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A recent study published in NeuroImage: Clinical used state-of-the-art neuroimaging techniques to determine what brain changes may cause childhood ADHD to go into remission. Christienne Damatac and colleagues looked at brain changes in those diagnosed with ADHD over 16 years. Their findings suggest that improved hyperactivity and inattentiveness symptoms result from increased white matter density in the brain region known as the left corticospinal tract. Additionally, reduced ADHD symptoms were associated with more neural connections in the same region.

ADHD is a common childhood diagnosis. However, some are fortunate enough to grow out of the challenging symptoms by adulthood, and others never do. Understanding why this is so may lead to important innovations in treating the disorder. One hypothesis is that the malfunctioning parts of the brain that result in ADHD symptoms are never able to repair themselves. Instead, for some, as the brain develops, other regions take over the responsibilities of the damaged areas. Dramatic and colleagues were curious if this was so and if these changes would persist over time.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S221315822200122X

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What were the strategies that they repetitively engaged in that compensated for the ADHD symptoms?

Right— were “strategies” medication? I’d like to know if medication had an influence in these brain changes.

I was a classic case of ADHD as a child. It went into remission when I was teenager. Came back full force as an adult though. Same thing happened with my friend.

As an adult, diagnosed with ADHD at the age of 44, apparently illegal drugs and alcohol are not considered appropriate strategies.

As someone diagnosed with it for over 20 years, not a trained professional but I have studied a lot. I’ve never heard of remission in the context of ADHD. My best guess: ADHD remission = masking of symptoms, adaptation, coping mechanisms. How else would a neurodevelopmental disorder go into “remission?” It’s compensatory behavior imo. How this would translate to the imaging results I’m not sure. This is really interesting stuff!

I know, right? You mean going to the clubs, getting hammered, dropping x, or smoking weed, and pretty much having sex with anyone, anytime, anyplace 5 nights out of 7 isn’t going to workout?

I mean if the disorder no longer impacts their life, but is still physically there, maybe that's what they're calling remission? And if the compensatory behaviors aren't negatively impacting their live, are they bad?

There’s a link to the full study in the article which addresses medication usage. But no, I can’t see drawing that conclusion from study.

Remission would be great. I didn’t get diagnosed until I was 27, and I felt mine got worse as I got older. I have unlearned a lot of my masking behaviors (which were actually high anxiety behaviors), but I would still be crippled without my medicine.

No, being able to cope is definitely a good thing. Didn’t mean to seem like I was against it!

I have heard of remission for bipolar disorder, which is usually when someone has gone an extended period of time without having a manic episode. But that type of remission is only achieved through the use of medication, 99% of the time. I would assume the same for ADHD honestly, but the difference to me is that bipolar isn’t a neurodevelopmental disorder present at birth. And, most people don’t get full relief of ADHD symptoms even with meds. I guess I’m just stuck on the use of the word remission here because what I’ve read up til this point is that the concept of people growing out of ADHD is outdated and incorrect, and that people learn to compensate and work around their symptoms, but they don’t actually go away.

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Yeah there's definitely no "remission" that I've ever heard of, and certainly not experienced. I'm much more functional now than I was as a child, but it's not because the ADD is gone. I'm simply better at dealing with it (and also medicated).

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How is it before and after meds? I have been diagnosed recently and the doctor is suggesting meds but I am afraid to loose my hyper focus if I take them.

Apparently I'm a super high functioning adhd, only medicated recently after like 20 years. Although I coped extremely well (did well as engineer), it was so much extra effort. Now that I'm on meds I see how hard my life was before. I would never call high function adhd remission myself..

For example, I was always exhausted and scared of context switching because I knew distractions would ruin my process. Now that I'm medicated there's no fear and in fact I'm very good at multi tasking. At the end of the day I'm not exhaused and defeated like I was before when i was supposedly in "remission".

“Remission” doesn’t mean “gone”, though.

It might be related to the frontal lobe developing in the late 20s causing remission of executive function deficits.

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imagine if the only reason it's called a disorder is because the brain functions differently than the 'societal normal'. like, if you grew up in an environment that was designed specifically for adhd and supported your potentials, you could have become those crazy smart people who are also a bit coo-coo (by societal norm standard). but instead, you had to take meds that basically 'averages' your brain so that you can participate in the society.

I think you can nurture yourself to be that, even far later on. Might need to eat some shrooms a few times, but its possible. I'm going for coo-coo crazy good at the moment.

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Yeah, and I don't think it's impossible for people to remap their mind to some extent. We all know that therapy can prove fruitful for people with depressive disorders, producing documented change in gene expression. I don't see why targeted treatments couldn't work similarly for people with ADHD.

