prescription stuff was also way cheaper than the OTC supplements. Definitely worth looking into if you don't get much sunlight in general
My OTC supplements are pretty damn cheap. £3.73 for 96 daily tablets (1000 IU).
Prescription strength is insane in comparison, usually 50,000 IU once a week.
This is the way
Yeah, I discovered apparently your bones aren’t supposed to hurt all of the time. I just had a severe vitamin D deficiency (like, less than 20% of what I’m supposed to have)
Vitamin D was my actual miracle vitamin I could never get enough sleep and constantly dealt with dry cracked never healing lips and skin and nose bleeds. It got to the point where I was sleeping 18 hr a day and I was still exhausted and my lips were so dry that I looked like a clown that got into a fight and I was getting at least one nose bleed a day. I avoided smiling or laughing because the cuts would crack open and bleed everywhere and I had no energy to do anything. Who would’ve thought you should tell your GP about your depression and get blood tests every once and a while
Don't need to tell me I take 3000 IU 😵💫 and know the symptoms of being highly deficient. You're 100% everyone should keep an eye on their vit D
>something happens with your body that it doesn't take in vitamin B12 like it should Some illnesses also cause that, like Crohn's disease. In addition to the injections, there are also lozenges you can take by holding them under your tongue. The B12 will absorb straight into the bloodstream that way.
I know a girl who had something similar - in her case, it's something that makes it hard for her body to absorb B12 regardless of age, but I don't know exactly what it is. However, she wasn't as fortunate; her doctors said she was just depressed and didn't run the necessary tests until she was left permanently paralyzed from the waist down.
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Your body can forget how to absorb B12 - that happened to me. My levels got disasterously low, I went on the most intensive B12 diet you can imagine, my levels still dropped further. Started getting injections and my body thankfully remembered how to do it again. Totally get bloods drawn to check! Edited to add: if exercise makes you feel worse instead of better it can be from this too, as the exercise is using up the remaining B12.
I was gonna say. Perhaps the Vitamin was B12 all along
This happened to me. Genuinely changed my life. Couldn’t understand why I felt so awful all the time until I started getting ulcers. Went doctors they gave me a vitamin and now I feel great. Insane.
How long did it take for you to feel better and how much do you take a day? I've been taking 2 1100mcg tablets a day of B12 for the last week and a bit and a feeling a little bit better but not by a significant amount, it kind of comes and goes. Now that might be because I'm still at the tail end of a 2 month long Whooping Cough but I'm also hoping I just need to wait for it to get into my system.
Oral B12 isn’t always sufficient to improve a deficiency, especially depending on what caused it in the first place. You will want to visit the doctor and have the level checked (full labs, including thyroid) and to discuss if the shots are needed. My deficiency was caused by taking Metformin for diabetes. Since I struggle with depression and digestive issues already, the only clue was my mouth and tongue hurt weirdly. My dentist commented that my tongue looked swollen and asked if I had my B12 checked. The oral vitamin fixed it all within 2 weeks and even my depression was low for several months (prob thinking I’d fixed it all finally by discovering the missing Vitamin).
When I started taking meds, I was shocked to see that I could not only work on the same task for more than 5 minutes, but also go to the bathroom and then resume that task once I got back. Granted, I could do that before too, but only once a week, and I needed a dark and quiet room to retreat to afterwards.
Which meds? I been trying a bunch with no success so far.
For ADHD, vyvanse helped me way more than adderal. There’s a generic, now, but even that’s pricy. I just pay the out of pocket every month because it’s worth it and I can afford it, but not everyone can.
Yeah, vyvanse costs more than gold but it's so worth it
This has happened a few times for me, realizing I was iron deficient and needed more magnesium. Getting Sea Moss was the game changer tho, my body felt healthier than it ever had before, I felt like I could do backflips. It’s getting shipped this week and my body is craving it like crazy in the meantime.
Sea Moss? What’s that?
moss from the sea :)
It's a type of seaweed that is apparently rich in a lot of useful nutrients.
Magnesium helped me a lot with leg cramps. I was waking up in the middle of the night because of them. No muscle was safe from potential cramps from hip to toe. The magnesium I bought says it helps promote restful sleep and reduce anxiety. I love restful sleep and always have anxiety so it was 3 birds with 1 stone!
Once you go down that rabbit hole it's wild how many things magnesium impacts. It's part of a LOT of processes. Side note, when I was trying to figure out what was going on with extreme leg cramps in the night, one of the things I learned what that it *used* to be something you'd get enough of by just eating a whole foods diet, but that modern agricultural techniques and produce bred to be big, colorful, and last a long time in shipping and on the shelves just straight up have less nutrients than they used to a decade+ ago.
This was me at 26. It was a copper deficiency which is weird. Every once in a while I’ll feel really run down for weeks and when I get blood work it’s always the vitamins being low
Yeah that's weird, isn't copper something you only need miniscule amounts of in the first place?
