It's taking a year to find the right meds. Common? What to expect?
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Hi,
The past year, I have been diagnosed with adult ADHD-Inattentive, GAD, MDD, Adjustment disorder at various times by the same MD. My MD has tried me on Prozac, Cymbalta, Vyvanse, Zoloft, Adderrall. I noticed much better concentration and even a feeling of cheerfulness (with no GAD or MDD symptoms!) with Vyvanse combined with Zoloft, but my MD had me stop Vyvanse after a month due to side effects. When I was put on Adderall instead, I did not feel any noticeable change at 10mg dosage. My MD has been trying me on various meds for almost a year, and while my general anxiety levels have gone down and MDD improved, my ADHD symptoms are the same as ever.I understand that individuals can react differently to the same meds, that individuals can react differently on different dosages of the same med. I expected this to take a few months, max half a year. But it’s been almost a year, and I have been tried on SSRIs, SNRIs, Stimulants. Now my MD wants to try me on Concerta. At this point, I am beginning to question whether I should try yet another new category of meds, or whether I should get another psych opinion!
I was given the ADHD diagnosis by someone else after about 10 hours of detailed tests. To my memory, my executive functioning was not as good. I consider myself high functioning depressive, in that I do keep a FT job, and I attend to parenting duties to two young kids. But I am struggling with all kinds of mental symptoms, whereas not every parent out there working FT with two young kids is on psych meds.
Before this, I had never been on meds. I had something happen to me last year that brought up issues to the surface (avoidance behavior and whatnot). I decided to try to at last try to treat it. I started weekly counseling and psych meds.
What to expect in terms of time frames, and should I keep on trying new meds. How many of these meds does one try before saying enough is enough and switch doctors or focus the time and energy to non-meds options, such as exercising, meditation, yoga, whatever? At the moment, I have not been doing any of the non-meds options. But I will make the time if that is more effective (I’ll have to drop kids classes or farm out cleaning or dropoffs or whatever).
Thank you.
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For some people, the road to getting the right medications and dosages can take a long time. It can certainly be a frustrating process.
Take a look at this Guide to ADHD Meds:
And this article too for some insights to help with your journey:
Penny
ADDitude Community Moderator, Author & Trainer on Parenting ADHD, Mom to teen w/ ADHD, LDs, and autism
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