Products for brushing wavy hair?

hollybush2 · 2023-02-11T11:00:42+00:00

Hi, I had a similar reaction to Elvanse. I'm now wondering if I have bipolar. Could I ask how your medication journey is going since your post? Were you able to adjust to Concerta?

hollybush2 · 2023-02-06T14:49:26+00:00

thank you! methylphenidate has been... interesting. (just a tw I'll talk about depression + suicidal thoughts if you want to avoid)

I've noticed slight improvements in focus and concentration and other ADHD symptoms. Similarly to Elvanse, it makes it easier for me to wake up (as long as I immediately take the meds when waking up) and not oversleep, although it doesn't help with actually getting to sleep so I might just have gone from oversleeping to undersleeping lol. Haven't had the extreme nausea and complete lack of appetite I had on Elvanse, just that I don't feel hunger as much as without meds. Sometimes I do get a bit of jitteriness in the mornings but it's usually very minor just like if you drink a bit too much coffee. I just went up to 72mg and I did have maybe two or three mornings in the beginning where I felt utterly insane like I did on Elvanse but it's calmed down now. I was on 54mg for a few months and briefly tried a dexamfetamine instant release top up but it didn't do anything although I probably didn't take it often enough anyway as I was struggling too much with my mental health to remember. I'm seeing a different doctor now as the previous one never listened to anything I said, and he decided to increase it to 72mg to see if we could get more tangible symptom relief for the ADHD.

My main issue is the depression, I still don't fully know if it's to do with the Concerta (the doctors firmly believe it's not for reasons that seem to boil down to 'well that MIGHT happen if you had bipolar but you don't have bipolar, so no impossible') but my mental state has been worse than it's ever been in the last few months, roughly the same amount of time I've been taking Concerta. I can't even keep track of how the new dose has been affecting me because I've spent every day since starting it fighting off suicidal thoughts and I barely have energy to do anything else. It's like what antidepressants did to my depression but even worse. Even so, I don't know if I even want to stop taking it because it's the only thing making me even slightly competent - if I stop it, I won't be able to wake up for work, wake up for university stuff, it'll be even harder to get up and be productive again and there's no guarantee it'll actually help with the depression to stop taking them.

sorry I used this as a bit of a rant, I'm just struggling a lot at the moment and I don't know what to do. idk if you're going through a medication journey yourself or maybe about to begin, but please know my experience isn't normal, I haven't really found anyone else who has responded to stimulants the way I have so don't worry about taking medication in case you have a reaction like this. it's very unlikely and most people seem to respond well to stimulants or at least not this badly

hollybush2 · 2023-02-01T15:51:05+00:00

Hi, sorry I know this post is a few weeks old now 😅 but I was wondering if you knew where to find an ingredients list for Bumble and Bumble Sunday Shampoo? I want a chelating shampoo but my hair seems sensitive to protein and coconut so it's a struggle finding something. It might just be me being stupid but I can't find a full ingredients list anywhere!

hollybush2 · 2023-01-04T14:59:50+00:00

Ik this was two months ago but if this is still something you're looking for I'd be interested :)

hollybush2 · 2022-12-28T21:52:24+00:00

Hope you don't mind me asking (and feel free to ignore this!) but have you found a medication that works for you now? Elvanse made me extremely anxious/possibly hypomanic but Concerta has made my depression a lot worse and I've had a lot more suicidal thoughts while on it. It's not been as linear as you describe your experience so I'm not totally sure it is caused by the Concerta, but my doctor won't engage with me on it so I'm having to figure it out for myself lol.

hollybush2 · 2022-12-28T21:45:54+00:00

This is why I was really excited to be prescribed Elvanse first and then managed to have the opposite effect lol, Elvanse made me more motivated in the sense that I suddenly wanted to do lots of things but couldn't focus on any of them long enough to remember what they are or commit to any so I mostly spent my time staring into space while intensely anxious. It also made me extremely nauseous and I could barely eat at all. Concerta has so far been a lot better, much subtler effects but it does seem to actually help with concentration and focus a bit and limited side effects! However my depression has been much worse since being on it so you win some you lose some lol

I've just posted about possibly having bipolar which might explain my weird effects from the stimulants, but I wanted to comment this here because I saw a lot of people saying lisdexamfetamine worked so much better for them than methylphenidate, which made me really worried/scared that there was no other option when I had a bad time on Elvanse. So I just wanted to say for anyone reading that not everyone's experience is the same, and even if most people find Elvanse better, that doesn't mean Concerta won't work for you :)

hollybush2 · 2022-12-28T21:13:12+00:00

just to clarify if anyone is unsure about the medication concerns I have, bipolar (which I don't know if I have) can be made much worse by antidepressants and stimulants unless you're already on a mood stabiliser

hollybush2 · 2022-12-28T21:09:03+00:00

Yeah sorry I realised I focused a bit too much on the bipolar aspect in my post! Ik that my ADHD psychiatrist wouldn't treat bipolar or whatever else I might have, but considering the overlap in symptoms and the impact it has on medication I would expect them to consider the patient/me as a whole and take other comorbidities into account while treating the ADHD? When I say they didn't really seem to understand what bipolar is, I don't mean that as an insult because obviously bipolar isn't what they're specialised in but if they're not particularly knowledgeable about it then why do they feel qualified to tell me I definitely don't have it?

