having read a few books about ADHD, my best guess is that I have (and had) a moderate case of it.
when I’m behind the wheel of a car and X = “the stoplight in front of me” and Y = “that new Indian restaurant”, it is bad
Which is one of the reasons why I don’t drive.
If your ADHD is interfering with your driving, that does not sound like a moderate case!
But option #3 is much better: take medication for six weeks and see what happens.
My expectation is that you will likely get a lot of information from trying the meds for 6 days; 6 weeks sounds like a very long experiment. Quite possibly even 2-3 days or just 1 day. 6 weeks sounds like enough time to test out a few doses and types (time release vs not, for example) and form opinions. And possibly get an understanding of whether you want to take it every day or only some days and maybe even how to figure out which is which.
All of which is to say: yes, perform cheap experiments! They’re great! This one is probably far faster (if not much cheaper in dollar terms) than you’re predicting.
It shouldn’t really matter whether it’s one day or six weeks, but knowing now that it could be as little as one day makes it very salient to me how big of an error I made. It’s plausible that medication would significantly improve my life, and it only would have taken (approximately) a day or so, a trip or two to the doctor, and a few dollars to find out.
I tried Adderall and Ritalin each just for one day and it was totally clear to me based on that that I wasn’t interested in taking them on a regular basis.
I came to the same conclusion (of being totally uninteresting in taking any more) although it took me longer than it took you. I’ve had access to plenty of mixed amphetamine salts (generic Adderall), Ritalin and armodafinil.
If you’re looking for an experimental protocol, the ADHD MTA trial’s protocol looks pretty good.
It is described at https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10591283/ and explains in detail how the doctors decided when to try increasing the dosage. It supports evand’s assertion that improvement should be noticeable quickly.
If your ADHD is interfering with your driving, that does not sound like a moderate case!
My expectation is that you will likely get a lot of information from trying the meds for 6 days; 6 weeks sounds like a very long experiment. Quite possibly even 2-3 days or just 1 day. 6 weeks sounds like enough time to test out a few doses and types (time release vs not, for example) and form opinions. And possibly get an understanding of whether you want to take it every day or only some days and maybe even how to figure out which is which.
All of which is to say: yes, perform cheap experiments! They’re great! This one is probably far faster (if not much cheaper in dollar terms) than you’re predicting.
It shouldn’t really matter whether it’s one day or six weeks, but knowing now that it could be as little as one day makes it very salient to me how big of an error I made. It’s plausible that medication would significantly improve my life, and it only would have taken (approximately) a day or so, a trip or two to the doctor, and a few dollars to find out.
I tried Adderall and Ritalin each just for one day and it was totally clear to me based on that that I wasn’t interested in taking them on a regular basis.
I came to the same conclusion (of being totally uninteresting in taking any more) although it took me longer than it took you. I’ve had access to plenty of mixed amphetamine salts (generic Adderall), Ritalin and armodafinil.
Oh, maybe. That’s how long my psychiatrist had me try SSRIs before checking in so I chose that duration as a guesstimate.
Yep, those are extremely different drugs with very different effects. They do in fact take a while and the effects can be much more subtle.
Gotcha. In retrospect that actually makes a lot of sense, since kids in school are known to take Adderall for a night of studying.
If you’re looking for an experimental protocol, the ADHD MTA trial’s protocol looks pretty good.
It is described at https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10591283/ and explains in detail how the doctors decided when to try increasing the dosage. It supports evand’s assertion that improvement should be noticeable quickly.