From what I know, ADHD is marked by an anti-synchronization between two brain regions where normally it is synchronized (so for ADHD people, those brain regions activate when the other doesn't activate, for normal people they work in sync)

I'd guess remission is when those two brain regions start correlating synchronously again.

I don't see how large parts of the brain being developed and linked together in a different way (sometimes vastly different) is something that you just... Grow out of. So I reckon you're right; remission is just... The outward-facing symptoms subsiding.

I gained the ability to focus on things my brain couldn’t focus on. The first day I took them I cleaned my apartment with no problems. I almost cried. My hyper focus is untouched.

Well it depends. Do you want emotional regulation, being able to focus, not be time stressed, become more organised and have a calm brain? Then yes, take meds!

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This is what I needed to hear, I think my job and professional success are dependent on my hyper focus to deal with emergencies, but my house… is a stressful mess. Could I ask what your meds are?

My job depends more on my hyperfocus, so being able to make money for food comes before my struggles on everyday life.

I started off at 27mg of concerta, which is a slow release Ritalin. I was given 5mg of Ritalin to take as needed in the afternoons if my focus was waning. When I was studying for the bar this summer I was upped to 36/10. It’s easy to build up a depends so it’s not something you want to take every day.

Well you will have a good focus non the less. So all i could advice is to simply try it out, as that doesnt hurt anyone. I can still very much hyperfocus on things even on medication!

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There’s no issue with hyper focusing, there’s a brief initial adjustment period. Like on Concerta you’ll get hungry less, there was a bit of eye tingle at the start and some people report a headache. But after about a week your body adjusts.

If anything I find that that it feels hard to move my focus away and find interruptions more irritating on Concerta than without.

I got it when I was 34 and it’s a literal night and day difference in how well I handle my job. I can sit down and just do work, and procrastinating is a deliberate choice rather than a doom spiral.

I think this is pretty much right but it seems like they're saying that the consistent masking, coping, etc is literally changing the brain into a "less ADHD" brain. That seems pretty possible--our brains can be quite adaptive, especially since this is focusing on kids as they grow into adults.

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Your hyper focus is still there, but you need to force yourself consciously into it. So overall you tend to hyper focus less, but on things you actually want. I’m seeing some new and shiny piece of rabbit hole to explore, but now instead of going balls deep without second thought, I have yes/no prompt basically. Getting my pills was so to speak a full 180 turn. Maybe even 540 degree turn. When stressful event arises, be it home or work, I just focus on it as usual and see it finished perfectly. Start with lowest dose and see how you fare. Good luck.

>5 nights out of 7

Anyone who's been on reddit a while will know that 5/7 is a perfect score. So, can't complain.

Thank you, I think I am mostly afraid of the unknown, and I can’t even imagine what you are describing. But so long as I don’t become as slow on emergencies as other people I think it should be fine.

No loss of hyperfocus. Just able to aim it. Reduces appetite to low levels though so often have to remind myself to eat. Besides that it is a godsend.

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The original study looks at "symptom remission", mostly for hyperactivity and impulsivity. Kids and adults diagnosed with ADHD that experience symptom remission have corresponding increased white matter structures in their brains.

You have a lot of opinions for someone that hasn’t done this research and it is no less valuable or valid since you “have never heard of this before”.

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My kid is on meds and believe me, she still hyper-focuses on her favorite things just fine.

The corticospinal tract is motor though

Mine has gotten worse as I got older

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there does seem to be evidence that maybe a 1/3 or so of people diagnosed with adhd in childhood don't present with any impairment in adulthood (figures are ballpark, but people used to think everyone grew out of it, if only!)

the brain keeps developing till the mid 20s or so (it doesn't stop after that, but it's slower), and adhd is fundamentally a developmental delay (with people showing about a 30% age deficit in terms of their executive functioning, i.e. a 15yr old with EF skills of a 10-11yr old), so it seems plausible that for some they actually do manage to catch up, they were just developing more slowly than their peers, whereas others never fully develop age-appropriate executive functioning skills... it's also possible that early intervention itself (whether through medication or behaviorally) might help 'train' the requisite brain areas and so reduce impairment into adulthood

there's also a secondary component though that you touched on, in that adhd impairment is very context-dependent, and some may find themselves in a position due to their job or other life circumstances where it's no longer impairing, in that case it's not exactly in remission, the biological deficit is presumably still there, but you also wouldn't meet the diagnostic criteria for adhd (as it needs to cause impairment in at least two settings)... basically psychiatry's equivalent of 'if a tree falls when no-ones around does it make a sound' haha

(as someone diagnosed later in life it was kind of the reverse for me, there were hints in childhood but it wasn't too detrimental, however as educational demands increased the impact became more and more severe and I sought help for it, took 5yrs but finally diagnosed at 33!)

