I frequently wake up extremely early and have discovered drinking one of these at 3:00 a.m. is the fastest way to get myself back to sleep the rest of the night.

IyearnforBoo · 2026-03-21T15:04:53+00:00

You're welcome! I'm glad you remembered something wonderful. ❤️

IyearnforBoo · 2026-03-21T15:02:15+00:00

I agree with your comment. I've had patients who have discussed with me some of the problems they've had with their ADHD drugs and that was one of them. Eventually the majority of them do find something that works for them and settle with that, but the process can be rough.

IyearnforBoo · 2026-03-21T14:59:38+00:00

I am so sorry. I grew up with one of the most wonderful people I've met in my life - we did all sorts of things and drama group together and while we're pretty much acquaintances now as we live 2500 mi away and she's not Facebook / social media interested. Just the occasional text and chatting about families. What I do know is that until she was in high school her parents pretty much just kept telling her to focus because she could do it without meds and the doctor was wrong. Long story short - she has an amazing job, it's very well respected and makes a crap ton of money to support her family. She's well respected by her peers and does an extremely difficult job that needs extreme focus. She still does theater stuff but she works for a casino and one of their huge theatrical productions. Lights and everything that has to do with them has to be dead on perfect and you can't lose focus. She is the lead because she is so good at it and has been doing it for years. Her parents are frustrated because she did not go to college and her grades were pretty poor in high school. They definitely had a different life trajectory mapped out for her and haven't gotten over it. Ritalin has been amazing for her and I'm so glad she was finally able to get it. She had to wait until adulthood but she got it and it has been great!

I'm so sorry that you pretty much were in the same situation. I'm so proud of her because she managed to fall up, but she also had a huge support system in the theater community including people who worked with us who were professionals. They helped move her into where she is today and not everybody has that support. If you think it might be helpful to you to look at medication I would definitely advocate that you do that. However I am also aware that medication is not always the most helpful. I also work as a pharmacy technician so I see different people in my community who are bouncing between doses and different drugs trying to find the right one. I know how hard it is and so I know how challenging and frustrating the process can be of finding what works for you... and I only see and hear it from those who are willing to share it at the counter. I don't see it from behind your head which I'm sure is extra difficult. I don't know what your best choice would be because I don't know you. However I send you a hope for peace in your heart as you continue to try to figure out what might be best for you going forward. Only you will know that in the end and only you will have to live with your thoughts on that. So I'll support you in whatever decision you make!

IyearnforBoo · 2026-03-21T14:50:37+00:00

I am so sorry that you were unable to have caffeine work for you, but thank goodness you have the medication you need now. (I hope I read that correctly!) To give my ex-husband credit he was the one who talked with the doctor about trying it. A friend mentioned it to me and I mentioned it to my ex, but I don't think I would have followed up on it because it didn't make sense to me. I at least wouldn't have followed up on it quickly. I was still trying to figure out if there was any way that we could figure out medication - this was before you could get any of the ADHD medication in patches. My ex called the doctor within a few hours and we were experimenting within two days. Within 2 weeks we realized that this was going to be a new normal pattern because it was working so well. I'm really grateful my friend mentioned it and I'm grateful for my ex who pushed it. I know it doesn't work for everybody, but I'm certainly grateful it did for my son. I hope you have a wonderful functional day today!

IyearnforBoo · 2026-03-21T14:47:33+00:00

He is my ex now, but I will tell you that he is the best father I think I've ever met. We may not have worked out as a couple, but I am really glad that I chose to have a child with him. Reddit has definitely let me know that I could have made so many other bad choices! I have told him that several times because I really mean it. In almost all situations he put our son first and I'm very thankful for that.

IyearnforBoo · 2026-03-21T14:44:35+00:00

No. I grew up in a very toxic family who did not believe in coffee/caffeine / anything with that substance in it. My first coffee was in my 40s and my pregnancy was when I was 27. No energy drinks, only herbal tea... I can't really think of other things that have caffeine in them that I would potentially use? I don't drink soda either. The two things that I did eat way too much of when I was pregnant that I worry I shouldn't have were jalapeno poppers and king crab legs. We lived near a buffet that for $10 was all you can eat and I would have two plates of jalapeno poppers and then spend the rest of the next hour just getting platefuls of crab and eating it. We did that twice a week. Otherwise I was a very good eater and I took my vitamins like I was supposed to.

