Image not quite for ADHPeeps but I feel this sort of thing happens regularly for us as well.
This is caffeine acting on brain and unlikely any change in blood pressure per se. You can try measuring bp a few time before and after chugging red bull to see how much it changes.
Oh it does change, it's still a stimulant. AFAIK basically all stimulants increase blood pressure. The degree varies of coarse...
I used to be the one weirdo who could shoot an 8 ball of coke and be perfectly calm, at least for a few minutes until it started to wear off. That was a long time ago, and I was just diagnosed a couple years ago.
So much fucking coffee. My god it was too much.
My dad still swears it was the red bull and snickers and not the medical ...
Wild that someone would think the Red Bull and Snickers are doing it directly without going through the some-ingredients-in-these-products-are-affecting-your-body route.
ADHD, self-medicating behaviour from childhood in the form of candy seeking. Impossible impulse to control and occurs when experiencing a dip in concentration/boredom. It helped me focus for very brief moments.
I was put on bupropion for depression and, while it didn't work perfectly, it worked far better than the other antidepressants I had been on. Then I found out that it's frequently used off label to treat ADHD and I started to have some suspicions. Long story short, now I'm diagnosed and on a stimulant and it's amazing.
Mini thins (gas station speed) and Red Bull. At least that’s what I did in the 90s before I was diagnosed. Oh and pulling all nighters since my tired brain worked more like a normal brain.
I became a pothead because it made the cacophony of thoughts in my head stfu. I didn't realize that my thoughts were like that because of ADHD, since I was only diagnosed in my 30's (started smoking weed when I was 19).
This seems sooo extremely common among software engineers.
Snap
When I was a kid I read that mint flavorings can help the blood vessels in your head dilate, increasing the amount of blood flow to your brain and therefore helping you do better on studying and tests.
Whenever I have a test to study for or to take, I made it a point to keep some sort of mint flavored candy around, and consistently across the board I have always done better on tests than my peers.
That being said, it is entirely plausible that this is a placebo effect, but I like my placebo and it works for me. Perhaps it will work for you as well.
I've heard that chewing a specific flavor of gum while studying for a test, and then chewing the same flavor while taking the test, tricks your brain into recall by association.
this is how i justified going to exams stoned back in my undergrad days. i studied high, figured i better test high.
It was incredibly common at my school for teachers to hand out lifesaver mints before standardized tests.
I always start chewing gum before a licensing exam. Minty gum and not fruit gum. It also helps me concentrate and eat less. When I was skinny skinny I chewed gum like a candy kid and worked retail.
I think I got this from lemmy?
Look, as long as I can convince myself to go to sleep and not hyperfocus on whatever is in front of me I'll be fine. Problem is, it's a 50/50 toss up whether or not I can ignore my brain on any given night.
I'm in the middle of diagnosis. I do have Bipolar and have been medicated for 4 years or so. My shrink and I suspect that ADHD is there. It seems to be a common comorbidity. I was self-medicating with alcohol, until I got to a very bad place.
Both bipolar and ADHD have a frightening percentage of substance abuse, often as a form of self medication.
I went to the shrink around the time when I got sober. Quitting drinking and meds literally saved my life.
BTW, I got sober thanks to SMART Recovery. SMART is science based and behavior oriented, so even if you don't have an addiction problem (substances and/or behaviors), You can learn a lot of stuff applicable to behavioral problems. Much of the program is based on Cognitive Behavioral therapies, no higher power required. Confidential. Free.
Holy shit! This post gave me an epiphany.
I was a cartoonist for the student newspaper, and drawing a funny comic strip every day was grueling. But I did better when I drank a Coca Cola before I started to brainstorm. Later, guess what - diagnosed ADHD.
Anyway, I probably took 2-3 hours on each comic, and was paid $5 per strip. And spent some of that on soda. So, it was a labor of love and foolishness. Also, I was semi-famous on campus for edgy cartoons that were occasionally funny, most of which I am embarrassed about in middle age.
Alcohol. Before getting formally diagnosed and medicated, drinking was the only thing that would quiet the inner restlessness. It worked but it's not a healthy lifestyle at all.
This is something I like to bring up to people who are hesitant to medicate their kids. Yeah, I know you think Timmy is fine because he's not completely failing in school, but you should at least show Timmy that he has options and that it's OK to talk to a doctor and take medication if he needs it. He doesn't have to rely on Jack Daniels and Folgers to eek his way through life.
Reminds me of when people find out I do cocaine and Adderall.
"Oh Michael likes to get high"
No, Michael doesn't have health insurance and has very severe adhd. I can't live a normal life without stimulants and drug dealers are cheaper than doctors. welcome to America.
pseudoephedrine
my Adderall script is in USA insurance purgatory and pseudoephedrine is probably the only thing keeping me employed tbh
Same, was taking a few Advil Cold and Sinus pills a week which are sold on the shelf in Canada till I recently got a Strattera prescription (which is causing constipation unfortunately)
here in Freedom Land we gotta show ID to get the pseudoephedrine and promise not to be naughty and make meth with it lmao
oof. sorry to hear you got such an unpleasant side effect :[ i can't recommend psyllium husk enough. i don't know how ancient humans who didn't live near psyllium plants managed to survive 💀
I was about to say same!
Accidentally, though.
The story is roughly like this: I had bad allergies and fucked up sinuses - I thought. Got sinus headaches every day during bad periods. Lots of sinus infections. Went on for like 10-15 years through periods of being intense and focused and stressed with sinus issues and periods of checking out, being aloof and dippy without sinus issues.
In 2019, sinus rinses, pseudoephedrine, nose sprays, and pain killers weren’t doing it. Resigned myself to having to get the sinus roto-rooter, where they scrape out your sinuses to make it easier for all that junk to drain off. So I went to my doctor to get that in motion. Doctor sent me to an immunologist, who sent me to an ENT, who sent me to a neurologist, who looked at my records for 30 seconds, declared that I had migraines, and sent me on my way with a preventative script.
I was so fucking mad. Didn’t think he could possibly be right. But he was. And then Covid hit and by the time things got normal again, I realized I wasn’t able to work like I was before. So I got got tested for ADHD, and… here I am, rambling.
Pseudoephedrine has been my thing lately when I need that extra focus for work. Out of curiosity, what dosage do you take?
started with 30 mg but now need 60 (sometimes 90 on bad days...) but I try my damndest to not take them unless I feel like I'm genuinely going to fuck shit up at work. Taking cold medication off label makes me feel guilty 😞
I also tried the 12 hour extended release (120 mg) but that fucked up my sleep which is already precarious
I fucking hate that half the days at work I'm constantly sniffing from the runny nose it induces. Makes me paranoid that my coworkers will think I'm hiding being sick (or worse, a coke habit...)
The lighter side of ADHD