How hard was the process of finding a doctor and then how many appointments did it take to get to the “coasting on auto-pilot” moment? I’m pretty sure I’ve always had ADHD but am afraid of having to take a lot of time off work for dr appointments in order to get diagnosed/treated. Also worried about having to pay for $$$$ each visit…

Could the cause of some peoples adhd disappear and come back? Could it be related to stress or environmental factors?

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Results and Conclusion from the study:

> Results Clinical improvement in HI symptoms over time was associated with more fiber density at follow-up in the left corticospinal tract (lCST) (tmax = 1.092, standardized effect[SE] = 0.044, pFWE = 0.016). Improvement in combined ADHD symptoms over time was associated with more fiber cross-section at follow-up in the lCST (tmax = 3.775, SE = 0.051, pFWE = 0.019).

> Conclusions Aberrant white matter development involves both lCST micro- and macrostructural alterations, and its path may be moderated by preceding symptom trajectory.

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If you read the article, that doesn't appear to be the case. The new neutral activity was in the left motor cortex, whose function is to control the muscles and limbs on the right side of your body.

It's related to how when part of your brain is damaged, sometimes another part will assume the functions the damaged part was supposed to do.

Remission is a reduction or disappearance of symptoms, so yes.

This is Reddit, I stated clearly that I’m not an expert and this is just my opinion. I am allowed to have opinions, thank you.

Coping is likely huge. But in my case (ADHD diagnosed as an adult) I tend to avoid situations that would exacerbate issues that derive from ADHD. As a child you don't have that luxury.

Ever heard of neuroplasticity?

Remission is the wrong word.

Me too and I really hate it

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Perhaps I'm reading this incorrectly but... are they not just describing general neuroplasticity?

It sounds like what they observed was just neural pathways remapping as a result of deliberately repeated behaviour. This would be consistent with our existing understanding of how the brain can adapt to changes in input needs and sensory processing, no?

I borrowed a pill as a study aid. Realised I was planning dinner for the first time in my life and started crying. Taking a pill made me realise I should get a diagnosis.

I don't understand why scientists expect the brain to "repair" itself. An ADHD brain develops the way it does not because of some aberrant process, but because thats how it was supposed to develop. The fact that its a developmentally different brain does not mean that the brain is "damaged".

Right? But which clubs? There’s so many!

How did you mask it?

You can take advantage of neuroplasticity for creating habits and behaviors to help you manage your deficits, but you can't neuroplasticity your way out of premature dopamine reuptake or low acetylcholine receptor density (two common properties of ADHD brains). The difference is important.

Yes. They captured neuroplasticity on scans and correlated it with symptoms. It’s good data. Not shocking in any way but interesting. Of course The symptoms screeners they use are very subjective, so that is a major limitation.

Noted. Good clarification!

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Im sure others have mentioned it but just chiming in with my experiences. Meds will give you the ability to focus and regulate yourself but you still have to actually do it, and i specifically mean scheduling and adhering to a food plan. You need to eat, and drink water and medications like Adderal/concerta/vyvanse will decrease your appetite and potentially thirst. Sometimes fasting is good, this is not one of those times. I seriously cannot stress this enough for medical reasons you should go into it mindful of the side effects and how it can cause damage without strict and proper diet.

I was told that this was a long-term result of medication and therapy when I was 9 in 1994. This is endlessly satisfying to read for me.

I was told that this was a long-term result of medication and therapy when I was 9 in 1994. This is endlessly satisfying to read for me.

I was told that this was a long-term result of medication and therapy when I was 9 in 1994. This is endlessly satisfying to read for me.

I was told that this was a long-term result of medication and therapy when I was 9 in 1994. This is endlessly satisfying to read for me.

I was told that this was a long-term result of medication and therapy when I was 9 in 1994. This is endlessly satisfying to read for me.

How can one get "remission" on a neurology you were born with? Isn't ADHD a lack of dopamine reseptors, among other inherrent physical aspects? I know the brain is adaptable, but remission sounds like it is a disease, which it is not. You probably just had a lifestyle that fitted well with your teenage ADHD brain? I lived totally functionally until I was 19, when my life went into the shitter because of changes in my life.

Yeah, the phrasing in this OC rubs me the wrong way. People can't learn away fundamental workings of their brains... This is like saying you can learn away...your eyesight?

It makes sense to me also. The compensation (and masking, etc) someone with unmedicated ADHD has to do is relentless and constant.

After awhile, with much difficulty, it does become subconscious and automatic, much like a part of your personality — or the ADHD itself.

So I’m not at all surprised to hear that it manifests in changes to the brain.

Because modern society is often not condusive to our good brain health. We have to find the few healthy pathways that are left to us. We would have been the bomb 10 000 years ago though.

