hawkeyedflame:

adhighdefinition:

cool-and-good:

dragontamer05:

October is ADHD awareness month…here’s your reminder to Take Your Meds

right because calling your meth-in-a-pill the same thing you call your blood pressure pill really reminds me how harmless they are

right because needing medication for your brain is such a bad thing compared to needing medication for the rest of your body. the medication used in the treatment of adhd is the most effective drug treatment in psychiatry but sure keep fabricating lies about it. if taken as instructed, the medication helps the majority of diagnosed people and that’s all that matters. and you, ignorant soggy carrot, can fuck off.

@cool-and-good

ADHD is a neurological disorder characterized by reduced volume (read: neuronal death and loss of synaptic connections) of certain brain regions, notably the prefrontal cortex and the striatum of the basal ganglia.

The prefrontal cortex is involved in high-order cognition, including executive function and risk assessment, among other things. The striatum is highly involved in motor control and procedural learning, and is also an important part of the mesolimbic pathway, more commonly known as the reward pathway. The striatum utilizes the neurotransmitters dopamine, GABA, and glutamate to either excite or inhibit other parts of the basal ganglia and other parts of the brain (including the prefrontal cortex and limbic system, as well as the thalamus). In fact, the basal ganglia has the highest concentration of dopamine in the entire brain, in a healthy individual. Loss of volume in the basal ganglia can cause malformed synapses, reduced/asynchronous firing rate, and reduced neurotransmitter concentration, leading to a cascade of improper inhibitory/excitatory effects elsewhere in the brain, which can result in the common symptoms of ADHD, such as inability to focus, inability to suppress unwanted movements, anxiety, irritability, difficulty learning, etc.

Currently, our understanding is that stimulants such as amphetamines work by increasing the action potential frequency of dopaminergic neurons in the basal ganglia and preventing the reuptake of dopamine into the presynaptic neuron. This allows for an increased concentration of dopamine in the basal ganglia, which facilitates proper function of the basal ganglia and all of the brain areas upon which it projects, such as the prefrontal cortex and the limbic system. Stimulants can help people with ADHD maintain functional levels of dopamine, which alleviates debilitating symptoms for the duration of the drug’s efficacy.

Stimulants may not be the same class of drugs as blood pressure medication, but they are still, in fact, medication. And they can be extremely beneficial for people with neurological deficiencies such as those observed in ADHD.

Also:

• Only some stimulants are amphetamine-based, and these drugs do not behave the same way as methamphetamine.
• One of the most common stimulants for treating ADHD is methylphenidate, which is not an amphetamine.
• Not all medications used to treat ADHD are stimulants. Buproprion and atomoxetine (Wellbutrin and Strattera, respectively) are two non-stimulants that are commonly used to treat ADHD.

Maybe if you put half as much energy into doing some research as you do being rude to people who rely on medication to treat a neurological disability, you’d realize that your disdain is baseless and unwarranted.

And of course, for anyone who has actually read this, Take Your Meds.