this post was submitted on 10 Mar 2025
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ADHD

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Treatment for ADHD seems engineered to be difficult specifically for those with ADHD to obtain. (lemmy.jelliefrontier.net)
submitted 20 hours ago by renegadespork@lemmy.jelliefrontier.net to c/adhd@lemmy.world
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Disclaimer: I'm referring the the US medical system, but I imagine people in other countries may encounter similar things.

I cannot be the only one who has had this experience, but all my dealings with the medical industry feel like they were refined by a group of psychologists to exploit the weaknesses of those with ADHD.

The volume of calls, appointments, and paperwork I had to full out to get a diagnosis and prescription for treatment is completely unreasonable to expect someone with poor working memory and attention issues to navigate.

Then, to stay on medication, you need to schedule and make appointments with a psychiatrist every month, for the rest of your life, and if you miss a single one, you will run out of meds (and likely charged a fine), which will make it even harder to remember to make the next one. If you miss too many, that psychiatrist will refuse to see you again and you have to go back to your PCP to get a new referral.

Look, I understand that their time is valuable, but this system couldn't be designed any other way to be more accommodating to people who clinically forget things?!

It's like designing a wheelchair ramp that's actually just stairs that are 3x as steep as the regular stairs. Also, if you fall to the bottom, someone takes your wheelchair until you can climb back up.

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[–] cheers_queers@lemm.ee 1 points 1 minute ago

maybe i got lucky, but my psychiatrist is private practice, and she lets me skip every other month and i just text to remind her to fill my meds. she's great.

oh, and offered to see me quarterly because she is encouraging me to find a therapist and i told her my budget is too tight to add another bill.

..yeah, i think i got lucky.

[–] bestboyfriendintheworld@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 hour ago

Germany here. It’s kind of similar here. The system is rigged against us.

My strategy is to use medication to enable me to build a support structure and learn techniques that help with dealing with symptoms. E. g. meditation, physical exercises that help mind-body connection, CBT, routines, etc. So that when I’m without meds, I can fall back on skills I acquired and trained.

What I also do is hoard medication. Ask for a higher dose or more pills, than I actually need. That way I can miss an appointment and still have enough for the next month or so. I even hide pills in different places around my apartment.

[–] choab@discuss.online 7 points 7 hours ago

Yes.

[–] Shou@lemmy.world 5 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

Shoutout to ADHDcentral. They tried to make the process as clear and accessible as possible. With automated reminders.

[–] JasonDJ@lemmy.zip 2 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

What is this? I searched this in Brave search and got like no relevant results.

[–] AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world 1 points 2 hours ago

I'm curious as well. This is the closest relevant result I got, sadly it is for The Netherlands.

https://adhdcentraal.nl/en/

[–] auraithx@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 points 10 hours ago (3 children)

You guys don’t have repeat prescriptions?

I just order mine on an app when I get a reminder and then pick it up from the chemist a few days later when I get a ping.

[–] CreateProblems@corndog.social 12 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

Your use of "chemist" makes me think you're out of the US.

Most ADHD meds in the US are "controlled substances" and that means our doctors can only prescribe up to three months at a time. After three months we have to have a follow-up appointment, then they can prescribe three more months of meds.

Plus the federal government decided that too many people were taking medications like Adderall. So their "solution" was to instate a cap on how much Adderall manufacturers can make. Which means there's now a national shortage of Adderall. And that shortage means folks with ADHD are frequently going without their meds entirely or are forced to call multiple pharmacies in the area to ask who has their meds in stock. (My health insurance through work requires me to use a mail-order pharmacy because it means cost savings for them. But that means I don't have the luxury of shopping around different stores to see who has my meds in stock - at least, not to fill the prescription through insurance and get the lower price. So if the mail order place is out, then I'm screwed.)

Our healthcare system is so fucked.

[–] Maalus@lemmy.world 1 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

Adhd meds here are controlled substances too. It makes it so the prescription lasts only a month. But how many packs of meds you have on this prescription, is only set by your doctor. So I get 4 months refills and have to buy it within one month.

And yeah, med shortage over here is an issue too.

[–] earphone843@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

Yeah, the DEA wouldn't allow that. Where I'm at in the US you can only get one month at a time, and most people have to go to the doctors office in person to pick up a physical prescription.

You only have a 3-4 day window before your pills run out to do this, too, so if your pharmacy is out, you're fucked because most pharmacies won't just fill a control if you don't have other prescriptions with them (if they're accepting new controls at all). All because they're afraid of the DEA.

I've often day dreamed about starting a class action lawsuit against the DEA for discriminating against the disabled.

[–] immutable@lemm.ee 2 points 1 hour ago

Anyone that might be thinking this is an exaggeration, it is not.