Probably "I'm OK now (and possibly don't want the meds anymore)" is considered "in remission"

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Hyper focus is my drug of choice, and Adderall did nothing to stop it. It just means I have more levels of concentration in between “meh, bored” and hyper focus.

From the source paper they link to: "Given our longitudinal design, we did not split our participants into cases versus controls. Through the years, symptom scores and diagnoses varied through time and participant characteristics changed from wave to wave (Fig. 2). Some individuals originally recruited as controls or unaffected siblings developed ADHD at a later time-point and others recruited as ADHD participants remitted, further highlighting the complex, variable course of ADHD. Alternative to a case-control categorization, ADHD can be operationalized as a continuous trait (Lahey and Willcutt, 2010, Marcus and Barry, 2011). In a previous cross-sectional study, we systematically showed that, compared to categorical diagnoses, continuous symptom measures are more sensitive to diffusion-weighted brain features in this sample (Damatac et al., 2020). Thus, all models here used symptom scores, optimally capturing the dynamic and continuous nature of the ADHD spectrum throughout development in this longitudinal cohort."

Also, only 2-3% coexisting anxiety seems like it is not representative of the average populace with ADHD. It further does not seem to address dopamine dysfunction.

You can’t get ADHD remission and the original guy is talking out if his ass.

Huh. Maybe I’ll have to give that one a try. I was on Ritalin from 11 - 20-ish, and then stopped. Which was… not a good idea, but 20 years of hindsight etc etc.

What meds you got?

Starting titration this week… bit apprehensive

Yea the doctor said I can try the one that is for immediate response first so I can see how it feels, I mainly just want it to be able to clean my house. I don’t think it can help me not loose things (object permanence is horrible).

Everything else I already have a solid coping mechanism, it’s just exhausting.

From what I understand it's not a lack of dopamine receptors so much as one's dopamine reuptake system being "too efficient" -- effectively cleaning up the dopamine before it's had the opportunity to actually finish doing its neurological job.

But yeah, ADHD in particular is a very multifaceted, complex, and nuanced topic. Being a neurological disorder already makes it such, but the way it intersects and interacts with social contexts makes for such a large variety of manifestations, many seemingly contradictory.

I did mostly fine as a kid because structure was imposed on me by school and parents...and because I had intense rejection sensitivity (and validation euphoria) which shaped my coping mechanisms. Yeah I hated and procrastinated on homework until the very last minute, but I'd ultimately do it because the prospective shame of teachers and parents being disappointed in me was overwhelming. Yeah I'd fidget, but to save myself from attention and embarrassment I'd keep them subtle and unnoticeable by others, like little tiny finger movements (imagining I'm playing an instrument -- in my case initially the recording and then the violin). Yeah I'd daydream and lose focus in class, but if there was a chance the teacher would call on me to answer something I'd be laser focused -- don't wanna disappoint.

Because of this no one knew I had ADHD, including myself. Always just figured I was just a "creative daydreamer" and "sensitive hopeless romantic". Never even considered the possibility as all I knew was the stereotype of hyperactive disruptive children with poor grades who couldn't focus where I was the opposite: a quiet and reserved kid with good grades who would hyperfocus on a good book or video games for hours (gee who would've thought that hyperfocus on things you're very interested in is itself a symptom of something called "attention-deficit" disorder.)

In middle school my family and I suspected social anxiety and got some SSRIs to medicate which ended up being terrible (made me feel incredibly apathetic to everything.)

And so for the longest time I figured I was just doomed to be an introverted socially anxious person.

Then adulthood came and I lost the externally imposed life structures of childhood and just fell apart. Still took me a decade to figure out I had ADHD, but in retrospect it all made so much sense...and my so-called social anxiety was primarily me subconsciously leaning into my rejection sensitivity as a coping mechanism to fight against other ADHD symptoms.

Well... in a way they are talking about compensatory action, right? You may not be able to "learn away" those biological differences, but the brain is extremely complex, and different elements of it are able to compensate for those differences.

Wow, you are me. I was exactly the same. Realizing in my 30s that I've lived with ADHD my whole life was such a relief. I was mindblown. It all suddenly made sense. Thought I was doomed to not handle life and have been constantly stressed for 15 years. I just hope I can repair my self esteem in time to save my health from further unhealthy stress

Yeah totally, but the way OP (and the article?) uses "remission" makes no sense. We are born with this brain. People don't grow out of their ADHD brain.

Yeah, the majority of what's expected, like 9 - 5, show up on time, keep track of tens of different things at once etc. is definitely difficult for ADHD brains without good coping strategies.