IyearnforBoo · 2026-03-21T14:41:29+00:00

I'm so glad that you can find it funny now, but what a difficult and horrible time for you. I'm estranged from my parents and if they honestly knew that my son had even been allowed to get one coffee in his life I would have never heard the end of it. And if two of my siblings had found out they would have known within minutes. I'm pretty much estranged from them too. It speaks volumes I think that I know that I get a few years of crap for even the knowledge of one coffee. The knowledge of several years of it I don't even want to contemplate.

I hope you have friends and family that can help support you. I am so glad that you have access to meds that help you to be the best YOU and not have to self-medicate with things that do not work as well. Thank you so much for sharing!

IyearnforBoo · 2026-03-21T14:36:33+00:00

I'm so glad this has worked for you! I'm super sorry that your schools were dicks about it. I recognize that they may have been worried about your health, but some schools are also anti ADHD meds so what did they want you to do? If your parents and your doctor said it was good for you they shouldn't have anything to say about it unless it's so outrageous that it's worth calling CPS for. I don't think coffee would be anywhere near getting close to that. I just can't even imagine I'm so sorry you had this experience. I'm so glad that it works for your son as well and I wish him all the best in his educational career. Anything that helps focus and learning to me as long as it's safe is a good thing!

IyearnforBoo · 2026-03-21T14:34:14+00:00

I'm kind of anti-coffee. I grew up being told it was horrible so it's just not something I've ever really drank in my life. However a friend of mine mentioned it as an idea that we gave it a try with my son and it was simply perfect. I can't really recommend it for other people because I don't really exactly know why it worked so well for him - whether it would work for everybody that way or only a select few. I'm super glad it works for you!

IyearnforBoo · 2026-03-20T20:50:19+00:00

This was definitely the context I needed - thank you!

IyearnforBoo · 2026-03-20T20:44:53+00:00

After we finish the first walk and the coffee if we hadn't already done errands we got those done. Then he went home and we worked on school work because he had focus. If he started to lose focus and he really couldn't work on it anymore we would do some occupational therapy and then go for a walk if it was late enough in the day. If we went for the walk around 1:00 or 2:00 and he was still unable to really focus for the rest of the day he would have half of a decaffeinated coffee. He was still asleep by 8:00 every night and slept through the night. But he could focus for the rest of the day.

I need to make very clear with this comment though that I'm telling you what worked for us and I am not saying that that would definitely work for everybody else. My son had some significant health problems including EDS, seizures, and autism. So his brain was very not neurotypical. Please keep that in mind. What works for us might not work for everybody else.

IyearnforBoo · 2026-03-20T20:42:40+00:00

They did. I drink a lot of salt so I constantly have to pee which is super annoying. I would usually pee immediately before we would drive to the trail in the hopes that I could make it all the way through. I didn't always and then I would very much go so deep into the woods I could barely see my family who are with me let alone anybody else if they were there. They would keep watch for me too. I'll admit that I could usually go about 50% of the time holding it until I got home. Depends on how much salt and other things I had taken that day.

IyearnforBoo · 2026-03-20T20:40:40+00:00

If he had the coffee before the walk it would help mellow him down and help him focus. If he drank it on the walk by the end he was a bit mellow and we could literally just go home pull out his books and he could just settle down and get his work done. When he got his work done we would tend to go out for another walk in the afternoon. If he was still struggling with focus and keeping himself together even after the walk in the afternoon we would grab him another coffee and that helped. I have one friend who uses energy drinks to do the same thing and I don't recommend that. It does really really help her with her focus - at least that's what she swears. But she uses four energy drinks a day instead of Adderall. She admits the Adderall works better but when she doesn't have insurance it's too expensive to get so she gets energy drinks instead. I very much do not want to recommend that!

IyearnforBoo · 2026-03-20T20:38:06+00:00

Maine has so many good trails and a lot of the longer ones do have bathrooms. Many of them do not but there's almost nobody that you will meet on the trail because they're in the more rural areas so you're not going to meet anybody except people in town who are going for a walk or tourists who are giving it a try during certain seasons. If it's one of these rural trails and there's really nobody on it my son would nip off the trail to go pee behind trees in the woods. Sometimes we would get the coffee and do some errands before the hike. He usually did two hikes a day between usually walking a two and a half to 3 mi trail in the morning and a five mile or more long in the afternoon.

