How do they expect people who are suspected of having ADHD to do all this paperwork for the assessment?? it’s like Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia being the fear of long words!!! WHO DECIDED THIS??
You must log in or # to comment.
The beauty of being diagnosed at 12, my mom had to fill out the paperwork.
The worst part for me is I was diagnosed at like 10 and my parents just went “nah” and forgot for 17 years until I got diagnosed again on my own
That sucks, I didn’t realize how lucky I was to have a parent who accepted the diagnosis and worked to help me. Sorry it was so ruff for you.
Oh it wasn’t as rough as it could have been. My parents did it mostly out of concern that everyone was trying to medicate me first and help me second. I’m much older now and doing my own doctorat in Psychology, so I think I mostly turned out alright.
I could see that. My doctor was against using meds until other methods were tried so I didn’t have the parental fear of medication. He actually got my mom’s permission to use me in the neurofeedback study for ADHD that helped the practice become accepted. Neurofeedback was a lifesaver for me, thanks to that I’ve never had to take any meds. Obviously results vary and others may not have the same results but I always recommend it when someone says their kid has ADHD or ADD.
I’ve never done neural feedback myself so I’ll have to look into it. Medication is only partially effective on me but doesn’t help with me improving my behaviours just reducing harmful ones. Probably even if I took meds as a kid it wouldn’t have been life changing, everyone is different in that way
It’s worth a shot. It’s not a cure and takes conscious effort to apply, but it does help, for me at least. I still have the behavioral issues, basic self-care, being on time, ect. But I work on those everyday, but I work in international freight and processing shipping documents is incredibly boring and repetitive. But I was the top performer because I was able to apply the concentration techniques I learned during nerofeedback, it took some trial and error, but eventually I found podcasts and audiobooks helped distract the busy part of my brain just enough to let me focus on my work.
Best of luck, and feel free to ask any questions if you have any.
If you have a kind and reasonable doctor, you might be able to get them to prescribe the meds to you off-label without an official diagnosis… Not ideal though.
It’s such a hassle, I needed to goto the county I grew up in and change my insurance or some shit to the county I was going to school in, I gave up once that barrier was erected, this was after waiting 3 hours at the behavioural center. I went after dropping out, ended up going to cc, getting reinstated and graduating while mostly unmedicated. (Used my sister’s adderal on days I really needed to get shit done, she got evaluated through her school which had a proper mental healthcare program)
Weed and nicotine kinda worked for me I guess, downside is im still addicted, upside is I use it as a reward and can motivate myself to do a lot of stuff id otherwise be too “lazy” to fo
You can try theanine and teacrine, might help a little
deleted by creator
If you go thru public medicine psychiatrists should be free and handle all that for you
the public health system in my state doesn’t touch ADHD or ASD assessments AT ALL, from what I’ve been told. I asked about getting an ADHD assessment done when I was with the public mental health clinic i was with, and they said i’d need to get it done privately.
The other thing i was gonna mention is miss the first contact or appointment by a few weeks or months. Like, before they set the appointment, let the referral sit for a while even tho they contacted you and try to reestablish contact in that delayed sense
It will help make your point and ease them a bit in terms of you not being 100% on the bloodhound focused trail for adderall
I feel like if you got a referral to a psych, they should be able to do it. Have you asked specificaly for a psych referral as opposed to an “ADHD Assesment”? ADHD assessment seems like a commercial product, whereas a psych referral does the same thing but its not some otc product getting sold like many ADHD Diagnosis/Assessment services (a non-zero sectiob of which are apmost certainly not a medical diagnosis that opens door for meds)
Remember, you dont give a shit about a piece of paper saying you completed the Mayo clinics 10 minute ADHD assesment or whoevers 24 hour assessment, you care about
- get a medical diagnosis
- from a medical professional
- who can medically+officially diagnose you with ADHD and upate your health records to reflect that
- and get you on and titrated on your med of choice you’ve settled into so your regular Dr feels comfortable taking that up when your psych senss you back to him for followups at some point.