I would argue some jobs (data, engineering, dev work, especially agency work) play into the strengths of someone with ADHD, but the structures we build around them are limiting, since output + time management is often top priority, and middle management doesn't want to spend additional resources looking after someone or introducing flexibility.

I wish I had the guts to risk my good salary to be my own boss in a freelance creative business. But the risky money aspect scares me

When I started taking Adderall, one day I took it too late in the day and couldn't get to sleep at my normal time. I ended up reorganizing the hall closet at 3 am because it was the most engrossing project I could imagine. Good luck! I hope you have the same experience at a more appropriate hour.

Do you like museums? Going to a museum for the first time on Adderall is amazing. It's like being high on details. You can look at things, really look at them, and sit in the feeling without the constant buzzing urge to move on to the next thing.

Can I ask if you have any advice for talking to a doctor about it please? Up until I was an adult I very much had ADHD but as an adult it's kind of changed and the issue is I no longer have energy, it's more of an 'indifference' to everything, forgetfulness, ignoring reminders, not getting this done or completing things, that kinda thing. But the issue is because the 'hyper' part is gone, I'm concerned how seriously they're gonna take it and if they're going to notice it because I'm not a doctor but I have literally thought about this issue for years after a few friends that had recently been diagnosed with ADHD said they think I have it too, this was in my early twenties and they were about the same age, varying by a few years either side.

oh, it's the legal drugs that is considered the appropriate strategy.

I don't know, but I've been medicated for ADHD for 23 years, and it helps me manage my symptoms, but as soon as I don't take it, my ADHD symptoms seem to be worse than before I ever started medication. I don't think it should be considered remission if symptoms only improve while medicated, and then get even worse than they were in the first place when the medication is stopped.

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Sometimes I feel like ADHD remission is like sobriety.

“0 14 days since I forgot a deadline.”

With or without rice?

As much as I love the idea of saying that the brain is not "damaged", it is unfortunately untrue that the ADHD brain is developed the way it is "supposed to".

ADHD is in fact a neurodevelopmental disorder, which means that during key stages of development both before and after birth brain growth and connectivity was impaired and that leads to lifelong developmental and practical issues with the brain and central nervous system.

Even though we can't point to a single cause for the major known neurodevelopmental disorders, we can compare neurodevelopmentally disordered brains to brains that developed without major (or minor) disruptions to development.

For example, with ADHD, brains show less matter overall, especially in the prefrontal cortex (controlling executive function), amygdala, (emotional regulation), hippocampus, (memory and emotional regulation), basal ganglia (emotion, movement, intention and action) as well as poorer connectivity through multiple different structures of the brain. This isn't an exhaustive list of the regions that are affected, since there are multiple factors that affect development, some genetic, some epigenetic, some environmental, and on and on.

In addition, the chemical differences with dopamine and norepinephrine are less efficient, which adds to the executive function challenges and adds to the learning time needed.

Our brains weren't supposed to develop this way - many of us can trace very well what the likely factors were when we look at our family history. For example, my mother and grandmother both were heavy smokers while pregnant, and both experienced some fairly severe trauma when they were younger.

The result, for me personally, was that my mother's smoking resulted in me being born premature and underweight with trauma at birth, and poorly developed brain and lungs. I have ADHD with many of the resulting comorbidities from poor brain development that I can actually pinpoint. I have poor gross motor control, emotional regulation challenges, a learning disability, and the regular basket of ADHD symptoms.

My brain is developmentally abnormal. You can compare it to a brain that developed without the interference of smoking and trauma and genetic causes in the same way that you can compare my hands, which are developmentally normal, to hands that developed abnormally, say, with webbing or an extra finger. You can make the same comparison between a heart that developed normally to a heart that developed abnormally with a hole in it.

When it comes to "repairing" what we're talking about is building new connections in the brain to compensate for the deficits of abnormal development, which is where educators and therapists (emotional, speech, occupational, etc.) come in.

For example, the parts of my brain that control gross motor function, vision, numbers, spatial awareness - they suck. This translates, for me, into having a hard time judging speed, distance, counting, maths skills, and movement. However, through targeted, informed learning understanding my brain differences, I have been able to learn maths, play sports, learn to drive, and play piano. However, for me to learn these things, I needed a higher number of repetitions than the average learner, needed multisensory approaches, needed to engage different parts of my brain, and had to build different connections to "repair" the faulty connectivity that I came with.

In maths, for example, I really struggle with number concepts. For me to understand division conceptually I had to learn it with visual and verbal processing rather than just numbers alone; I didn't understand that 30/2=15. I had to first see it with a group of 30 split into two physical groups using manipulatives, then understand that when we say "thirty divided 'by' two", the "by" actually means "into two equal groups" and/or "if thirty is divided into groups with two each in them, you will have 15 of those groups". I had to literally write out those sentences to understand that 30/2=15.

