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The effects of caffeine on the autistic mind

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ooOoOoOAnaOoOoOoo
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04 Jul 2011, 2:52 pm

Caffeine causes the secretion of adrenaline, so the effects you are feeling could be due to the adrenaline.



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04 Jul 2011, 3:14 pm

draelynn wrote:
I do not have an official ADHD dx but I am going for one in two weeks. After my kidling was dx'd it was kind of a no brainer. I fit her dx better than she does. At least all of my weird 'self help' measures I've taken over the years make better sense now. I was laughed at by loved ones and doctors when I told them that I couldn't function without caffiene - they just thought that was the addiction talking. In part it may have been - no one believed my other assertions. Thankfully, I may be diagnosable now where no one would listen back then.


One of the deciding factors for my ADHD diagnosis was the effect caffeine has on me. I am certainly addicted but I have gone off it for 1-3 months at a time and always end up back on it well after withdrawal symptoms are no longer an issue. The only time I seriously cut back my caffeine intake was when I was self-medicating with ephedra...and the formulation had caffeine as well, so it was more that I wasn't drinking it.

I really don't like the effect it has on my body, and I'm trying to cut back now that I have Ritalin.



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04 Jul 2011, 3:17 pm

ooOoOoOAnaOoOoOoo wrote:
Caffeine causes the secretion of adrenaline, so the effects you are feeling could be due to the adrenaline.


Yeah, it could be something like that. Adrenaline gives energy, and energy gives confidence. Which explains why caffeine not only improves memory and cognitive thoughts, but also helps to greatly reduce social anxiety. It seems like with caffeine, my social autopilot actually works, still not fully, but somewhat.


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04 Jul 2011, 4:04 pm

Verdandi wrote:
draelynn wrote:
I do not have an official ADHD dx but I am going for one in two weeks. After my kidling was dx'd it was kind of a no brainer. I fit her dx better than she does. At least all of my weird 'self help' measures I've taken over the years make better sense now. I was laughed at by loved ones and doctors when I told them that I couldn't function without caffiene - they just thought that was the addiction talking. In part it may have been - no one believed my other assertions. Thankfully, I may be diagnosable now where no one would listen back then.


One of the deciding factors for my ADHD diagnosis was the effect caffeine has on me. I am certainly addicted but I have gone off it for 1-3 months at a time and always end up back on it well after withdrawal symptoms are no longer an issue. The only time I seriously cut back my caffeine intake was when I was self-medicating with ephedra...and the formulation had caffeine as well, so it was more that I wasn't drinking it.

I really don't like the effect it has on my body, and I'm trying to cut back now that I have Ritalin.


From what I've been reading I'm a good candidate for very low dose stimulants thanks to my long track record of med side effects. Also, people who actually benefit from the stimulant medications do not always become addicted. This has been a constant worry since I do have my daughter on Concerta. Despite a push from her dad and doctor to up her dose, I think she gets enough control at the low dose she is on.

I really must thank all those crackhead teenage dope fiends for making these medications a pariah in the medical establishment. Getting my daughters prescriptions is like getting federal clearance to Fort Knox every month. People who do not have those frontal lobe activity problems make those that do look like pillheads right along side them. People really have no clue how these medications can work without causing addictions like they do in NT's. Just another stigma to bear...



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04 Jul 2011, 4:10 pm

SammichEater wrote:
ooOoOoOAnaOoOoOoo wrote:
Caffeine causes the secretion of adrenaline, so the effects you are feeling could be due to the adrenaline.


Yeah, it could be something like that. Adrenaline gives energy, and energy gives confidence. Which explains why caffeine not only improves memory and cognitive thoughts, but also helps to greatly reduce social anxiety. It seems like with caffeine, my social autopilot actually works, still not fully, but somewhat.

I love caffeine for that reason, it gives me a lot of energy and mental clarity, but I don't like the effects on my blood pressure so I don't drink coffee anymore. Just green tea and chocolate are about it.



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04 Jul 2011, 4:12 pm

draelynn wrote:
From what I've been reading I'm a good candidate for very low dose stimulants thanks to my long track record of med side effects. Also, people who actually benefit from the stimulant medications do not always become addicted. This has been a constant worry since I do have my daughter on Concerta. Despite a push from her dad and doctor to up her dose, I think she gets enough control at the low dose she is on.


Addiction to prescribed stimulants is actually fairly rare, and a lot of the "addiction" that ADHDers tend to get into are more about self-medication and being functional.

My problem with my dose of Ritalin is on days I don't get enough sleep it makes me feel very, very tired. Like today.

