ADHD healthcare in the UK is very hard to come by. You can only get It on govt insurance (NHS) basically via something akin to a loophole (Right to Choose), and the prices of private relative to median wage and disposable income render It inaccessible for most.

To put this into context for non-brits I was diagnosed in January after around a 10 month wait after my GP referred me, and still waiting on titration, I was quoted a waiting time of 6 months, and I’ve been following up every month since through every contact form available and still no sign of when this will be okay. I work in the tech sector (software development company) as a mid-level cybersecurity engineer. My salary is in the 70th or so percentile for the UK, and paying private would easily take a quarter of my disposable income after rent and bills.

It sucks to see how people just suffer endlessly waiting. But there is a way to have your cake and eat it too and its called self-medicating. It’s not a perfect solution but we don’t live in a perfect world/system, and for me the benefits to life quality make the hassle well-worth it.

However I was banned by /r/ADHDUK when someone asked whether self-medicating was a good idea and I responded with a list of pros and cons in what at least I thought was an extremely sensitive, dispassionate and balanced manner, and the thread was locked shortly after, with the mods lock comment putting in a final word that self-medicating is “always a bad idea” - a narrative that seems not at all accurate in my view.

To my shock though this didn’t seem to be just a case of power tripping mods, but an overwhelming community consensus as well.

Coming from the trans community where self-medicating to transition is arguably almost more common than receiving genuine medical care due to various failures and malice on behalf of the government and the healthcare system in the UK, I am somewhat shocked people had such a negative view of even the idea, and that it seemed fairly common even across the ADHD space as a whole. Honestly I started self-medicating about as soon as I put the referral in, I knew I had ADHD, the diagnosis etc. is just hoops for me to jump through.

So I’m curious what is the outlook in this community? Positive? Negative? Neither? What do you think of self-medicating and why?

  • LainTrain@lemmy.dbzer0.comOPEnglish
    0·
    3 months ago

    Doing so invites health risk that I’m not comfortable with people taking.

    And who the fuck are you to decide for others what is and isn’t a risk worth taking?

    If that is unbearable then seek private treatment.

    “Lol just be rich, no problem”

    If that is not an option then wait like everybody else.

    Ah yes the good old British tradition. Wait meekly in the queue. Know your place. Let your teeth rot due to executive dysfunction.

    Y’know when I started I had a problem with that. First ever dentist appointment after meds I was told my gums receeded due to my lack of brushing prior as a result of ADHD. Not something I’m proud of.

    My teeth were fine but that’s because I don’t eat baked goods or sugar very much. Gums, again, not so much. Second appointment, some months into meds? Gums were no longer receeding. Even the professional clean was far less bloody than the first time.

    If I had “waited like everybody else” who knows, maybe I’d be missing teeth by now as a 26-year old woman. Thanks darknet amphetamine!

    Oh? Care to back that up with evidence?

    No, just personal experience.

    And if a medical professional would give poor assessments what makes you think Billy-Bob with a 9 year old smart phone can assess him self better?

    So far I have been better so it’s that.

    If Billy-Bob does it wrong he could hurt himself or make his mental health worse.

    Same applies for a doctor.

    but to think you are more correct than a trained medical professional is insanely egotistical.

    Believe me I didn’t start off with that assumption. I came to it gradually after 10+ years dealing with the NHS nearly constantly.

    Ah, I see your issue. You are going to the doctor to confirm your biases and get treatment for it, not to get their professional opinion.

    Their “professional opinion” is just a confirmation of their biases. That said just like mine I don’t place zero value on that, I take it into account, but I don’t rely on it like gospel.

    If they don’t agree; "can’t believe they got it wrong. They’re useless. " If they do; "hey they got it right for once. "

    You are one of the people that I feel aren’t fit to self-diagnose. Your symptoms could have been autism, bi-polar, or various other conditions. Could have even been a combination. Convincing yourself it was 100% adhd is reckless and should be tempered by an outside opinion.

    And says who? You?

    For the record I was never 100% convinced, and still am not, that:

    1. ADHD is even real
    2. I have ADHD
    3. It is not in fact a combination of ADHD and any of the above

    But I’m not an idiot, I can look at the symptoms checklists and see that it’s not autism or bipolar that’s the primary issue.

    If anything the thing that convinced me most was the fact that the meds helped as much as they did when I tried Amph on my own prior to getting a diagnosis at all.

    I’m not sure where this lack of respect comes from. if you are in the UK like me it probably stems from the lack of funding for the NHS leading to “revolving door”

    I wish this was true so I could get the stuff I know I need and bypass them as much as possible.

    What does lead to this lack of respect is every experience I’ve had, through all the dismissiveness and the inherent need to get as many patients to fuck off as possible to shorten waitlists.

    I trust that the qualifications they have makes them more specialised in dealing with my health than I or the average person.

    And I don’t.

    Sounds like someone self-diagnosed and demanded medication and the only professional in the room wasn’t having any of that shit.

    This is projection. I have no need of doing this when I can acquire any drugs with next day delivery without groveling before so-called professionals.

    How are they supposed to trust what you say your symptoms are when you are clearly biased towards what you think you have, you’d look like an addict trying to get a fix.

    They already don’t trust me or anyone for that matter.

    I had strep throat once. It was so bad for a week I could barely eat, speak or sleep, and constant fever. Instead of being prescribed antibiotics I was told it can’t be strep throat, I’m probably just exaggerating (read: hysterical). I was told to take some paracetamol and rest. As if I hadn’t been doing that already.

    I knew it was strep because I googled for 5 minutes or so.

    Several more phone appointments and my constant pestering they gave in and prescribed some anti-biotics.

    Cleared up in a few days. What’s funny is that paracetamol didn’t actually help at all with the pain, nor did ibuprofen, all it did was in my feverish haze I accidentally took one too many in an effort to have the absolute max dose possible, but was lucky enough to suffer no ill effects, only Ricola actually did help me, but I guess that hasn’t come up yet at all those conferences they’re supposedly attending.

    I’m just glad I didn’t end up like this kid: https://news.sky.com/story/amp/boy-died-from-sepsis-despite-four-visits-to-london-hospital-in-a-week-inquest-hears-13196518

    Or this kid’s story I found while looking for the above article. Only what, 3 months apart?

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/crgg6e0p3e6o

    This tracks with my experience.

    I’m sure we’re all just addicts trying to get a fix though, right?