Do ADHD meds help AS?

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I have been diagnosed with ADHD and have been on meds for years now. Tried several, most work to some degree. I figured that if the ADHD meds worked, that rather clinched the diagnosis. My wife and I were introduced by a mutual friend that kind of figured out that we were "the same kind of wierd" (she is also on this site "pheonixiis")

There have been occations when I was on anti-anxiety medications, most had the opposite affect.

Now that my daughter is on the spectrum, I have been learning more about autism and AS and have been wondering if that's me. Many traits fit, some don't at all.

Should I pursue reassessing my diagnosis? Could there be better treatments out there or is most of it symptomatic (anxiety = anxiety meds regartdless of diagnosis)

ADD meds made my obsessions more intense. They also led to an eventual severe emotional meltdown for me.

Stimulants helps just about everyone with their attention span and concentration no matter mental make-up, perhaps with the exception of people in a psychotic episode, when the added dopamine activity will probably just make them more confused. But, I've heard not everyone reacts the same way to a certain drug.

The large number of perfectly normal college students using stimulants to help with their studying is proof that you don't have to have an ADHD diagnosis to be helped by them. They will affect your ability to focus without them in the long run though - pretty handy for psychiatry, since that will consolidate the label the patients have been given. Get the children started on the drugs based on some temporary attention problem, and they will soon really need them to get through school.

I took ritulin for a bit (mind you, it wasn't my prescription-yeah, I'm a smart one, lol). I was EXTREMELY focused on what I was doing... to the point that people thought I might be on crack, lol. I don't know how it would do if I were actually prescribed it, as I'm sure that dose was way too high. But I do remember feeling a ton better, keeping myself very organized, making it to appointments on time, following strict schedules (and easily being able to write them up myself!), and it helped a lot with social stuff, lol.

ADHD drug can have very different results in ASD. Stimulants haven't helped at all. In fact Dexedrine makes my quite drowsy and it is used to treat narcolepsy. I am very resistant to all ADHD medication so I'm at a high dose of Strattera. It is only just beginning to show modest signs of working. Then again I'm an odd case with quite bad executive dysfunction that was diagnosed before everything else.

Except manly some ASD people who don't respond to stimulants

Two people above said they did. I think it's pretty unnecessary for a person with an ASD to use stimulants though, since our obsessions are our naturally stimulated states, it's just the complicated matter of getting the autistic person to become interested in the studying.

I think the reason why people on the autistic spectrum sometimes don't respond that well to the usual stimulants is because of our natural dopamine highs. Schools should learn to work with autistic children and get them interested in school rather than give them stimulants like they do to other children with lacking attention.

I currently take adderall but only when I think I really need it to concentrate, and it's a relatively low dose. It helps but sometimes it backfires and I can become completely fixated on something besides what I originally intended to do, while losing track of or just not caring about the time. If I take it every day for more than a few days I start feeling very strange and not like myself, and it can make me feel completely in control of things but I'll lose it if something doesn't go how I planned. It would trigger panic attacks if I took it for too many days in a row.

And I don't know if how I react to it has anything to do with my AS, I think many people without AS could react the same way. I have pre-existing anxiety issues, that's why I have to be careful with the medicine...but now it's a little easier knowing that it's just the medicine doing it, I can talk myself through the anxiety and reassure myself that there's nothing to worry about.

I have alway needed a high dose of whatever (adderal, Strattera). I'm on 60mg now and some days (1 in 10 or so) I wonder if I'm on a placebo.

I'm not sure about AS (is that the same as ASD?) but I have noticed myself (and had it confirmed by a doctor) that people with ADHD often (if not usually) have a reverse reaction to many "stimulants" (especially amphetamines). He said if ritalin calms you it's a sign you probably have it. Anyone will get more focused, but they (NT's) are more excited as well.

There are no drugs approved for treatment of AS, so nobody's going to be able to point to any examples of scientifically sanctioned overlap.

Some ADD/ADHD drugs may help some aspies, but others are often detrimental for them. Ritalin doesn't increase social skills, change special interests, reduce stimming, make one graceful or empathetic, if it has any impact on core AS symptoms it's usually to make them worse. If someone has both ADD/ADHD and AS (which is not uncommon), there may be some possibility of treating the ADD/ADHD symptoms without making the AS ones worse, with something like Strattera. But there's no treatment for AS, only for things which sometimes come along with it, and aspies vary so much that one can't make many valid generalizations. Many aspies take only an antidepressant, or nothing at all.

I am taking 75 every day I'm only getting mild effect that might turn out to be unrelated, this is going to be for another week then I likely to go up to 100mg. I was going to go up earlier but because it can make you drowsy initially they wanted to observe the effects over time. This was at that psychologist’s suggestion that seems to be a bit more strategically than the physician. I actually took 100. It is true they need more time especially if you are resistant.

Why do you continue to lecture on ADHD? You don't appear to know much about it. There is not reason for anyone to take drugs if they don't want to. Some people might be told the are ADHD when they are not. Though in the high end you are aware that is something is up especially in adulthood.

What is it exactly that you want treated? For me ASD is who I am. If people don't like that that is that is the problem. ADHD and executive dysfunction on the other hand is crippling my ASD mind. There is ASD related conditions that you may what to treat for sure but I would figure out what is really the problem before you go ‘curing’ things. Sure it can be confusing it is taken me years to figure out. I’m still some way to go.

Well CBT can help with anxiety, it has with me. Drugs really haven't shown to improve actual anxiety levels in the long term. Yes CBT does have recorded results of scientific trials for anxiety, which makes it quite unique in that area such as psychotherapy and others that actively discourage fact finding. There is also a trail that showed that Prozac didn't affect the outcome of CBT therapy. Though in my case I couldn't even begin till I stop taking Sertraline because wasn't myself, even though it didn't help my anxiety one bit. If you are ASD you may respond differently to drugs though I don't begrudge the use of antidepressant because some people do feel 'stable' on them.

Thanks everyone for your input. It seems pretty evident that there is no real effective medication treatment for AS (if I do have it) so reassessing my diagnosis may not be a factor.

Would my getting rediagnosed be useful to my daughter (PDDNOS)?
Would the statistics be useful to people researching how this works?