Quote:
I really must thank all those crackhead teenage dope fiends for making these medications a pariah in the medical establishment. Getting my daughters prescriptions is like getting federal clearance to Fort Knox every month. People who do not have those frontal lobe activity problems make those that do look like pillheads right along side them. People really have no clue how these medications can work without causing addictions like they do in NT's. Just another stigma to bear...


Actually, it's not them, it's the Church of Scientology, among others, through rather extensive propaganda, often through shell/front organizations. The people responsible for making it difficult to get these medications are the people who are responsible for the measures that make it difficult to get these medications. The teenagers you mention are pretty much at the bottom of the heap, socially, so what little influence they have is being used as an excuse by those with substantially more social and temporal power.



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04 Jul 2011, 4:35 pm

Verdandi wrote:
draelynn wrote:
From what I've been reading I'm a good candidate for very low dose stimulants thanks to my long track record of med side effects. Also, people who actually benefit from the stimulant medications do not always become addicted. This has been a constant worry since I do have my daughter on Concerta. Despite a push from her dad and doctor to up her dose, I think she gets enough control at the low dose she is on.


Addiction to prescribed stimulants is actually fairly rare, and a lot of the "addiction" that ADHDers tend to get into are more about self-medication and being functional.

My problem with my dose of Ritalin is on days I don't get enough sleep it makes me feel very, very tired. Like today.

Quote:
I really must thank all those crackhead teenage dope fiends for making these medications a pariah in the medical establishment. Getting my daughters prescriptions is like getting federal clearance to Fort Knox every month. People who do not have those frontal lobe activity problems make those that do look like pillheads right along side them. People really have no clue how these medications can work without causing addictions like they do in NT's. Just another stigma to bear...


Actually, it's not them, it's the Church of Scientology, among others, through rather extensive propaganda, often through shell/front organizations. The people responsible for making it difficult to get these medications are the people who are responsible for the measures that make it difficult to get these medications. The teenagers you mention are pretty much at the bottom of the heap, socially, so what little influence they have is being used as an excuse by those with substantially more social and temporal power.


Yeah I kind of agree I do not think crackhead teenage dope fiends have a lot of impact on such things.



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04 Jul 2011, 4:43 pm

Sweetleaf wrote:
Verdandi wrote:
draelynn wrote:
From what I've been reading I'm a good candidate for very low dose stimulants thanks to my long track record of med side effects. Also, people who actually benefit from the stimulant medications do not always become addicted. This has been a constant worry since I do have my daughter on Concerta. Despite a push from her dad and doctor to up her dose, I think she gets enough control at the low dose she is on.


Addiction to prescribed stimulants is actually fairly rare, and a lot of the "addiction" that ADHDers tend to get into are more about self-medication and being functional.

My problem with my dose of Ritalin is on days I don't get enough sleep it makes me feel very, very tired. Like today.

Quote:
I really must thank all those crackhead teenage dope fiends for making these medications a pariah in the medical establishment. Getting my daughters prescriptions is like getting federal clearance to Fort Knox every month. People who do not have those frontal lobe activity problems make those that do look like pillheads right along side them. People really have no clue how these medications can work without causing addictions like they do in NT's. Just another stigma to bear...


Actually, it's not them, it's the Church of Scientology, among others, through rather extensive propaganda, often through shell/front organizations. The people responsible for making it difficult to get these medications are the people who are responsible for the measures that make it difficult to get these medications. The teenagers you mention are pretty much at the bottom of the heap, socially, so what little influence they have is being used as an excuse by those with substantially more social and temporal power.


Yeah I kind of agree I do not think crackhead teenage dope fiends have a lot of impact on such things.


I live in an area where kids break into homes when they find out a kid is on Ritalin just to steal their scripts - they crush and snort time releases as well as oxycontin and any host of other pharmaceuticals they can find. Doctors treat anyone complaining of 'pain' as an addict. It may just be my area but it is a significant factor here.



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04 Jul 2011, 4:47 pm

draelynn wrote:
Sweetleaf wrote:
Verdandi wrote:
draelynn wrote:
From what I've been reading I'm a good candidate for very low dose stimulants thanks to my long track record of med side effects. Also, people who actually benefit from the stimulant medications do not always become addicted. This has been a constant worry since I do have my daughter on Concerta. Despite a push from her dad and doctor to up her dose, I think she gets enough control at the low dose she is on.


Addiction to prescribed stimulants is actually fairly rare, and a lot of the "addiction" that ADHDers tend to get into are more about self-medication and being functional.

My problem with my dose of Ritalin is on days I don't get enough sleep it makes me feel very, very tired. Like today.