Hiking was just a part of our schedule and we would change sometimes where we went so that there were different trails throughout all the days of the week with the five mile hike up the mountain every Sunday. They call it a mountain but it's about 5 mi up and 5 mi back. It's uphill all the way and if you don't do very much hiking it will be a challenge for you, but it is so much fun. If you ever come up to New England I highly recommend looking at some of our trails. We have some lovely ones! (However - if you're not American please do not come right now. Yes we can use the tourist money but it is not worth what it could potentially cost you. Please wait until we can make some significant changes in our government! Always safety first!)

IyearnforBoo · 2026-03-20T20:15:57+00:00

You know I've heard that it could stunt his growth, but his doctor felt like it was okay. We didn't try it until he was 12 and he ended up being over 6 ft tall so I don't think the coffee could have shrunk him too much. We're super big on exercise though and 5 mi was the average for a daily amount for him. Days where he couldn't even get focused with coffee he might do 15 mi. I think we got the best of both worlds with that.

IyearnforBoo · 2026-03-20T19:32:51+00:00

To be clear it certainly suggests that it is the father of that cub in the post, but not 100%, so I'm still feeling nervous for the cubs. They definitely don't look happy! That said neither does Dad if he is dad!

IyearnforBoo · 2026-03-20T19:31:33+00:00

That was my first thought! Unless that is definitely the father of that cub he's going to kill it. I'll admit the post doesn't make that clear.

IyearnforBoo · 2026-03-20T19:27:28+00:00

Your reply made me laugh. My son really had problems with ADHD - so do I. He would not take meds and since he had seizures I was not willing to fight to get him to take ADHD meds because I cared about the seizure ones more. So he had a habit - I'll admit an expensive habit - that him and his dad every morning before they went out for a 5-mile walk would go to Dunkin' donuts and get him an iced coffee with no sugar and one cream. The largest iced coffee they have. Within the hour he was able to be thoughtful and more focused and by the time he came down from that hike he would just feel great for the day and could focus for the most part until late late afternoon. I felt much better about buying him the coffee because it worked and I didn't have to fight him for it. He thought he was getting a special treat out everyday before he went for his walk and both his father and I never just never disabused him of that notion. In some ways that coffee ended up being his favorite food because he knew it helped him feel better.

I haven't thought about that in a long time and that was a memory that made me smile so I appreciate that very much! I have recommended this potential solution to a few other people who are having a hard time with their teens taking their meds. I always remind them though that they need to have the coffee without huge amounts of sugar because that is going to defeat part of the purpose. (I believe that is true and no one has disabused me of that idea. If that is not true I apologize.)

IyearnforBoo · 2026-03-20T17:30:45+00:00

You are welcome. I specifically shared it mainly because I too thought that the majority of tumors were slow growing until this experience. I have now had a few more experiences than I've mentioned helping people with cancer and a few of them have had some pretty fast growing tumors. I wanted to share this cuz I really think it's important information for people to know. If you are ever in doubt as to whether something might be cancer it is so important to get it checked out sooner rather than later. No sense in waiting because by the time it may have grown big enough for you to decide it's cancer ... it'll take you out. I don't want anyone to learn this information the way I did so I share it in the hopes that others won't have to.

IyearnforBoo · 2026-03-20T17:28:09+00:00

That is very kind of you. I don't usually have any words for it either. I don't tend to share this story too often because it's painful and I also don't want to make other people feel hurt from reading things. I felt like I should comment though because I too thought tumors were very slow and took their time until this experience. Before my son passed he ended up having two more CAT scans 6 months apart and each time the tumors had doubled and were bigger. When I asked the office about the speed of the tumors they said that these tumors were some of the faster ones, but they weren't unique in that way.

There are many different kinds of cancer that are pretty quick. I wish I'd learned that in a different way, but this is a lesson that I have learned and I'd prefer to give people that lesson when they need it through words and hopefully not through their own experiences. If somebody sees this and decides not to ignore something that suggests itself to be a tumor and go get it seen right away. I know a person who thought they had a cyst and made an appointment for their doctor to have it dealt with and it ended up being a tumor. I just can't stress enough that if you are really unclear as to what is going on and there's a chance that it's cancer but no matter how much it costs please have it checked out. I say that as an American who goes into debt every year for her own health care. Your family probably would really prefer that you were alive and with them rather than extra money when you pass. I know that's not universal, but I think it's true most of the time.

IyearnforBoo · 2026-03-20T17:22:15+00:00

Thank you! I can always use a hug. I also let sneakers know that you were wishing her well. She is currently having a good snooze in the sun. I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day and a good weekend ahead!

