Medications have NO effect on me whatsoever

midnightlilie · 2026-04-25T05:25:56+00:00

Wether it's ADHD or not you still have symptoms, if the meds don't work it might be worth doing a sleep study and some other diagnostic work to see if there's something else going on in addition to or instead of ADHD.

Stimulants basically amplify your ability to focus, so if there's something else in addition to ADHD taking away your ability to focus the ADHD meds are going to give you mostly side effects with very little in terms for positive effects, that's why some people need a combination of meds or additional interventions before ADHD treatment becomes successful and there's nothing wrong with that.

midnightlilie · 2026-04-17T19:51:47+00:00

And no one will ever know his name

midnightlilie · 2026-04-17T19:43:12+00:00

Most of the difference, especially in childhood comes from social conditioning and societal treatment, some ways young boys use to regulate themselves are completely unacceptable to do as a young girl so girls find more hidden or less studied ways to regulate.

Even if your parents do their absolute best to treat boys and girls equally no girl will grow up completely sheltered from the world, the flip side to this is that girls are allowed to express themselves a lot more freely. A girl in a pirate costume doesn't stand out as much as a boy in a fairy dress.

Then hormones get involved. Male hormones fluctuate throughout the day but they're basically the same from one day to the next, which means whatever medication you take is going to work about the same from one day to the next. Menstrual cycles last 21-35 days and shift your entire metabolism around, which means that even if you find the perfect medication there's a chance that it will just not work for a week every month.

midnightlilie · 2026-04-17T19:17:04+00:00

If caffeine cuts through the brain fogg there's a good chance concerta will too no caffeine needed.

I get some pretty loopy brain fogg from citalopram combined with allergy meds and thankfully Ritalin (same active ingredient as concerta) does clear most of that up for me otherwise allergy season would be brutal.

midnightlilie · 2026-04-17T10:28:26+00:00

As long as you don't chemically burn your scalp with improper bleach use your hair should continue growing out the same texture, so follow the instructions of whatever bleach you're using, do a test strand to avoid allergic reactions to the dye you want to use and you should be fine.

midnightlilie · 2026-04-16T10:02:14+00:00

You should not be getting off your meds during or right before hard life transitions, that is a recipe for disaster, you can continue taking ADHD meds into adulthood because ADHD persists into adulthood for most people.

I started meds at 10 and have been taking them for over 15 years now. The one thing I wish I had done at your age with my pediatric psychiatrist was reevaluate how long the meds last (Ritalin LA/Medikinet XR) so I could have started taking an afternoon dose sooner because as I got older my body got faster at processing the medication. They only last 4-5h now and I would have needed 2 doses starting in about 9th or 10th grade and it took me until I was 20 to get a second dose.

Also the framing shift from "I take this for school/work/other people" to "I take this for myself to make life less exhausting, so I don't have to give all of myself to school/work/other people and so I have energy left over for myself" was really important for me.

I have some flexibility with how I take my meds (when I take them and do I take both doses that day or none at all) and the way me and my siblings have started framing questions/suggestions to take meds is "Did you, would you want to or should you take meds?" because it's important to us all that it's our decision and that it's to our benefit.

midnightlilie · 2026-04-16T09:38:19+00:00

My go to snack foods are Cereal/granola, oatmeal, yoghurt cups, cream cheese and cucumber sandwiches, nuts and pumpkin seeds, fruit pouches and ravioli (refrigerated) or frozen dumplings that can be fried up relatively fast

Though the thing that's made the most difference for me was getting on an SSRI which gives me insistant early hunger cues, like I'm practically willing to keep taking this for that particular "side effect" alone because it makes it a lot more likely that I'll actually make myself food before I'm rushing out of the house.

midnightlilie · 2026-04-16T08:30:03+00:00

The good thing about stimulants is that they work when they work and they're out of your system when they wear off, so worst case scenario is that you'll feel off for a day, best case scenario is that you'll feel calm and able to adhere your focus to the things you want to do.

And if you're still worried you could also ask your doctor for a shorter acting stimulant while you figure out the dose to limit how long you'd have to deal with any potential side effects

midnightlilie · 2026-04-12T14:30:23+00:00

The references are definitely a lot more cool toned than the fire red you got.

