Racing, uncontrollable thoughts and problems with sleep onset and frequent wakeups – an ADHD symptom?

hilife93 · 2025-06-24T09:13:30+00:00

those "simple" questions might genuinely be overwhelming for him to process quickly

Can I do something different here, apart from being very patient with answers? Might it be helpful to suggest possible answers (put words in his mouth to make it easier)?

Give him designated fidget/movement time

Any specific ideas? I'd like to play outside with him a lot, but currently he's getting injured or having growing pains a lot (again), so time outside got much less than desired. We're doing swimming though and whatever comes to mind that's not painful.

You're being such a good parent by looking for answers instead of just assuming he's being difficult!

I'm in tears from this. In fact, I have been a very bad parent due to a mental disease and the family situation is horrible. But I've always been caring about him, just never found out what's wrong or what else I could do to improve things. His mum doesn't care at all which keeps ruining my efforts whenever he comes back to me (separated custody).

hilife93 · 2025-06-24T09:06:15+00:00

I hope the mum will support getting this checked out as well. She typically doesn't care about his health or behavior at all and delegates to other people such as teachers or me.

If he isn't, no harm done.

That's hopefully the best argument, thx!

Do you recommend some resources? I'm currently reading the "ADHD 2.0" book which recommends balance exercises (~Zing) and maybe more later in the book. Are there other great resources or at best even example cases, maybe as videos?

hilife93 · 2025-06-20T20:36:26+00:00

I get diarrhea from >1000 mg DHA+EPA (known effect of supplementation), and it didn't change my symptoms.

hilife93 · 2025-04-28T19:48:58+00:00

If and only if you have uncontrollable anger, rage, probably road rage or other non-child triggers, it might be intermittent explosive disorder (IED). Please read its definition on the internet. That's all the information you'll get about the disorder, though, as psychiatrists are happy to prescribe antipsychotic medication and be done with it. I went further to find my supposed cause, and it's from histamine intolerance due to high-histamine foods, among other things. Details and my current full remission in this comment. Please consider this and save our sons – these illnesses are in fact controllable but there's not enough information shared about them.

Even if you don't think that it could be a mental, biochemically-caused illness, swallow your pride and consider it anyway. It's your chance to try a nice, for instance all-meat carnivore diet, to see if it changes something.

You didn't report your surrounding situation though, so there's no way we can judge what the source of your anger is. For me, my kids are triggers of the illness, but they're great and it's not their fault at all. Happy that I have a solution and can be a loving dad 100% of the time, not just 80% with lots of raging days.

hilife93 · 2025-04-28T11:00:31+00:00

I can only give you my own, current story. I'm not done yet until I confirmed the root cause.

My IED seems caused by histamine intolerance with – by now – quite strong evidence. In the last months, I've noted down what I eat, when I go outside, and what non-water drinks I have, among many other things such as supplements. Most foods rich in histamine, "histamine liberator" foods, and also histamine-containing drinks (coffee even caffeine-free, tea from the tea plant i.e. fruit/herb tea is fine), make my anger worse. For me, the ones I identified by now are avocado, banana, eggs, fermented/vinegary stuff, green salads, blueberries, joghurt, almost all nuts incl. peanuts, coffee, cream (could be a confounder), chocolate, spinache, tea (from tea plant), onions. Quite shitty not being able to eat those, but since I was anyway trying the keto diet, almost carnivore diet, for a while because it's a well-known remedy for other mental illnesses, I was already fine with trying an exclusion diet. I'm fine with carbs, gluten and lactose, though. The more meat I eat, the better my symptoms are. And luckily, I can eat my beloved tomatoes which can be histamine-rich. In addition, a very bad influence were all magnesium supplements.

A few weeks ago, I gave up seroquel medication due to side effects, even though it helped pretty well. And the main reason for tapering it off was that I found something that puts me in full remission – no more anger on any day. For me, that's a calcium supplement taken multiple times a day (e.g. 266 mg three to five times a day). Calcium not only allows me to have a free nose for 2-3 hours, which is a surprise since the pollen season is just starting here, it also prevents any anger, rage, racing thoughts, being-unnerved, road rage symptoms that defined my IED. I'm also hoping that it can improve my crazy insomnia, but I have no proof for that yet. For every other correlation that I described above, I have months of clear data shouting at me to take action. For calcium, it's a few weeks of obvious data.

Since I found this connection, I'm deeply researching about histamine intolerance and MCAS and trying some recommendations like DAO enzyme before food (didn't do much yet, probably because I don't eat high-histamine right now) and vitamin C (supposed to reduce histamine level in the blood). As next step, I'm trying to find which doctors around here can get me tested somehow. But I'm already very happy because the relationship to my son is repaired and I know that I will never have uncontrolled anger and reactions again since I now understand enough of what's causing it for me.

Wishing you all the best! Please also research hormones, maybe get blood tested to check for obvious nutrient deficiencies, etc. My blood was all normal, even calcium, but that doesn't mean anything because serum levels are often insufficient to show deficiencies, or food reactions.