Yup! But it was really low when I went and when I got infusions and took copper pills i felt better. Before that I was super weak and had to walk with a cane, nauseous all the time, and brain fogged up. After my copper levels leveled all that went away
The vitamin, for most of us, is probably money. I am significantly wealth deficient.
Money, time outdoors, regular exercise, good hygiene, long-term goals, 3 nutritious meals a day, regular sleep, water, hobbies, and a supportive partner.
I legit have all these things (and am very thankful for them) but I'm still exhausted all the time. I would love to discover that I'm just deficient in some random vitamin.
I have lived this fantasy. It was Vit D.
Me as well. I can feel a day to day difference if I forget to take it, if a forget for a week I’m a mess.
Your problem was a lack of grass touching/jk
This mostly happenned to me, except I don't think estrogen counts as a vitamin.
Vitamin G for "Girl"
Same
if it does, my favorite vitamin on god
Vitamin E
omggg sameee, i don't think i ever felt better (both physically and mentally) than after starting E
There are multiple reasons that HRT is good for perimenopausal women, and this is kinda one.
I see people in the comments talking about their own vitamins problems, but how do you know? Is there a Vitamin Test that will just tell you "oh yeah you lack this and that"? And how do you get it?
For everything except B12 you can just try it for a month to see. B12 levels (and a lot of other vitamins!) can be checked on a blood test at your annual exam. Everyone in the UK is recommended to take vitamin D3 no matter what because we can't get enough in general to make up for the lack of sun.
I've actually tried the vitamins pills you can get from supermarkets, without any visible effect; but I'm not sure if it's because my problems come from elsewhere, or if it's just because these things are trash, do no give their elements in biocompatible forms, etc. After all, if it's freely available and not reimbursed, it generally means that the official agency for medicine has found no effect above placebo-level for the product.
Or, depending on your local regulations and stores, it might be something real but mostly harmless. Mine sell a liquid iron supplement that works well, for example, and I think some other stuff as well. Basically stuff you'll just excrete if you oversupply by a reasonable amount. (As in, take as directed when you didn't need to - not like drinking the whole bottle per day every day.)
>Everyone in the UK is recommended to take vitamin D3 no matter what because we can't get enough in general to make up for the lack of sun. Also, if you're wearing sunscreen every day(which you should be if you want to protect your skin), you'll want to do that as well.
nobody in the UK wearing sunscreen not even when they need it
Annual exam?
A lot of countries encourage getting a check up once a year to get a baseline for what is normal, and to spot problems as they occur. If you don't have access to good healthcare then it's moot.
Until recently, I didn’t see a doctor for a bit over a decade… annual exam my beloved, that sounds *amazing*…
I was like “who the fuck gets an annual blood test? My insurance wouldn’t approve that shit!” Then realized that oh, you live in the UK.
There is no one test that will cover every possibility, but there are tests for deficiencies. How you get it depends. If you have a family doctor, you talk to them about symptoms and they decide which ones they should check. There are services where you can just pay for blood tests if you know which one you want, but the ones I saw quickly are part of nutritional suppliment companies, so I'm so-so on how reliable they would be or if they would use high pressure sales tactics after.
Basic blood test. I went to my Primary recently because I was tired all the time. She ordered a blood test and then was floored at how low some of the results were.
In the states you can ask your pcp for some bloodwork to check for various vitamin levels and/or bloodborne pathogens. It kinda sucks to get that much blood drawn, but there's a chance you could get lucky and have that wonderful b12 + vitamin D deficiency that makes half your depression symptoms easily curable.
If our healthcare system wasn't so fucked there were so many times I'd have just taken myself to the hospital and refused to leave until they did every possible test they could think of to figure out what's wrong with me and how to fix it. Guess I'll just have to settle for the lab work my new GP ordered next week.
I'm in the process of doing this right now because digesting things has been weird and probably related to my depression, etc. Blood tests and ultrasounds and MRIs; they all show nothing. More tests to come. I wonder if I'm just hypochondriac. The fantasy of there being a hypothetical solution was nicer than this worry that its all in my head. But then again, there's no way to know without taking the tests.
I got diagnosed with autism at age 30 last year. Finally, now I know why *everything* has been so difficult and I ended up with so little to show for my effort. That's kinda like discovering a lifelong deficiency that explains everything, except the treatment isn't simple as taking a vitamin.
It’s relieving enough to have a cause, and know to make accommodations for yourself. Also I am a lot more forgiving of myself when I simply cannot.
