#medics aren't doctors

[whotookmysenbon]

When in doubt, hospital.

Speaking of death and serious injury, the last guy I killed got me in the side. Does this look bad enough for the hospital, or should I just find someone who can do medical ninjutsu *coughGenmacough*?

[apostate-in-an-alcove]

As a chronically ill person, I don't trust nor do I like doctors and medical professionals as a whole and if that makes me an unreasonable asshole then so be it.

[not-poignant]

Hi Pia

I hope this question isn't too personal and please don't answer if it is. You have mentioned getting help for your adhd with medication. What medication has helped you or made the biggest difference?

I was diagnosed with adhd a year ago and was put on Elvanse but it hasn't helped and just makes me incredibly anxious and unable to focus.

I'm trying to research what other medication I could try but my doctor isn't being very helpful because according to them "adhd isn't a disability".

I'd love to be able to get some reprieve from this condition, it's destroying my life, so if you're willing to share info on what's helped you it would be hugely appreciated.

Thank you

Hiya anon,

(Medical chat and thoughts under the Read More and as I'm not a doctor and have no idea what I'm doing or talking about, I'm putting the rest under a thingo).

Unfortunately, while meds helped me work a bit better (although you know, I'm burnt out, and I'm writing the least I've written since I started writing, so actually I'm not sure that starting 'too many stories at the same time' is actually 'a bit better' than how it was before), mostly ADHD does run rampant over my life. I can't work conventional work hours, I forget important things, I have massive issues with executive dysfunction, and I zone in and out of conversations more often than I'd like.

I take Vyvanse, which - sounding from what you're taking - is probably the same thing. *googles quickly* Yep, it is.

ADHD meds are hard. It's definitely worth trying different ones, if you can, as well as different dosages (for example, a higher dose of Elvanse might work better for you, a lower dose might). There's also quick acting / fast release ADHD meds. And there's atypical meds like Atomoxetine (also known as Strattera) which some people find really good fortune with.

Finally, if you have no luck with any ADHD meds, it might be important to do a differential diagnosis with other conditions that might mimic ADHD symptoms (of which there are many mental illnesses that do this), because in those cases, you may find that the medication treatments for them help you WAY more.

Recently someone I know who has been on lithium all her life found out she was massively misdiagnosed, and actually had something else. Lithium doesn't suit almost any other condition, except for what she was diagnosed with, which explains why she never improved at all on it and actually got worse. She thought there was something wrong with her, the reality was that there was something wrong with her diagnosis. I'm not saying this is the case with you! BUT, when none of the meds work, and they all give you the opposite of what they're supposed to be doing, it is definitely worth chasing up other diagnoses. If you go to get an ADHD assessment, often those people don't look at the other potential culprits for the same symptoms, esp if they're ADHD specialists. (This is the same for just about any mental health or disorder - sometimes if you get a hammer than can only hit ADHD nails, it's going to miss the other nails.)

But yeah, it's very likely not the case for you anon, but after this other person's experience, I'd feel remiss if I don't point out that if - after a long time of trying / exhausting med options - you find you have no joy, sometimes it's because you're in the wrong 'family' of meds for what you have going on.

(I am not a doctor, just relating anecdotal stuff.)

I don't know if you'll have more luck asking your doc for specific meds. Unfortunately in Australia, ADHD is also not considered a disability, despite the fact that it is clearly disabling for hundreds of thousands of people here. I'm really sorry you're having to deal with those attitudes too, anon.

And finally, no ADHD med is perfect. It might help some things, and hinder others. But it definitely shouldn't be making things worse. It might be worth taking a bit of a holiday from the meds (if your doctor / therapist agrees) and mood tracking for a while before starting back on them, to see how bad of a difference it is.

There are unfortunately not a ton of meds specifically for ADHD. Most are variations of a similar kind of med (stimulants), and everyone has different experiences based off their chemical make-up and what they need. My sister gets really intense emotional blunting on Vyvanse, I get more emotional. We're related, and we still have pretty big differences with med responses on the same meds.

I wish I could be more help! My own life is a complete mess for the most part, I wouldn't say I'm someone who has this all figured out at all. I should be on a higher dose, but unfortunately I have other health stuff going on which means I can't be, so I'm just going to have to put up with a fair amount of disabling ADHD forever.