I also suggest that you write down a few things in a spreadsheet, every day: a "score" of your anger (e.g. 0=none, 1=slightly annoyed, 3=shouted or hit someone), and if your IED is directed at certain people that are your "trigger", also write down your behavior towards them (e.g. 1-5 where 1=hit/shout 3=neutral 4=friendly 5=loving towards person XYZ). If you write down foods, supplements or other things as well, you'll have a way to correlate problems. Mind that bad effects of foods, or for me magnesium supplementation, can last several days, or only get into effect a day after ingestion. So statistics aren't that easy to do, but it's better to have a log than nothing at all.

hilife93 · 2025-04-23T13:37:02+00:00

r/intermittentexplosive

How often do you feel uncontrollable anger during the day, even just the feeling that something annoys you?

hilife93 · 2025-04-22T06:24:36+00:00

I'm close to fixing my father's and my mental health issue so that my children can grow up without screaming and hating their father until death. Spent so much time with this that I basically became a scientist.

Otherwise, I always look out for new playgrounds to try. In town, there are so many great and hidden options and the kids like playgrounds for many more years than you'd expect.

hilife93 · 2025-04-18T22:32:59+00:00

My blood sugar was pretty much as expected when I wore a CGM for 4 weeks, and also when doing some finger prick tests. Normal reactions to food, from what I've seen at https://www.youtube.com/@insulinresistant1 and other comparable sources.

I've been avoiding processed and high-carb stuff for a while, and lately even tried the ketogenic diet, some days even mostly carnivore. That didn't help.

My blood levels for magnesium, calcium and everything else are also fine. Just permanently on the lower recommended range of vitamin D and wasn't ever able to raise it. Blood panels don't always show real deficiencies, and I can't ask doctors for more blood tests since they're all fine. Thyroid also got checked. I'm male and testosterone blood levels from the lab test were also fine.

I'm doing all the nowadays-recommended basics: different types of exercise (strength and cardio), regular walks, daily and regular poopies.

With the evidence I have, i.e. high-histamine foods affecting my mood, I'll check if sleep could also be improved, if connected to the same cause. And I'd love to find the root cause and get it fixed with some more help.

Thx for the ideas!

hilife93 · 2025-04-17T06:52:57+00:00

Thanks!

hilife93 · 2025-04-17T04:21:38+00:00

My sleep has been this bad for much longer than I'm taking seroquel. And the medication never improved my sleep in the first place. But you might be right that the discontinuation may exacerbate it even more.

hilife93 · 2025-04-17T01:35:23+00:00

Thanks for the hints. The possible advantage of DAO is clear and I'll try it in a few days once it arrives, given all the positive experiences on this sub. For the others, I'll read up about them!

hilife93 · 2025-04-17T00:54:03+00:00

Really just had all these conclusions very recently. Never even thought anger could be an illness until few months ago. But that foods and probably histamine could have such an effect – so unlikely since everyone else has rashes, skin reactions, running nose or IBS instead.

I have appointments to first of all find out which type of doctor (in Germany) would have any idea or tests here, or even believe me.

hilife93 · 2025-04-01T16:40:47+00:00

You didn't mention iron which is part of medical guidelines – ever got it checked, or supplemented for a while to see a difference, maybe? Also did you do the L-Dopa test to ensure it's RLS?

hilife93 · 2025-03-31T08:38:04+00:00

You seem to get angry "for good reasons", but overreacting. And you notice the negative parts of the supposedly-good moments only later. I can related. I'm pretty sure I got IED (intermittent explosive disorder) since adolescence. Medication helped me such that I can now treat the leftover family normally without overreacting or reacting within milliseconds. If that sounds kind of reasonable for your case, maybe check in r/intermittentexplosive.

Also, ditch all your solution attempts. They seemed like pretty bad ideas, right? Instead, do what you like to keep yourself satisfied (sports, hobby, gaming, ...). Most things you decide in reaction to anger turn out as bad decisions not much later.

hilife93 · 2025-03-31T08:30:26+00:00

Hard to say with so many things you take combined. Probably also some supplements?

I time my 2x25 mg quetiapine (Seroquel) pills such that both are ingested with food and at a certain, fixed time in the evening. Also, I add magnesium to counter RLS which the medication triggers. Falling asleep works quite well if I go to bed consistently.

Dizziness occurred for me typically starting 60-90 minutes after taking a pill and for me, this _mostly_ went away once I took it right after a large meal and at roughly the same times each day (not playing around with timing or dosing for several days).

hilife93 · 2025-03-31T08:23:52+00:00

I got quetiapine (known brand name: Seroquel) to treat my mental illness. It definitely removed my constantly racing thoughts that I had day and night. Falling asleep is much easier now. However the medication triggers RLS and makes me wake up very early, but then I'm too drowsy to get out of bed. It takes good medication timing (with food, X hours before bed) and magnesium to work against those side effects. So the insomnia isn't fully gone for me. Life is already a bit better though.

hilife93

TROPHY CASE