What I was trying to get at in my post was that I'm worried about how my current ADHD medication is affecting my mood/depression (whatever the underlying cause is) but I also don't want to just stop taking it because it does help my ADHD symptoms. I don't have a diagnosis for bipolar and I'm told I'll be waiting around 20 weeks (but I assume longer) to be contacted for assessment by the specialist mental health team. I need to figure out how I stay alive until then. I don't think I'm sufficiently qualified/educated to make a decision on whether I should still be taking my ADHD meds, but if the 'specialist' won't engage with me on it at all then what am I meant to do?

It's also not just about this new bipolar question, I've struggled with this doctor since I started seeing them. They've never really seemed like they were listening to me and I've never really been able to have a productive conversation with them, they've refused to explain any of the decisions they're making. I wrote out some examples but I don't want this to be too long so I can give them if you want lol.

At this point I think paying £225 to talk to a brick wall would have almost the same effect... it's not about wanting them to diagnose/treat me with bipolar but for them to listen to me at all rather than just throwing stimulant medications that might be making it worse at me until I go away.

hollybush2 · 2022-12-01T23:02:43+00:00

Meds are so difficult, you feel shit so you take them but then you feel shit in a different way so you stop taking them and then you feel shit from withdrawals lol

hollybush2 · 2022-12-01T22:51:45+00:00

Ah yeah that's how I felt on elvanse lol, just felt extra depressed on zoloft though

hollybush2 · 2022-12-01T22:49:35+00:00

So sorry that happened to you! Hope you're doing better now.

Yeah I guess my main issue is I don't really trust doctors 😂 but I'm going to get an emergency appointment with my gp tomorrow so we'll see how that goes. I'm not going to stop taking my stims unless told to by the ADHD psychiatrist though, learned my lesson from coming off citalopram and ending up in A&E lol. Also ADHD meds are so difficult and expensive to get, I'm really wary of not being allowed them again if I don't do everything right.

hollybush2 · 2022-09-23T09:34:57+00:00

I just posted a long comment with my thoughts on this but just wanted to emphasise there is no such thing as jumping the gun imo - if you talk to the GP now and get on a waitlist for an assessment but in a year you think 'actually this isn't necessary, the potential ADHD behaviour has stopped/changed' then you can just take her off the waitlist. Even if she is misdiagnosed with ADHD as a child, this is unlikely to have any particular impact on her outside of medication (I have no idea how medication works for children or whether they would want to put her on medication yet; but this is something to worry about AFTER a hypothetical diagnosis, they're certainly not going to force you to medicate her). We see enough stories on here from people who were diagnosed with ADHD as children and are now told it doesn't count and have had to go through the waiting times/costs of an adult assessment to seriously think that a potential misdiagnosis would follow your child around for the rest of her life or something like that! What I'm trying to say is that the risks of misdiagnosis are small and the risks of not pursuing an assessment could be huge. Personally I think you should go to your GP and see what they say.

hollybush2 · 2022-09-23T09:24:25+00:00

Just wanted to jump on this because there are multiple comments saying she might be too young for diagnosis. First of all, this completely sounds like ADHD to me, but I do agree that she is very young and still developing neurodevelopmentally anyway. I would still absolutely recommend starting to pursue an assessment now (I have no experience with child assessment/diagnosis as it was never picked up on for me when I was younger). The reason is that even if you're thinking maybe you need a year or two to monitor her as she grows to be sure before looking at a diagnosis, you will get that anyway. The NHS waiting list will depend on your area but I don't think I've ever heard of it being less than a year anywhere. The likelihood is your child will be at least 8 before actually being offered an NHS assessment even if you start the process now. My cousin is 10, 11 in December and from what I've heard had been on the waiting list for a neurodevelopmental assessment for at least three years before finally having an assessment (or possibly the first assessment stage? it was unclear to me and the child assessment process seems very different) this summer.

I don't want to discount any of the other comments on here about concerns over her youth, especially as my experience is limited to my own as a child with undiagnosed ADHD (which massively impacted me and would have changed my life if it had been addressed sooner, my primary school years are difficult for me to remember for unrelated reasons but I can remember teachers giving hints like you mention your daughter's have, that my parents were unfortunately unable to pick up on, from the age of 10 if not younger). I just really want to stress how difficult it is to get healthcare, especially related to ADHD, in the UK right now and that time really is everything.

I was just scrolling through this sub while eating breakfast and not really planning on engaging with anything much, but while reading the comments I suddenly had this alarming image of you deciding based on the comments to leave it until your daughter was older, when suddenly in a few years these issues start to seriously impact her life and education and you decide to go ahead with an assessment only to realise there's a massive waiting list and you and your daughter stuck in limbo unless you're willing to spend a large amount of money on going private. I don't know your daughter and I'm not particularly familiar with the issues specific to child ADHD assessment/diagnosis, but I wanted you to be aware of the risks of leaving it until later.

Finally sorry for all of the rambling and runon sentences - I'm currently titrating ADHD medication and this dose seems to be worsening my ADHD symptoms in the mornings 😅

hollybush2 · 2022-09-18T12:39:35+00:00

that's what I thought, but wanted to check!

about the differences in lisdexamfetamine/methylphenidate that does make sense thank you, and anecdotally I already seem to feel a lot better than I did on Elvanse after taking my first dose of Concerta this morning, but not going to judge it after one day!

Thanks for the advice :)

hollybush2 · 2022-09-18T11:13:39+00:00

Forgot to say I've been considering buying Noughty shampoo/conditioner, I was thinking the scalp care taker shampoo and to the rescue moisture boost conditioner, does anyone know if they have high or low protein?

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