I have been trying to get treatment for ADD since I was still in school. My grades slipped, I found schoolwork less and less interesting. I would put off homework until the last possible second, often turning things in late.
My doctor at the time, Michael Rish, told me that he knew better than I did, and Strattera would really help with my symptoms. I didn’t want to take it; I told him I knew about the black box warning. He insisted and told me if I could get through 30 days of it, he would prescribe me an alternative. I took 3 or 4 of them.
I couldn’t get through anymore. It was almost a repulsion to the state of mind I would be in after taking them. There isn’t supposed to be an immediate effect, it’s supposed to take a few weeks to start working. I felt effects immediately. I became more spaced-out and cloudier in my thinking. I started to feel as if I was never going to get relief, I was never going to get that joy that I had as a kid back.
At Beckett, when I had so much piled on my plate and top-notch performance was expected at all times, I asked the doctor who I was seeing already for Suboxone to review my diagnosis and consider treatment. My doctor told me that he wouldn’t be able to do that, I would have to see a psychiatrist separately to be prescribed both.
Recently, I asked the doctor I’ve established with at MetroHealth to review my diagnosis and consider treatment. She tells me that she thinks I’m managing my ADD symptoms just fine. I have suffered daily for over 15 years knowing that relief exists, I’m just not allowed to have it.