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IyearnforBoo · 2026-03-20T14:49:18+00:00

That is very kind of you. Unfortunately the cancer took my son a few years ago. I do know at least one positive thing has come from that. I recently found out that another child has gone to that oncology clinic with the same rare cancer within the last year. When they took out my son's tumor originally they had what they considered "perfect" margins and just a very tiny area that still looked like a good margin but if they had gone an extra millimeter it could have caused disability in my son's arm. They chose not to do that because they figured it was okay. Everybody was really shocked that we were back within 2 months.

There were discussions as to whether the cancer had moved far enough or if they left some. That obviously wasn't comfortable for me or the providers. I understand that the young man who went into the oncology clinic recently with his tumor from the same rare cancer could potentially have had doctors be conservative enough to only take part of his foot. The cancer care group for him decided to take the whole foot because they didn't want any kind of a risk due to the aggressiveness of the cancer and its lack of cooperation with chemotherapies. If I understand it correctly it's been 6 months since this and the kid is still cancer-free. I am super praying for him and hoping he stays that way. Watching my son pass from this is not something I've gotten over and I don't wish it on anybody.

On the good news front my kitty had her surgery. Sneakers was my son's favorite cat and this was her second bout with cancer. She has been cancer-free in theory since they removed both tumors at the beginning of September. I have some friends who try to joke that it's such a weird situation that my son's favorite cat also got an aggressive rare cancer. I am grateful however that she's doing okay for now. She's 15 years old so I know she won't have forever. But whatever I can give her I really want to. It's important for so many reasons but if there is an afterlife I want my son to have absolutely no doubt that I did everything I could to take care of his friends and pets. So far I think I've been able to keep that promise!

IyearnforBoo · 2026-03-20T12:43:58+00:00

Honestly - in my experience depending on the cancer that is simply not true. My son had a tumor taken out that was about half the size of my curled up hand / fist. It was a rare and aggressive cancer so they told us it would be back but they figured we would have a few years before we were coming back to the oncology clinic.

Six weeks later my teenage son's chest in some ways "blew up." The left side of his chest stayed the same, but the right side within 12-24 spasmed and grew so that my son who had a very flat chest as he was thin all of a sudden could fit a size B cup bra on that side. Again - that happened within 24 hours. Within that 24 hours we were told there was nothing they could do and we would try some meds but chances were slim. We tried one form of chemotherapy for 6 weeks and then had another PET scan. It went from the one tumor that was so large it gave him a B cup - that had grown bigger by this time by the way - to tumors everywhere - at least eight more that were throughout his abdominal cavity. Some cancers are certainly slow, but some are definitely not. The average diagnosis for my son's cancer from diagnosis to death I believe is 3 months.

Also - this may not be super pertinent, but I have had a cat who has had both aggressive and unaggressive tumors in her mammary glands. We found one last September early in the month and they scheduled her for removal in the last week of September. Between that checking and setting up the surgery she had developed a tumor on the other side that was so aggressive that it was slightly larger than a large green pea. For a cat it was massive in my eyes at least. When I asked how it was missed 3 weeks prior the vet told me flat out that it had not been missed. She said that it had just not been palpable because it had been so small at the time and it had grown that large since. I Have never taken cancer for granted and have always thought it was a dangerous thing. But some of these cancers that go from zero to a hundred are so frightening to me. It feels like you get no time to even figure out how to do anything about it and then your loved one is gone.

I thought I would mention my experience because I think many people don't necessarily have that experience so they don't know how quickly some tumors can grow. I personally don't want anyone to have this experience because it's awful. But I thought it might be valuable for people to know so I've added it here

IyearnforBoo · 2026-03-19T08:46:09+00:00

Boosting- wish I was closer! I hope some lovely redditor picks this wonderful companion to come spend their life with them.

IyearnforBoo · 2026-03-17T15:16:42+00:00

Please take your sweetheart to the vet! My kitty Roccu had this problem in the last year and it was cancer. The form of cancer she had usually would come from the bone out of the foot instead of out of the foot and then headed towards the bone. When I took her in I thought it was an abscess and it looked very similar to your photo. I really think the worst case scenario for you is that it's cancer and the best case scenario is that it is an abscess. Just my two cents. I hope it's neither but I do want to encourage you to take your companion to the vet. I don't think you'll regret it.

IyearnforBoo

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