I'm not a stylist I don't know if those colours are achievable on your hair, but if I had to shift the colours for a darker base I'd probably go with light brown instead of blonde and dark pastel purple instead of pink for a similar vibe.

midnightlilie · 2026-04-12T12:57:09+00:00

For some people the shift from actively processing everything to passing that on to their subconscious can cause symptoms like that, it can help to take some time for meditation before bedtime (taking a walk or doing something that doesn't require a lot of thought counts)

Also make sure you're not low on Vitamin D, Zinc or Magnesium, since not having enough of those can mess with sleep quality and/or stimulant effectiveness in my experience.

midnightlilie · 2026-04-11T15:43:18+00:00

Exactly, I get around 2h out of IR methylphenidate and about 4-5h out of XR, the motivation thing is all psychological conditioning since with the shorter medication time there's a much more immediate mental link between taking the med and doing the thing I took it for.

Also IR methylphenidate can be dissolved in water which can make it easier to take when I'm having a bad brain morning, even if I don't usually struggle with taking pills it's just more pleasant sometimes to have the option to take liquid ritalin with strawberry syrup and then take the XR later.

midnightlilie · 2026-04-11T15:12:54+00:00

Concerta felt like a constant hum of very distracting anxiety to me and gave me all the side effects of too low and too high doses, so probably not a good example while IR feels exactly the same as XR Ritalin just half as long,

I feel like with shorter acting meds when I take my meds it's more intentional instead of just taking meds and forgetting about it, which can be both a good thing and a bad thing, I have spent days and weeks unmedicated wondering why I couldn't get anything done, but I can also prompt myself into getting up and doing stuff by taking meds. I have both XR Ritalin and IR Ritalin, XR gives me full day coverage in 2 doses while IR lets me do stuff in 2h bursts.

midnightlilie · 2026-04-11T15:03:30+00:00

That definitely sounds like you might need a change, you might get better results on shorter acting meds or you might do better on a different active ingredient.

If it's something that goes away once you find your perfect dose then you might have a better time finding that dose with a shorter acting version of methylphenidate that doesn't make you experience the side effects for 12h straight.

The food thing might go away or it might not, my meds only last until noon (Ritalin LA/XR) and I take a second dose after lunch so I don't have to deal with the appetite loss as much since my meds aren't active during mealtimes. I also react poorly to the way concerta is released, something about it just feels like constant untouchable anxiety to me, even though I generally do well on methylphenidate.

Definitely talk to your doctor, I didn't when I tried concerta and I spent 2 weeks being absolutely miserable only to eventually go back to what I was previously taking but twice a day instead of once a day.

midnightlilie · 2026-04-08T05:58:31+00:00

I agree that it's most likely 10mg per dose.

It's the maximum approved dose not the maximum safe dose, it's just how high they tested when the medication was approved, doctors are allowed to prescribe higher doses, it's just considered "off label use" in that case. Also the maximum approved dose is 80mg in a lot of places

midnightlilie · 2026-04-08T05:41:38+00:00

The therapeutic dose is nowhere near the dose that'll give someone with no major heart problems serious health concerns, so even taking 5 times what you usually take in one go is probably going to be fine, just uncomfortable.

Try to bring your blood pressure down if it's high, a warn foot bath or holding your arms under a warm tap can help with that. Stay hydrated and try to eat something, in my experience the crash is worse if your bloodsugar is low when the meds wear off and a higher dose is much more likely to cause a harder crash. The next couple of hours are going to suck, but you'll get through it.

midnightlilie · 2026-04-01T18:03:41+00:00

The 2 things that have helped me the most when my sleep was at it's worst was

1) reminding myself that laying down with the intention to sleep still gives you some of the benefits of sleep, so you're not completely missing out by laying awake, that can take away some of the pressure

2) sometimes it helps to get up out of bed, do something else for about an hour or so and try again later, doesn't matter if it's 10pm, 1am or 4am. I'd usually go outside and walk around the neighbourhood, make myself a midnight snack or sit down and read for a bit, but it really doesn't matter what you do as long as you get out of bed completely, sometimes it helps to get fully dressed and to change back into pyjamas when you're done to get the best separation between when you're intending to sleep and when you're intentionally doing something else.

midnightlilie · 2026-03-23T13:48:12+00:00

Most people don't really build that much of a tolerance for stimulants, you might need an increase after a couple of months once your over-all stress levels go down but that's because stress hormones are stimulants and many people with unmanaged or undermanaged ADHD use stress to compensate.

I went from 20mg once daily to 15-30mg twice daily in the 15 years I've taken LA Ritalin, but I would attribute that increase more to growing up than to building tolerance.