And I have to do that for every maths concept, from division to fractions to algebra to factors - if not, the information will not stay in my long-term memory. I have uneven cognitive development, whereby my verbal processing and intelligence is much higher, so I built pathways to conceptual understanding through those areas of my brain to compensate for the damaged developmentmal areas that could not function normally. So in a sense, I have "repaired" my brain's number sense to that of a neurodevelopmentally normal brain at this point. Now I just know 30/2=15.

People with major neurodevelopmental disorders need to do this is many areas for many different skills and functions, and do all the time.

Could it be called remission if the medication worked?

I got a diagnosis at age 41, I take 100mg atomoxitine (generic strattera) and it has really changed my life.

I no longer life in a constant state of fight or flight, I can focus better and I'm a lot less prone to being locked on one task. Additionallynive grown emotionally and I can now empathise vs a best sympathizing.

Also things are easier, jobs, projects etc. I am think of a clear path forwards and carry it out

My parents made me start taking the meds after getting diagnosed in fourth grade. Took them up untill junior year of high-school. They do help you get uninteresting work done but the side effects are not worth it IMO. Loss of personality, depression when they wear off in the evening, loss of appetite, loss of interest in hobbies, insomnia.

A lot of the people who rave about them just started taking them. The more you take them, the less effective they are and you have to keep raising the dose. I’m at my happiest right now when I manage my symptoms with exercise and meditation. I do use adderall quick release once in a while if I really need to get some boring work done. I definitely would NOT take these everyday.

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I seriously doubt you struggle with object permanence. Do you know an item or person still exists somewhere in the world when you cannot physically see them? Then you developed object permanence as a baby, like everyone else!

If you struggle to find things after you’ve put them down, but understand that they still exist, then you’re struggling with remembering where you put things, sometimes called out of sight, out of mind. It’s very different to object permanence.

Interesting. My husband is off ADHD stimulants for the first time since 1977! It was a brutal withdrawal but he said he’s not symptomatic at all anymore — has many habits in place now that help. So, this seems ot be a real adaptation over time.

I have autism as well as ADHD. I’ve taken Vyvanse for over a decade. It hasn’t interfered with my hyper focus at all. If anything it makes it easier to get into it (which can be both a good & bad thing)

I suppose neuroplasticity could come into play.

One thing many of us with ADHD have is the ability to switch into hyperfocus. Speaking for myself, as I got older I gained more ability to deliberately engage hyperfocus.

It’s a bit tiring, but can be very useful. I think that learning to flip that switch into hyperfocus might also be part of it.

People with ADHD often forget what things they actually own unless they are out and visible all the time. They often buy duplicates because they forget they already have one. If that's not object permanence struggles, then what would that be called?

Your best guess? It explains it in the article.

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Yeah for me atleast the illness never went away, it's just I have drugs and a plan. The two most important things.

Good to know all this therapy is in aid of something. Hopefully this is still true even if you don't take any medication.

"Remission" is an odd choice of word, though.

Study finds wagamaga has surpassed 10 million post karma

My ex husband was addicted to Adderall he started taking at 12. It has A LOT of negative effects over time.

I mean, it impacted him the way you think about meth impacting people. It just ruined his life. One of the doctors explained to me that it acts on your brain in some of the same ways as other stimulants, and over time it prevents your brain from learning to live without it, basically. Anyway, I'm very wary of it. I never knew people could get addicted to a kid's medicine.

We all respond differently to different meds, if you try ritalin/ritalin types and they don’t work then def give something else a go too. I started on addy (and it works wonderfully) but it isn’t recommended for breastfeeding so I tried ritalin for a while. Did nothing for me. Back to adderall I went, and just adjusted my breastfeeding schedule.

The clickbait is real

Think about it like being able to hyper focus, without all of the extra noise.

You just -do- the task. Then it’s done. That’s it.

Getting on adhd meds has been life changing for me, in all of the best ways.

I got diagnosed with it but then I diagnosed with autism by 2 psychologists, one being my uncle who is autistic as well. So it all makes sense. There’s a lot of similarities between the 2 so you could be misdiagnosed or have have both

With or without legal Meth? (Adderall )

If you are taking medication, I expect remission will never happen

That is the approach my doctor and I are discussing, so I can have it available for when I have to get something boring done. I am 36 but i certainly wish I could finish unpacking my house after 3 years… and stop living in a messy pit.

I buy duplicates, I surprise myself with things I find in my closets. I do remember people but forget to talk to them for months.

I started meds last year and a job I am extremely interested in a few months ago.

Not only can I put 100% of my focus and effort into my work for hours straight, I can also do things like 'cancel my old car insurance policy' and 'schedule a vet appointment' before they become problems.