[naomiknight-17]

I've left the house every day this week except Tuesday, and even then I went up to Mom's place to help make dinner

Tim is so so pissed at me

And the vet thinks his mild cystitis symptoms lately have been due to stress because I've been out of the house more often and he's upset about it

I'm SORRY Tim but I'm at high risk for heart disease and I have depression and I NEED to go out and get cardio or I'll have a frickin heart attack and die and then I'm REALLY not gonna be around

Please don't get sick about it 😭

[creepyscritches]

You know I'm glad I have a good doctor and am not actively deteriorating now and all that but still so pissed that my prev doctor ignored me pleading to get off oral chemo for years bc I couldn't eat w/o rapid nausea/vomiting 6 days of the week. For years. Dealing with the resulting severe food aversion has been as shitty as the chemo itself >:| I still struggle to eat most meals bc my body still thinks it'll result in uncontrollable n/v for hours afterwards. And sometimes I still get the n/v from how deep the psychosomatic symptoms run from being Medically Intolerant To A Chemotherapy My Doctor Forced Me To Take For Years.

It didn't even work bc again, Medically Intolerant!

[uncanny-tranny]

Being trans is the funniest shit imaginable to me because, like... on a strictly personal level, I love hospitals and I love medicine because I'm trans, but I'm scared of medicine and hospitals (also because I'm trans). Make it make sense, brain!

[weirdstrangeandawful]

Masks are medical equipment.

The fact that hurricane-prone coastal states are considering/codifying mask bans is wild to me. Flooding is such a common cause of respiratory illness.

I would give you a source but a Google Scholar search of 'floods respiratory illness' should be more than sufficient because it is basic common sense to anyone who has lived in a flood-prone region (which is who this post is for).

I am Canadian and from a flood plain but if you're American and your state is considering a mask ban, please consider researching the health impacts of a mask ban in your region and then writing your local representative.

Banning medical equipment is fucked up. I don't know how else to put it. The right to health is a human right and (as some people seem to have forgotten) medical equipment is included in that.

[reserve-operator-melee]

Okay, I’ve gotta know: How do all you intend on settling that bet?

What, the Doctor's face? We just assume that they'll slip up and leave their mask off at some point, or someone crazy as hell like Lappland will take it off. A kind of unsaid rule is that nobody who bet is allowed to to actively try and take off their mask.

Beside, you'd suffer not only the wrath of Kal'tsit, but Amiya and a few of the other fans of the Doctor as well.

[defibrillism]

the thing is that medic could commit several weeks' worth of house malpractice in a day but house could not do the same for medic's malpractice. this is mostly because medic lives in a significantly more ridiculous world than house (not that the house md universe isn't crazy) but also he is just truly more unhinged than house is

[saintlesbian]

love how my shitty health insurance chose THE perfect time to expire. just really impeccable timing

[trans-yllz]

very ironic that there have been several story beats throughout fontaine like "the melusines are often infantalized by people but they are fully autonomous beings who deserve respect" and then half of the fan base is like awe cute little melusine baby who is like a child and a kid and a baby who needs to be taken care of by other characters because they're like a human toddler 🥺. die.

[hightief]

x

[lesbiansanemi]

I'm so tired

[iftitah]

she's talking on a call with her parents about how it was her luck and gods will what got her into this college who's gonna tell her of course no one because you know 🤡🤡

[transmasc-rose]

Man. Fever is gone for me and the Horrible Aches are too, but the coongestion and watery eyes are still here, and I can Feel the illness settling in my lungs and have a worse cough. There are 8 people in this house, and at least 5 + a friend have gotten covid from this bout, with 2 more in the household currently at a maybe (neither have taken a test).

At least I've gotten a full nights rest this time. My sleep is still broken, but this is the first time since Sunday I've slept for more than 3 hours at a time.

[acommonrose]

Okay, I'm seeing this go around, and unless I am really misunderstanding how the terms "analytical AI" and "generative AI" are used here (and that's possible, the word "generative" means several different things in the field of AI), this is just... a massive oversimplification of both of these things.

Now don't get me wrong, I have very little use for ChatGPT and its like, but the only difference between generative AI and analytical AI is that analytical AI outputs single predictions (is this email spam, does this person have cancer, what will tomorrow's temperature be) and generative AI outputs things like text, images, audio, and video. Both of these have good uses! Both of these have horrible uses! The various horribly racially biased models that have been made to predict criminal behavior are all analytical AI. The models behind stuff like screen readers and machine translation are all generative AI. It's not about "is the underlying type of model inherently bad" (most aren't!), it's about "is this application of the model something that is bad" (many are!).

Also the energy usage argument is also just... wrong there? All neural net based AI has a longer (and therefore more energy intensive) training process and then can be run on new "test" examples relatively quickly/efficiently. Current "generative" models do tend to be trained on larger datasets, which will make the training process longer and more inefficient), but this is less generative vs. analytical and more to do with models that are trained to be "everything machines" (which is a real issue!) vs. models trained for a specific purpose.