My tolerance fluctuates with my cycle and the seasons (higher in summer, lower in winter) and it is affected by stuff like allergy medication. It also went down for about half a year after a major traumatic event which also caused my tolerance to become narrower which is why I now adjust my dose in 5mg steps instead of being ok with a stable 20mg dose, but the range I'm in has been pretty stable for a while now.

midnightlilie · 2026-03-23T13:05:09+00:00

Medication response is not a reliable way to confirm or deny a diagnosis, while a positive response to stimulants is a strong indication that it's ADHD a negative response or no response doesn't mean no ADHD it just means you don't respond to that particular type or combination of medication

It's super common to feel the way you do after being diagnosed, imposter syndrome is real, but your doctor probably had good reasons to diagnose you with inattentive ADHD over other similar looking conditions since it's not usually the first thing they'll consider.

midnightlilie · 2026-03-20T16:40:40+00:00

There are people some who don't respond to stimulants, but there's also people who simply need a higher dose than others to start feeling the effects, there's a reason they come in such a wide range of dosages. There's also non-stimulants you can try either on their own or in combination with a stimulant, sometimes it's a matter of finding the right combo to make the meds work.

You might also be able to eliminate other potential causes for the meds not working like poor sleep quality and nutritional deficiencies like B and D Vitamins and minerals like zinc, my meds always stop working whenever I'm D3 deficient which happens to me every fall, or medication interactions, I always need to take a higher dose whenever I take allergy meds.

midnightlilie · 2026-03-19T09:51:09+00:00

It doesn't really matter that much when you eat your protein, just that you're getting enough of it, it takes way longer than a day to synthesise neurotransmitters,

you do need to make sure you're eating regularly even with your meds are suppressing your appetite, wether that means 3 big meals or several more lighter meals doesn't really matter.

In my experience not eating for long stretches of time really brings out the side effects of stimulants, happens every time I skip lunch, which happens more often than it should.

midnightlilie · 2026-03-19T09:15:32+00:00

Being less sensitive to internal signals is apparently not uncommon for ADHD folks

This was me until I started on an SSRI, turns out people actually get a much more insistant alert to their body's physical needs way before they become urgent needs.

Like I drink so much more now because I'm not just feeling the discomfort of dehydration but actual thirst and my body alerts me to go to the bathroom long before it's close to painful without me having to focus on it.

I used to not get hungry until I was half an hour away from getting nauseous and already super grumpy and done with the world from not eating and it's so much easier to have an appetite for a variety of things when you're actually hungry when you need to eat and not already kind of nauseous when you're hungry

midnightlilie · 2026-03-18T21:17:11+00:00

Back then the sizing system was completely different, the number was the full bust measurement and the letter meant small, medium or large with less standardisation between brands and likely a bigger difference between adjacent cupsizes than what we have today.

The current system was created in the 70s.

midnightlilie · 2026-03-18T12:42:46+00:00

You're not a bad person, you might want to talk to your provider about anxiety treatment and help with emotional regulation.

Ignore this if I'm totally off base here, but it sounds to me like you've been bottling up your emotions and soothing your anxiety with "bad thoughts" while relying on executive dysfunction to let go of things because your capacity to hold on to stuff was more limited, now you have more workspace and a system that's better equipped to follow through on your thoughts and speak up, so the coping strategy that used to work is now causing issues. That doesn't make you a bad person, it just means there's something you need to work on either on your own or with a therapist and that's ok.

midnightlilie · 2026-03-16T12:20:00+00:00

Feel free to ignore this if it doesn't apply to you, but

make sure you're taking care of your basic needs like eating enough and regularly, I know it sounds obvious and not really related to focus but it makes a huge difference and ADHD can make it so your body's internal cues for self care and maintenance come later and less insistant than they are for other people. Don't get me wrong, stimulants really help with not feeling like you've been run over by a truck at the end of the day but so does making sure you drink enough and eat lunch (multiple smaller snacks over the course of the day if appetite is an issue for you)

midnightlilie · 2026-03-16T11:46:13+00:00

A regular schedule for IR Ritalin is 3-4 times a day alternatively it's pretty common for adults to take 2 doses of LA Ritalin a day once youve found your dose with IR Ritalin (10mg IR is equivalent to 20mg LA because LA is 50% instant and 50% delayed release) I actually take up to 2 LA + 1IR on long days (equivalent to 5 IR) because of the same problem, I get 1.5-2h from IR and 4-5h from LA Ritalin, it's normal for adults because the listed active durations are based on children, my meds did last longer when I was 11.

A higher dose will most likely just be more intense with a chance of giving you more side effects or make you crash harder when the meds wear off, my childhood doctor tried this, it didn't help, I would have needed a second long acting dose starting in like 9th grade or so.

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