Quote:
I really must thank all those crackhead teenage dope fiends for making these medications a pariah in the medical establishment. Getting my daughters prescriptions is like getting federal clearance to Fort Knox every month. People who do not have those frontal lobe activity problems make those that do look like pillheads right along side them. People really have no clue how these medications can work without causing addictions like they do in NT's. Just another stigma to bear...


Actually, it's not them, it's the Church of Scientology, among others, through rather extensive propaganda, often through shell/front organizations. The people responsible for making it difficult to get these medications are the people who are responsible for the measures that make it difficult to get these medications. The teenagers you mention are pretty much at the bottom of the heap, socially, so what little influence they have is being used as an excuse by those with substantially more social and temporal power.


Yeah I kind of agree I do not think crackhead teenage dope fiends have a lot of impact on such things.


I live in an area where kids break into homes when they find out a kid is on Ritalin just to steal their scripts - they crush and snort time releases as well as oxycontin and any host of other pharmaceuticals they can find. Doctors treat anyone complaining of 'pain' as an addict. It may just be my area but it is a significant factor here.


I don't see how that would make doctors treat anyone who is legitimatly prescribed something as just another addict...I mean obviously that sort of thing creates a problem but it should not effect how someone who has a legitimate condition should be treated. So if it does have that effect there is a lot more wrong then the existance of drug fiends.



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04 Jul 2011, 5:12 pm

Sweetleaf wrote:
I don't see how that would make doctors treat anyone who is legitimatly prescribed something as just another addict...I mean obviously that sort of thing creates a problem but it should not effect how someone who has a legitimate condition should be treated. So if it does have that effect there is a lot more wrong then the existance of drug fiends.


The insurance companies have more to do with it than anything, I think. Any doctor investigated for over prescribing narcotics pretty much instantly loses their insurance. Any compliant of pain needs to be backed up with xrays, MRI's and a host of other interventions like chiropractic and PT before they will prescribe meds. Even surgery patients find themselves cut off fairly quickly - down graded to OTC's with a week or two in an effort to prevent addiction. So, yes, there is more going on but overprescribing and the receipient of those excessive prescriptions are a big reason in our area.

Cripes - we have doctors losing their licenses because they are testing positive for morphine abuse... maybe it's just the effect of living in the northeast. We just seem to have more of everything bad in this society. Nobody even blinks anymore when another meth lab gets shut down. Or another rash of gang shootings erupts in the city. Corruption is just business as usual. As is rampant drug use. I swear, everyone knows someone who can get them weed. you should have heard the tone i got when i asked for my daghters sript and questioned why she needed an appointment every single month.

Because its a CONTROLLED SUBSTANCE... that's why... They were even nice enough to suggest that anyone could be taking her medication. Nothing like being subtly accused by your childs doctor for no reason. She's been on it - at low dose for 6 months - and she will need to have 12 visits to her psych every year she remains on it just because it is a controlled substance.



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04 Jul 2011, 5:18 pm

I've found that I have a temper when I drink coffee and things that wouldn't usually bother me get on my nerves.


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04 Jul 2011, 5:35 pm

draelynn wrote:
I live in an area where kids break into homes when they find out a kid is on Ritalin just to steal their scripts - they crush and snort time releases as well as oxycontin and any host of other pharmaceuticals they can find. Doctors treat anyone complaining of 'pain' as an addict. It may just be my area but it is a significant factor here.


It's only a significant factor insofar as trying to point downward for blame. The fact is that a lot of doctors have a prejudice against treating ADHD or treating chronic pain because these drugs are considered to have high addictive potential, and to hell with quality of life.

It doesn't even make sense to blame patients for being potential addicts when someone else is stealing from them.

I don't know, class analysis is one of my secondary interests, and I tend to find that digging a little deeper than "it's all those criminal poor people causing us trouble" finds that the troubles tend to come from those with more institutional power, not less. At best, the actions you describe serve as an excuse for something they'd prefer to do anyway.



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04 Jul 2011, 5:41 pm

I should add that exactly the same rationale (poor people are drug addicts!) was used as part of the reasoning as to why the disability benefits I've been on since December are being replaced by significantly less helpful benefits in November.

Poor people aren't the problem, and never were. The fact that people are poor is a significant part of the problem - that people are locked out of education, careers that pay more than a survival wage, etc. That's what's wrong.



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04 Jul 2011, 5:48 pm

Verdandi wrote:
draelynn wrote:
I live in an area where kids break into homes when they find out a kid is on Ritalin just to steal their scripts - they crush and snort time releases as well as oxycontin and any host of other pharmaceuticals they can find. Doctors treat anyone complaining of 'pain' as an addict. It may just be my area but it is a significant factor here.