A big impact on ADHD is Progesterone and Oestrogen. This changes throughout your life not just in peri-menopause. Men also have changes in oestrogen during their lives that might be part of what you’re observing.

I was wondering the same thing. I can’t find anything that suggests the relationship between left corticospinal tract and executive function and attention.

Isn't that exactly what it is? It's so prevalent that I can't imagine that it's truly an 'illness', as much as an alternative brain development pathway that happens to not be very compatible with a lot of society's requirements today.

Developing new patterns and new coping mechanisms and strategies actually physically creates new neural pathways and could, in theory, lead to what one could consider to be a partial remission of sorts.

A lot of people are not aware that estrogen diminishes ADHD symptoms and puberty can be a positive time for some ADHD peeps. Estrogen is important hormone for both males and females.

My hyperfocus is my problem. My employer had stern talks with me because I missed appointments, because I forget the time and never notice when people talk to me when I'm working

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I believe this is what the article was saying. That the brain developed the compensation and this brain activity is what was observed. The subjects were observed from age 6 through age 18, so over the course of many years.

Adderall made me forget where my car keys where while I was driving with the keys in the ignition. At the time I was a teller, and my drawer didn't balance for a week. It was SO BAD XD

Yeah, my thoughts exactly. Here's a very telling quote from this article:

>Finally, the sample size was too small to claim cause and effect; there may be other factors that led to persistent ADHD.
>
>These limitations aside, this research provides neurological evidence that consistent use of strategies to cope with ADHD symptoms may be a way out.

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tldr; The article invalidates itself as wishful thinking but then assures the reader that it's valuable.

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I know that there's been a long-term notion that "most kids with ADHD grow out of it eventually" but anecdotally I've never heard of anyone for who it didn't get worse as societal expectations of adults took the place of the relative ease of childhood.

But isn't this basically saying that if you mask long and hard enough, eventually living a masked life just becomes your normal functioning, so you basically don't have ADHD, you're just expending more energy to be a slightly worse functioning regular adult?

How does one get diagnosed? There’s multiple people in my life that think I have it.

I understand what you mean but I also disagree with you on some points. My main issue is with the language used not the content of the article or your comment.

I don't believe there is any high quality data on this topic but from my understanding, most people with ADHD do not have an inciting event that "causes" them to develop ADHD. This is not to deny your experience, but I do not believe that it is the norm for people with ADHD.

My ADHD brain developed as it should have, there were not any environmental or biological factors that interrupted my brain development. That's not to say it didn't develop differently compared to the "average" person. I think that conceptualizing an ADHD brain as "damaged" gives it the idea that you can "fix" it to become a typical brain.

The most noticeable affect was that I felt for once in my life that I was able to sit still and think one subject at a time. I always felt like I was juggling multiple tasks at the same time In my head continuously but my thoughts slowed down. What I thought was anxiety bothering me all the time turned out to be mostly adhd. Now with the medicine I get anxious a little bit and get over it without overthinking it over and over the rest of my day.

>I don't believe there is any high quality data on this topic but from my understanding, most people with ADHD do not have an inciting event that "causes" them to develop ADHD.

There is a plethora of peer-reviewed research on this. The tough thing for most laypeople to understand is that development of ADHD, autism, and the other major neurodevelopmental disorders is multifactorial and therefore hard to trace and almost never determined by a single cause.

In your case, you are not aware of the causes for your neurodevelopmental differences, but that doesn't mean they don't exist, and they exist regardless of your opinion.

You are conflating the science of neurodevelopmental disorders with the social science of how we frame normal development and how neurotypicality is preferred. The heart of what you are saying is that neurodevelopmental disorders should be accepted and the people with them should not have stigma or be pressured to do the extra individual work to be socially accepted or function according to neurotypical norms and values. To some extent, this is true. We do need to be more inclusive. It's better for everyone!

However, the science of is remains that neurodevelopmental disorders cause deficits that are a significant challenge outside of norms, and the science shows that those deficits can in many cases be overcome thanks to neuroplasticity and advanced understanding of how to educate and medicate.

People with ADHD are more likely to be in a fatal car crash because of our poor brain development. We have poorer reaction time, are more impulsive, and have issues with our parietal lobes, and so on. However, with extra practice, medication, and activities that encourage growth in the affected areas of the brain, we can become good, safe drivers. We can "fix" those deficits to be able to enjoy driving.

If we were to just stop and say "nah ADHD folks can't fix their deficits," we'd end up with a blanket ban on ADHD drivers, which wouldn't be very inclusive at all.