- do it for free or reduced cost thru public health
Those are the things to keep in mind
Also keep in mind its probably not gonna happen in one session? I think had 2-3 appointments before I got setup with Concerta 18mg and between appointments 2-3 I had to keep a bipolar daily mood log ratings to rule out bipolar (hypo)mania periods cuz i mentioned sometimes I get in productivity cycles
yes, I have seen both a public psychiatrist and a public psychologist, and they both said that the public system won’t touch it. I was seeing both, and they both said that i’d need to see a private psychiatrist to get it done.
Where do you live? Thats crazy bro and also crazy backwards. So only the rich can get stimulants, basically?
Yup. I’m in Australia. That’s as close as I will say. But yeah, it’s pretty dumb. I mean, last j checked adhd was a mental health condition, and public hospitals, among other things, deal with mental health disorders
Its weird thats never been challenged in court.
You should consider filing a legal case, see if theres anything like ADHD patients rights groups or something pharmaceus underwrite and fund because they help furthet the pharms agendi
Maybe ask on the australian adhd reddit and see if thats always the case or theres some trick you werent aware of
How do they expect people who are suspected of having ADHD to do all this paperwork
They don’t…
Adult ADHD is something the system would rather not think about or acknowledge. So there are barriers in the way towards formal diagnosis.
Sounds like you are in Australia. You can contact the ADHD Foundation helpline for assistance with diagnosis and help filling out paperwork.
Do they help you with the claim the OPs made that only private expensive psychiatrists will do assessments?
I don’t know. I just know that they provide assistance with navigating the diagnosis and paperwork.
I don’t know what state OP is in but more and more states are allowing GPs to conduct diagnosis due to the huge backlog/waitlist there is for ADHD diagnosis(NSW, SA and I think QLD). The waitlist for public psychs is usually something crazy like 8-12 months. There is a big push to address the long and expensive diagnosis process.
I think the issue with that second part is GPs are generally reluctant to be the ones responsible for that. My sister piggybacked off my diagnosis to get Adderall from our previous family dr and she seems to be able to get it consistently but I would never do it that way, I prefer having the gold standard diagnosis that cant be challenged or cutoff arbitrarily
I dont live in Aussie by the way, just another commonwealth kid
My experience is that GPs vary wildly in quality of care but I do believe that there is pretty wide support from them to be able to provide diagnosis. The situation is now at a point that the backlog is overflowing into the hospital and mental health wards and putting more pressure on the already buckling healthcare system.
I haven’t been diagnosed with ADHD but I was looking into it a few years ago and had a 9 month wait for an expensive psych. Found out it was a tumor causing my problems, so I didn’t move forward with the diagnosis.
ah thanks. I will contact them tomorrow
Yes, it’s ridiculous. In my case there was only one way. Hyperfocus on it and do it all in one go. And I had a deadline to fill it out, that helped too.
If you managed to fill out the form, you don’t have ADHD. 🙃
My wife filled mine out. She was the one suffereing from my ADHD, affer all. It never really bothered me.
I got my diagnosis while going to an ambulant psychiatry, and bringing my suspicion up there is something that really paid off.
I didn’t have to jump through all of the hoops, and they did most of the paperwork for/with me.
I still had to do the assessment ofc, but I just had to ask.
What happens if you take the assessment? Does it make you eligible to file for disability or something?
Access to professional treatment and medication.
as sad as it is, I found out i can’t take stimulants. i have a bad ticker. So atomoxetine it is i guess. Still gotta get diagnosed though.
There are meds without stimulants like Guanfacin. Can work as good as stimulants but you need to take them for several days to have an effect.
At least in Australia, it’s less about the disability name, and more about how much it affects you. So just by getting a dx doesn’t mean you’re automatically gonna get on disability. I don’t know what other places are like. A dx alone is not enough to get disability. You need to prove it negatively affects you so much that you can’t work.
My own solution is getting help from a trusted family member