It's only a significant factor insofar as trying to point downward for blame. The fact is that a lot of doctors have a prejudice against treating ADHD or treating chronic pain because these drugs are considered to have high addictive potential, and to hell with quality of life.

It doesn't even make sense to blame patients for being potential addicts when someone else is stealing from them.

I don't know, class analysis is one of my secondary interests, and I tend to find that digging a little deeper than "it's all those criminal poor people causing us trouble" finds that the troubles tend to come from those with more institutional power, not less. At best, the actions you describe serve as an excuse for something they'd prefer to do anyway.


It's definitely 'cover your ass' syndrome and it seems to be overriding the original basic tentant of medicine - first, do no harm. I knew a guy who lost his mother to a vicious form of blood cancer. At the end she was in excruciating pain. The doctor REFUSED her morphine...because it is addictive. She was literally screaming in pain and near death but he refused to allow her pain medication. They needed to get the hospital administrator involved and had to threaten to sue them for pain and suffering, in the very literal sense, before things changed. It turned out that it was a haevy handed policy by that same administrator that shut down the use of pain meds in the first place. The admin didn't want high insurance rates, the doctor didn't want to lose his position meanwhile everyone just thumbed their nose at the suffering patient - all in the name of money.

I suspect classism as well but I think it is nearly impossible prove.



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04 Jul 2011, 6:22 pm

draelynn wrote:
It's definitely 'cover your ass' syndrome and it seems to be overriding the original basic tentant of medicine - first, do no harm. I knew a guy who lost his mother to a vicious form of blood cancer. At the end she was in excruciating pain. The doctor REFUSED her morphine...because it is addictive. She was literally screaming in pain and near death but he refused to allow her pain medication. They needed to get the hospital administrator involved and had to threaten to sue them for pain and suffering, in the very literal sense, before things changed. It turned out that it was a haevy handed policy by that same administrator that shut down the use of pain meds in the first place. The admin didn't want high insurance rates, the doctor didn't want to lose his position meanwhile everyone just thumbed their nose at the suffering patient - all in the name of money.


Something like this happened to my grand uncle, who died of either stomach or colon cancer.

draelynn wrote:
I suspect classism as well but I think it is nearly impossible prove.


That's the point of analysis: To interpret. I am not sure what "prove" means in this sentence. What I do know is that when it comes to these sort of things, that it is difficult to convince people to change their minds, no matter how much "proof" one presents, and the standard of proof shifts considerably depending on how much someone wants to deny that such things happen. Not too long ago, I posted a link to several graphs that show income and monetary disparities in the US. These graphs are factually correct, but another poster told me that the source was too liberal to be trusted. So you could have a signed confession, but if people don't want to believe, they won't believe.

Another example of this is the whole "birther" controversy.

Although, when they come out and scapegoat poor people as the problem, it's pretty obviously classism.



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04 Jul 2011, 6:32 pm

Verdandi wrote:
draelynn wrote:
It's definitely 'cover your ass' syndrome and it seems to be overriding the original basic tentant of medicine - first, do no harm. I knew a guy who lost his mother to a vicious form of blood cancer. At the end she was in excruciating pain. The doctor REFUSED her morphine...because it is addictive. She was literally screaming in pain and near death but he refused to allow her pain medication. They needed to get the hospital administrator involved and had to threaten to sue them for pain and suffering, in the very literal sense, before things changed. It turned out that it was a haevy handed policy by that same administrator that shut down the use of pain meds in the first place. The admin didn't want high insurance rates, the doctor didn't want to lose his position meanwhile everyone just thumbed their nose at the suffering patient - all in the name of money.


Something like this happened to my grand uncle, who died of either stomach or colon cancer.

draelynn wrote:
I suspect classism as well but I think it is nearly impossible prove.


That's the point of analysis: To interpret. I am not sure what "prove" means in this sentence. What I do know is that when it comes to these sort of things, that it is difficult to convince people to change their minds, no matter how much "proof" one presents, and the standard of proof shifts considerably depending on how much someone wants to deny that such things happen. Not too long ago, I posted a link to several graphs that show income and monetary disparities in the US. These graphs are factually correct, but another poster told me that the source was too liberal to be trusted. So you could have a signed confession, but if people don't want to believe, they won't believe.

Another example of this is the whole "birther" controversy.

Although, when they come out and scapegoat poor people as the problem, it's pretty obviously classism.


I think 'to prove' will always be in the eye of the beholder. I usually find that those that scream the loudest about NOT being bigoted or biased are usually the worst offenders. the more educated the bigot, the less able they are to see it, it seems.

Facts are facts but how they are presented is always in question. How do you find a totally and completely unbiased source - someone, someplace not tainted by money, opinion or personal belief? I'm pretty sure it doesn't exist.