My wife has adhd and takes vyvanse for it, a strictly controlled substance. I have to be extremely vigilant about making sure her prescription gets to the pharmacy and that the pharmacy fills it correctly.

We recently moved across country. Here’s a fun puzzle to work on.

  1. You can not get more than a 30 day supply of the drug
  2. Due to lack of providers, you can not get an in state prescription for more than 30 days
  3. while it is perfectly legal to fill the out of state prescription, every large pharmacy that can get vyvanse has a corporate policy against filling out of state prescriptions for it
  4. smaller pharmacies are willing to fill the prescription, but can’t stock the medicine.

The amount of times I had to explain this to people and just exasperatedly go “so should I just prepare my wife to go through withdrawal of this medication she has been prescribed and taking for nearly a half a decade? Is that ok with you, is that an ok patient outcome? Is that what you’d let happen to your wife”

Luckily shes married to an angry, persistent, yet very polite man who will shame the shit out of people until he gets it fixed. But I have no idea how she was supposed to navigate this alone, while facing the terror of withdrawal.

[–] atrielienz@lemmy.world 2 points 5 hours ago (3 children)

I have to go in every year to get refills on my epi pens and my migraine meds. I have to have a doctor sign off on those and I don't really know why. I am not on ADHD meds but I imagine that would be the same.

[–] earphone843@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 hour ago

It's every 6 months for controls.

[–] AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world 1 points 2 hours ago

Oh yeah.... I should probably refill my epipens....

[–] ivanafterall@lemmy.world 1 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago)

My old doctor used to require monthly check-ins to get my ADHD meds.

[–] joel_feila@lemmy.world 2 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

Usa person, i canget auto refills on meds never tried with adhd meds though. The ones that have auro refill have a final refill date and max refill number.

[–] ivanafterall@lemmy.world 2 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

Like the person above said, I've only ever had them do that three months at a time, but it's better than monthly, which is how I started.

[–] earphone843@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

I have difficulty believing that the DEA allows a 90 day supply of stimulants.

[–] ivanafterall@lemmy.world 1 points 44 seconds ago

Believe it!

On December 19, 2007, a DEA regulation came into effect that allows a prescriber to issue multiple prescriptions authorizing an individual patient to receive a total of up to a 90-day supply of a Schedule II controlled substance.2 However, this is allowable only under the following conditions:

There are some restrictions, but it's a thing. It looks like it can depend on state. In my case, I believe they did it every month, but I only had to visit the office once every three months, the two after that were just called in/you could fill out a website form if you had any issue. But that likely counted as "three prescriptions," rather than "a single 90-day prescription," to your point. The main thing for me was not having to get away from work and into a doctor's office every single month only for her to say, "Alright! See you next month!" as she charged me more than the insurance allowed to fund her (literal) new Corvette parked out front.

[–] randon31415@lemmy.world 6 points 10 hours ago

Treatment for ADHDanything seems engineered to be difficult specifically for those with ADHDanything to obtain

[–] Suck_on_my_Presence@lemmy.world 15 points 13 hours ago

As someone with unmedicated ADHD and a severe heart condition, I feel this rant deep, deep in my soul but more for my heart stuff.

You mean I have to call for follow ups every three months and also remember to fill my multiple medications every month or else I am sent on a death spiral? And you also mean to tell me that I can't take any of the typical ADHD drugs because it might hurt my heart?

Win win.

[–] RoyaltyInTraining@lemmy.world 66 points 19 hours ago (10 children)

My anxiety, depression, and executive dysfunction prevent me from talking to a therapist and getting a diagnosis. I am so sick of this...

[–] earphone843@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 hour ago

You really don't need a therapist. You just need a GP that'll do the questionnaire.

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[–] Infynis@midwest.social 28 points 18 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago) (1 children)

It's designed that way, because it has the same effect on everyone. People with ADHD are just starting with a lower capacity for it. The goal is to get as many people as possible to give up on getting what should be theirs in order to "save money". It's the same thing you'll see in certain software when you try to do something they don't like, for example, opening a link in an external browser, or contacting an actual support representative. Suddenly, this app is really poorly designed! It's not a bug, it's a feature

[–] earphone843@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 hour ago

No, it's entirely a DEA thing. They have such a stick up their ass that must doctors and pharmacies are terrified of writing/filling too many controls because the DEA can fuck them in the ass for actually providing the meds people need.

[–] tehmics@lemmy.world 41 points 20 hours ago

100%

It took me years to realize I had it, even more years to get a diagnosis (I was told I had "severe ADHD" btw") and even now, I'm out of medication more often than I have any due to logistical and financial barriers.

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