Holla bros,
I'm being treated by my psy-doc for major depressive disorder but still have major concentration symptoms even though depression is swept away with the AD I'm on now (SNRI - duloxetine). My psychiatrist tells me about academic patients he's treated who refused to take ADs because they ostensibly hinder intellectual ability. There is some truth to this in terms of certain brain chemicals (the names of which I forget) that can be lowered from ADs. So, it's unlikely I would be able to convince my psychiatrist of an adult ADD diagnosis but I was wondering if I could convince him to prescribe my adderal/dexamphetamine type drugs off label to combat the concentration issues. Anyone have experience with this?
Getting ADD-type drug script with depression diagnosis?
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From what I've read on Wikipedia (lol), antidepressants only work when you have serious depression. If you have moderate or mild depression, they don't do jack. You may want to look at the literature.
Get in shape and talk to a psychologist to get your mental s**t in order. Some bros on this forum suggest Vipassana meditation.
Asking for an ADD drug to combat side effects from an antidepressant is not something you should be doing. You may end up dealing with even more side effects, and ADD drugs are for people with ADD, how they affect people who do not have ADD is unknown.
"Don't f**k with your brain, pal. It ain't worth it." (Total Recall)
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Yeah, ADs generally give you this fuzzy feeling that lifts you out of the fetal position but makes it hard to perform intellectually. Although this effect is not as severe as antipsychotics or mood stabilizers a good psychiatrist should be able to prescribe you effective counter measures so that you don't become a burnout in academia just because you suffer from depression. I hope future ADs act more as neurotransmitter agonists like amphetamines or tryptamines.