The Everything Health Guide to Adult ADD/ADHD

Expert advice to find the right diagnosis, evaluation and treatment

Carole Jacobs, Isadore Wendel

• Publisher: Everything
• Year: 2010
• Print ISBN: 9781605509990
• eBook ISBN: 9781440500008
• Topic: Medicine
• Subtopic: Diseases & Allergies

People with undiagnosed Adult ADD/ADHD suffer highly chaotic lives--and often struggle with problems such as fatigue, depression, drug abuse, and learning disabilities. The good news is that treatment can go a long way toward getting this condition in check. But before anyone can manage the problem, they have to be able to identify it, starting with a thorough understanding of what it looks like in adults. This guide helps you:

• Understand telltale signs and symptoms
• Find the right specialist
• Choose the right treatment
• Decide whether talk therapy is right for you
• Learn how to lead a happier and more productive life

This guide also helps remove the guilt and blame surrounding ADD/ADHD by reassuring that it is a real syndrome with a biological cause, and not the result of laziness or a lack of motivation or discipline. From diagnosis to life after treatment, this book will guide you with a reassuring hand every step of the way.

CHAPTER 1

Learning the Basics

Not so long ago, attention deficit disorder (ADD), which is now called attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), was a disorder experts believed was limited to children. The conventional wisdom was that kids grew out of the condition sometime during puberty and that symptoms did not continue into adulthood. Today, however, experts know that while ADHD begins in childhood, many people continue to have the disorder as adults. In fact, research now shows that 4 percent of the adult population suffers from ADHD—a total of more than 8 million people.

Origin and History

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In 1902, Dr. G. F. Still, a researcher who worked with children with behavior disorders, theorized that the behavior problems were the result of neurological problems, not bad parenting. For the next six decades, researchers used neurological testing to search the brain for structural abnormalities that might explain the symptoms.

During the 1970s, researchers began looking more closely at symptoms of hyperactivity and concluded that the disorder appeared to be caused by cognitive disabilities of memory and attention problems. Around this time, scientists also discovered that attention problems could exist without hyperactivity and were likely to persist into adulthood.

The Mysterious Condition
Finally Gets a Name

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In the mid-1970s, ADHD was finally classified as an official disorder. Studies around this time showed the condition appeared to be highly genetic. Many parents of children with ADHD also suffered from the telltale signs of ADHD, including inattention, impulsivity, and hyperactivity. But the adults were manifesting their ADHD symptoms differently.

Today, scientists agree that ADHD is a biological disorder of the nervous system that begins in children and often continues into adulthood. While the jury is still out on the exact cause of the condition, studies increasingly point to a chemical imbalance in three of the brain’s key neurotransmitters—dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin.

How ADD Became ADHD

To cover their bases, psychiatrists decided in 1980 to reclassify ADHD as two separate subsets. One was attention deficit disorder with hyperactivity, or ADD – H. The other was attention deficit disorder without hyperactivity, or ADD no H. On further study, researchers realized hyperactivity/impulsivity was actually a larger problem than inattention, and decided to change the name of the disorder to reflect their findings.

In 1987, the disorder was renamed attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, and reclassified as a disorder with not two, but three distinct subsets: inattentive, hyperactive/impulsive, and combination (people who display both inattentive and hyperactive/ impulsive symptoms). For the purpose of this book, the disorder will be called adult ADHD to comply with current psychiatric terminology.

Adult ADHD: A Silent Disorder

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Getting a diagnosis for adult ADHD can be a difficult and time-consuming process. One reason is that the disorder has as many faces as people who suffer from it and so very few people fit into the tidy classic diagnosis established by the American Psychiatric Association. Often, a parent doesn’t realize she has ADHD until her child is diagnosed with the condition and she realizes she has many of the same symptoms.

Essential

According to new genetic studies, one reason it may be so difficult to diagnose adult ADHD is that it is probably not just one disorder. Instead, it’s likely to be a cluster of slightly different disorders, each one of which may have its own causes, diagnoses, and treatments.

In addition, the manifestation of core symptoms of ADHD change dramatically as a person moves from childhood to adolescence to adulthood. For instance, perhaps both you and your child have trouble focusing and paying attention, or perhaps you and your child are both restless and at times reckless. In both cases, the two of you are likely to manifest your symptoms in much different ways. As you examine your past behavior, you may begin to see a common thread between your difficulties with playmates on the school playground and your problems relating to your colleagues at work.

The Hidden ADHD Epidemic in Females

Throughout the history of ADHD, research has focused almost exclusively on men. In fact, until the 1990s scientists believed ADHD was a rarity in females, affecting only one female for every nine males. Today, the ratio has been narrowed to one woman for every two men. Exciting new research is finally untangling the mysteries of how ADHD affects adult women, what causes it, what it looks like, how it differs from the condition in men, and why it has remained an invisible disorder until just recently.