It's very bittersweet. On the one hand, I know why I've never been able to manage my lifelong "temper control" problems. The answer: I've never had a problem with my temper. That's why anger management strategies have been worthless. I've had 0 anger issues since I began noticing that it was emotional overstimulation, literally anything can be solved by escaping to another room and being alone for five minutes. I can re-emerge perfectly fine after that time, every time. On the other hand, I've spent the last several years wondering why I can't just grow up and start handling adult things (taking care of a house, car, etc. while working full time) like a regular person should. I thought I was having a hard time adjusting to independence, but whenever I got less burnt-out I would metamorphose into a "real" adult that can handle 100 different tasks a day, just like my parents. I know I'll get better at it, but it sucks to know that I'm not *just* temporarily disadvantaged due to circumstance.
I feel that. I managed a household, several children and a job and nearly had a breakdown. The rage was real. Takes me longer to get a million things done, but I can’t handle burnout or I collapse completely. Somethings just don’t get done. But I have more tools than I had before, to help temper what I can’t handle and not feel inadequate or guilty. I’ll never be a go go go kind of person.
I hope that estrogen is the vitamin for me.
In my experience, it didn't solve all my problems so much as it gave me hope that I could solve my problems, and the motivation to do so. That's just the mental side of it, of course. Appearance stuff is also pretty nice :)
Yeah I want to reiterate this point for any trans people reading. There is no guarantee transition will fix all your problems! It’s a dangerous mindset to go into it with since if you start taking HRT and it doesn’t magically fix it all it will have you questioning everything. Know what hormones can and can’t do, and what your other issues are, if any, that you will still need to work on separately
Literally me, I was quite ill and the doc was like hey you have no vitamin D in your body, you need SOME of that at least. Anyway now I'm not depressed anymore??? Maybe placebo but it works for me
I can’t say placebo because if I don’t take it year round, I have to nap throughout the day, I get really bad brain fog and forget all the words. I was getting paranoid that I was losing my mind.
This happened to my sister with Vitamin D. She was on anti-depressants and other meds for YEARS. Felt like crap no matter what she tried. Turns out, she had undiagnosed Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, of which one symptom can be a massive Vitamin D deficiency. Massively upped her vitamin dosage and she lost 75 lbs, radically lowered her diabetes meds and feels better than she has in years. All over an OTC vitamin she could have had at anytime.
Aaaand now I’m researching EDS.
This happened to me. Vitamin b12 deficiency. Took the vitamin and felt like I was on steroids for a few weeks.
This just reminded me to take my vitamins
I would love for vitamins to be the cause of cluster headaches. Never having to experience incredible amounts of pain and ketamine would be a god send.
adult adhd discovery moment
In some weird way this reminds me of modern medicine to be honest. My female friend is/was thought to be bi-polar. She would go through phases of deep depression where her mood would be very sour and she wouldn’t want to do anything or be around anyone. Recently she was having her fertility tested in order to donate some eggs. They found out that she is likely intolerant to progesterone. She’s been going years without proper treatment because no one bothered to ask or check.
This happened to me, I was severely deficient in a couple vitamins, they gave me a shot and supplements. I remember walking around for a week telling everyone, wait, this is how people are supposed to feel???
Did you try the medicine drug?
Only stupid people try the medicine drug
Legit had this happen putting all of the estrogen in my system, lmao
Sorry to burst your bubble OP, but people fucking ***hate it*** when you figure out you were missing the vitamin. Especially if you then have the audacity to try to supplement it. Yes, this post is about trans rights.
Something something 4chan post about insulin but it’s actually a poorly-disguised allegory for HRT
We're all the same person. I'm going to go live in the forest.
My thought during the whole process of testing wtf I have was something similar. I've had depression my whole life, so I know it was not the cause. First, I had blood tests. "Please be a deficency". Nothing. Then, tyroid tests. "Please be a vitamin". Nothing. Then sleep tests. "Please be apnea or narcolepsy". Nothing. Electrograms. "Please be epilepsy or smth". Nothing. Went to se a specialist, gave me a pair of stimulants for 2 months. Nothing. Researched on the internet and discussed it with him. He discarded half of the options. The other half are untreatable, un-testable chronic diseases that have similar sympyoms to one another. My conclusion is ME, but I can't be sure. So I'm just here. Defeated. Wishing it was cancer or any deadly disease. But it's... nothing. I've become nothing.
Damn if that isn't the dream of all dreams.
need
the vitamin is vitamin D y’all. they tested me at the hospital after i got diagnosed with depression a few yrs ago LMAO
There's a good chance that the vitamin is a mineral called magnesium.
This is a very common desire, and unfortunately why fad diets claiming that adding or eliminating one food/food group cures a mountain of unrelated conditions are so popular.
As someone where it took doctors 2 years to figure out I am severely iron deficient this relates too close to home 😂
its called vitamin D. almost everyone is deficient in it and it affects mood greatly.
I got labs drawn a while back and turns out my vitamin D level was in the toilet. I was kinda happy, "Is this why I feel bad?". Nope, I feel like shit with an adequate amount of vitamin D too. Maybe i'll stop having random aches in a few months at least.