I chose a combination.

and then there are those who were diagnosed as adults like me :(

Holy hell, this hit really close to home to the point that I got a bit emotional, reading it; I could’ve sworn we were living the same life. I’m no expert in the field nor topic, but have been struggling for years now in my adult life (I’m 27), to the point of emotional distress. I had always suspected the possibility of ADHD, but didn’t fully buy into it (mainly because I thought you had to be the textbook hyperactive, attention deficit description to fully consider it a possibility. The other reason being that I was an adult and it seem so odd to me to have these issues arise so prominently now; I just shrugged as just “life” itself), but reading this, I should get myself checked out or tested. Thank you for sharing your story, and I hope things have been much easier to manage for you in recent times

A lot of people identify with their ADHD and won’t take well to the idea that it has triggers and treatments that don’t require lifetime doctor’s prescriptions.

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My sister got addicted to Adderall,Ritalin, and Sudafed at the same time. She has been addicted for 20yrs and she moves and acts like a person addicted to meth . I believe she has psychosis/paranoia from it. She acts like any other addict. Causes non stop issues for the rest of the family. I believe she never had adhd and just wanted to something to get her moving before work. It’s destroyed everything in her life. So I say if someone feels they need medicated please take it slow and take the absolute minimum of the dose.

That's just forgetfulness, object permanence is understanding that objects continue to exist even when you can not observe them.

This is how I felt the first day when I finally found meds that worked, but they have since stopped being effective over the past few months, even after stepping up the dose twice :(

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Your take reflects my lived experience (anecdotal as it is). I'm medicated for my ADHD and it doesn't neutralise my symptoms at all, it just mitigates some and pushes me in other areas so I can work around or capitalise on my quirks. Since being medicated I would describe myself as high functioning and my career trajectory has rocketed.

I can often trick myself to force interest in a task so I hyperfocus on that and produce great work. If I'm faced with a bunch of tedious busy work (my bane) I then spend most of my brainpower thinking about how to streamline the process. Workplace loves that stuff, and I love removing unnecessary work from my to do list. Some of the more complex work I've done has been thorough and detailed just because I was personally intrigued by the situation and wanted to deep dive for my own curiosity.

A lot of the thought processes behind the last paragraph have caused massive issues for me in the past. Hyperfocus on the wrong thing, removing unnecessary work by just not doing it, not trying to be interested and then blowing it off etc. The root causes are the same symptoms I've always had, I've just learnt to reroute them in to productivity.

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FYI I can easily clock an ADHD individual online by their use of parenthetical comments (probably all those tangential thoughts).

Not making fun, I've been doing that extensively all my life.

This happened to me. I was medicated for ADHD for much of my childhood but as an adult I have been able to navigate life without any need for medication at all.

I've learned to trust them, honestly I think they act as my gut check on almost anything. A random, but actually deeply related thought always pops up to shake things up.

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Yeah if I think about it I mostly use them as extra context, a side note, clarification, off the record opinion or as a qualifier.

But now that I've said it you won't be able to unsee it. Scroll through the comments at all the people who are saying they have ADHD and see how many do it (my people).

This is true! Last year, I outgrew my need for medication. I am so relieved.

>In your case, you are not aware of the causes for your neurodevelopmental differences, but that doesn't mean they don't exist, and they exist regardless of your opinion.

That is as empty a statement as "every effect has a cause". Yes of course there are genetic, social and environmental causes for my developmental differences. I don't deny that at all. However, everything about the way we develop is multifactorial whether you turn out normal or not. It's wrong to say there are causes for my ADHD as if they were different from the same causes that make people develop normally. If that's what you mean, I 100% agree with you.

However, I want to be clear. I believe that it is inaccurate to say that there is a "cause" for ADHD in the sense that a virus is a "cause" for respiratory illness. This is what people hear when we say there are things that cause ADHD.

ADHD is not a monolith. There can be ADHD with a probable cause (your case), ADHD that is caused by a delay in brain development (kid who eventually grows out of ADHD), ADHD secondary to physical trauma as a child, ADHD that is "caused" by a brain that is just meant to be structurally different in its mature state. I would say that the first and third scenarios I describe to have "causes" for ADHD. The other two I wouldn't say there are causes. This is what I was referring to when I say there is not well defined data to describe what is more common.

I am in no way denying that people with ADHD have difficulties and that there are compensatory strategies to mitigate those difficulties.

I feel that my ADD (I don’t have ADHD) is in remission. I no longer miss deadlines/work to the last moment, or procrastinate. Maintaining my organizational tools doesn’t feel difficult and if I start to slip I recognize it as a sign to lessen my work load and refocus. I don’t have nearly as much trouble finding things or organizing myself, and I don’t forget or loose things as I used to. I feel, generally, in control of my attention and time management.

Repetitive behaviours, positive reinforcement strategies, therapy, excercise, and ayahuasca have been the enabling factors.