Controlling ADHD impulses and attention span

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I have ADHD as well as AS and was wondering what fellow ADHD people do to control their impulses. I am way too spontaneous which always leads me to blow my money on stupid things and is always getting me into trouble somehow. I've been on Ritalin before and it caused a few problems so I'd rather not go back on the stuff. Any other medications with less side effects? What about self-control techniques?

My attention span can also be pretty dire. It's especially annoying when I'm being given instructions and I realise that I have no idea what the person giving me instructions has just said. It has made employers very impatient with me in the past, which isn't really fair as I can't help it. Any suggestions on stopping my attention from wandering?

What helps me is certainly politically incorrect, but since you asked, it is nicotine in the form of English nasal snuff, and occasionally American oral tobacco.

I too was on Ritalin until I turned thirteen. While I always hated Ritalin, it did help me concentrate, especially in school. When I was taken off the stuff, my life went from bad to worse. I started using oral tobacco shortly thereafter, and continued because it helped.

It is habit-forming, and when I don't have it I miss it. But it's something I can do without, and have done without. The problem is that whenever I don't use it, I'm at the same point I was when I was a kid: no ability to concentrate whatsoever, and my otherwise good life now begins to fall apart; I simply have too many responsibilities. I would further add that if somebody could come up with something safer and as efficaceous as the kind of tobacco I use, I would quit immediately.

Of course, due to its habit-forming potential, I wouldn't advise anybody else to go this route, but it works for me, and without the emotional roller coaster trip of speed-type drugs.

I didn't know snuff and oral tobacco could have a calming effect, that's really interesting. I do occasionally smoke cigarettes, which can help my jumpiness a bit. I'm not sure whether it's the nicotine that helps or the actual feel of smoking a cigarette, though. Sometimes just puffing on a pen or something similar seems like it does help with what I believe to be nicotine cravings, so who knows?

I might give the snuff a try. If cigarettes can help then a little extra nicotine can't hurt.

Caffeine helps me focus. But you've got to figure out the right dose for yourself, or it will not help at all. The days I drink coffee are some of my best days though - I try not to drink some every day, as I don't want to become habituated to it. I've learned all I could on the science of caffeine to get the best results.

By the way, as far as nicotine is concerned... tobacco taken orally tends to cause mouth cancer, and snuff does some nasty things, too. And nicotine is also incredibly toxic; it is used as a natural insecticide, and a guy I know who's a genius at chemistry told me if you soaked a couple of cigarettes in a glass of water for twenty four hours, then took a drink from the glass, you'd be dead before your head hit the table. It isn't really the sort of thing you want to mess around with lightly.

(I've never smoked, but I do get a certain calming effect from sticking a pen in my mouth, even "dry smoking" it. My own guess would be that's simply a sort of stim.) Which leads into my final piece of advice. I've noticed, at least for me, that diet has a very strong effect on me. Too much sugar sets my attention flopping all over the place; anything with too high a glycemic index as well. Blood sugar levels have a huge influence on mental state. But what I've also noticed is that sensory inputs can have a positive or negative effect (depending on the input, obviously). Just chewing sometimes helps me focus. Walking and pacing are good, too. Being outdoors. The right foods. Sometimes sucking on something helps. These exact things may not work for you, but you can always experiment.

"By the way, as far as nicotine is concerned... tobacco taken orally tends to cause mouth cancer, and snuff does some nasty things, too. And nicotine is also incredibly toxic; it is used as a natural insecticide, and a guy I know who's a genius at chemistry told me if you soaked a couple of cigarettes in a glass of water for twenty four hours, then took a drink from the glass, you'd be dead before your head hit the table. It isn't really the sort of thing you want to mess around with lightly."

Oral tobacco tends to cause mouth cancer? I'd like to see some proof in the form of hard statistics (i.e., a person who smokes a pack of cigarettes a day is thirty times more likely to develop lung cancer than a nonsmoker. How much more likely is a tobacco chewer to develop oral cancers than a non-tobacco user?). Good luck.

Everything is toxic in large enough doses. If you were to down an entire bottle of most pills it would likely be fatal too. The efficacious dose for nicotine simply happens to be very small.

Adhd drugs don't really work for me, but Vyvanse I find is milder in side effects. It's very expensive though, at $5 per pill.make sure you get coverage or tax deductions.

I've also heard that Desoxyn works well, but that's really just meth...

Don't know where you're from, but my parents medical plan through blue cross covers 95%. Ymmv

I'm no chemistry expert, but most adhd drugs are just very similar to meth and desoxyn is the pharmaceutical version of Crystal meth. There are a few non stimulants I recall..

I'm from the UK, so I'd have to either to rely on the NHS (hugely underfunded and terribly managed) and their long waiting periods to even get a prescription, or go private which in the UK is very expensive as hardly anyone has health insurance so costs have to be higher.

They're too close to meth and coke for my liking. I don't think my heart could take any more stimulants. Any non-stimulants sound good to me, do you know any of their names?

I've personally never tried it, but there's strattera. Drugs just haven't really worked for me so I'm thinking of just jumping the gun on meth.sigh

Cheers mate, I'll look into it. Drugs haven't really worked for me either to be honest though, so maybe I should stay away from them.