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BeadleBlog's avatar

Thank you for writing about the ADHD drug pushing. I educated myself on this agenda 26 years ago when some started recommending we get our 2-yr-old on ritalin because he was difficult. This drug marketing campaign continued throughout his childhood, with the public schools pushing hard, telling us his grades would improve. He never went on any meds, is grown and doing fine, in spite of all those telling us we were messing him up by not putting him on a Schedule II drug.

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Bobby Lime's avatar

A very interesting article, Doctor. I'm deeply grateful for 60 mgs of Ritalin ER every day. I have a moderate to severe traumatic brain injury, one of the effects of a suitcase bombing which nearly killed me when I was seven.

Because of the nationwide shortage of psychostimulants, I ran out of Ritalin ER eighteen days ago. Somehow, I survived the next ten days with a higgledy-piggledy combination of mostly ineffective Concerta, Buproprion ( which my system has a love/hate/hate relationship with ) and a few 10 mgs methylphenidate instant release tablets.

Thank God that eight days ago, a pharmacy I tried actually had the stuff in stock, and my good doctor was quick to get a prescription over to them. But it wasn't until two days ago that I started to feel my normally dysfunctional self. And I am getting anxious about what will happen in three weeks, when I need a new prescription. The pharmacist whose pharmacy had a supply of Ritalin ER is an immediately trustworthy, compassionate, and likeable fellow, and I'm going to be conducting a well tempered quasipolitical campaign starting next week to encourage him to be vigilant about his Ritalin ER supply.

Nothing else really helps, and Ritalin ER doesn't help all that much, but it's the pick of the litter for me. I do vape cannabis, reluctantly. As you may be aware, many military DAI survivors of the last twenty years claim that Big Pharma drugs did nothing for them, but that switching to cannabis made a remarkable difference. I wish it worked that well for me. It may be that I have not yet discovered the right chemovar, though I have after much trial and error found a way to use it in the nighttime which generally gives me an amazingly good sleep by my low standards. But I have never found the magic bud. ( I don't like the stuff, anyway. This probably means I'm the only American who doesn't like marijuana. ) My magic bud would stimulate me, possibly supplanting completely all Big Pharma drugs. I don't want to be stoned all day. I want to be energized so I can read more, watch many of the hundreds of films on my various watchlists, practice guitar and mess around with my keyboard, and maybe start to play poker on at least some Friday nights with guys from my church.

You would be hard pressed to convince my excellent neurologist that ADD isn't real. He has it, badly, but will not take medication for it because he says medication impairs his creativity. Perhaps I'm not the only patient of his who wishes he would reconsider. We respect him and are grateful for him, but he can be maddening at times.

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