In many cases, researchers failed to notice that many females were also suffering from ADHD simply because their symptoms did not manifest in the same ways. Boys and men with the disorder tend to be aggressive, hostile, and occasionally violent, exhibiting the sort of behavior that gets you put in the corner in grade school, in trouble with the law in your teens, and fired from a job as an adult.

On the other hand, girls and women with ADHD rarely manifest the loud, angry, hostile behavior exhibited by boys their age.

Instead, they tend to be shy and a little spacey, although those are just two of the many ways females manifest ADHD differently than men. Here are some of the major ADHD symptoms in girls and women.

Women tend to blame themselves for having the disorder and turn their depression and anxiety inward, while men are more likely to rage against society or exhibit hostile or violent behavior.

Hormonal swings in women are highly likely to exacerbate symptoms of adult ADHD in women. Unfortunately, they are often written off as symptoms of premenstrual syndrome (PMS), pregnancy, or menopause.

Studies show that teenage girls with ADHD suffer more from peer pressure and rejection than boys do, possibly because girls may put a higher priority on being accepted by their peers than boys.

Women with ADHD typically have a lot more trouble expressing their anger than men do, and they tend to take it out on themselves rather than on society.

Many careers that are traditionally considered to be the domain of women are not very friendly to women with ADHD. For instance, teachers and nurses must be organized, detail-oriented, and able to meet important deadlines—skills that many women with ADHD find difficult to master. Being a housewife can be equally overwhelming, especially if a woman has to manage the bulk of the household chores, finances, and child care duties.

More women than men with adult ADHD are single parents, and more than half of women with ADHD are raising at least one child with the disorder.

Research shows that women with adult ADHD get less support and acceptance from husbands than women give husbands with the condition.

The Accidental Diagnosis

Studies show that three out of four adults diagnosed with ADHD are also suffering from associated conditions like anxiety and depression. Many adults first learn they have adult ADHD when they seek medical help for depression or anxiety and learn that these conditions are the symptoms of a far more complicated disorder.

The Problem with Overlapping Conditions

Getting the right diagnosis can also be complicated by the overlap between the symptoms of adult ADHD and the symptoms of other common psychiatric conditions, such as clinical depression and anxiety. In addition, many undiagnosed adults have found ways to “live with” adult ADHD so it doesn’t disrupt their lives. They learn how to mask the symptoms so well that their family physicians never suspect they have the disorder.

Differences Between Childhood and Adult ADHD

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While few studies have tracked the progress of ADHD from childhood into adulthood, researchers do know that some basic symptoms of ADHD change as you age. Some symptoms, such as hyperactivity, restlessness, agitated behavior, and the need to move or make excessive noise, tend to fade. Others, such as chronic disorganization, the inability to plan or prioritize, and the inability to meet deadlines, tend to get worse.

Why ADHD Is More Serious in Adults

Adult ADHD impacts every area of an adult’s life, from his ability to make a living to his chances for a happy marriage and family. Because of the all-encompassing nature of the condition, experts believe it is far more serious and life-threatening than the childhood version of the disorder.

Essential

One hallmark symptom of adult ADHD is an inability to self-regulate. This affects a wide range of things, from your ability to perform tasks and jobs to your ability to organize and prioritize at work and at home so you can remember to get things done and plan for the future.

As a child, you might have engaged in such risky behavior as doing wheelies around the playground on your tricycle. But as an adult, your risky speed-demon habits could be potentially deadly to yourself and others. This is particularly true if they include such activities as flying down a black diamond slope at a ski resort before you’ve mastered the snow plow. Racing through a project at work without reading the fine print, and getting fired as a result, is another way that reckless behavior can seriously impact an adult.

In a...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Foreword
• Introduction
• 1: Learning the Basics
• 2: Understanding the Symptoms
• 3: Searching for Causes
• 4: The Many Faces of Adult ADHD
• 5: Understanding Diagnostic Challenges and Limitations
• 6: Meet the Screening Tests
• 7: How You Can Help Your Doctor
• 8: Choosing the Right Treatment
• 9: Treating with Medication
• 10: Exploring the Benefits of Talk Therapy
• 11: Weighing the Role of Behavioral Modification
• 12: Healing Through Neurofeedback
• 13: Weighing the Effects of Diet and Environment
• 14: Financial and Legal Issues
• 15: Making Necessary Lifestyle Changes
• 16: Coping with Adult ADHD in Social Settings
• 17: Harmony on the Home Front
• 18: Can This Relationship Be Saved?
• 19: Overcoming Workplace and Career Challenges
• 20: Finding the Silver Lining of Adult ADHD
• Appendix A: Symptoms Checklist
• Appendix B: Additional Resources