Post by lazypineapple on Oct 23, 2014 19:40:00 GMT
Hi all,
Thought I'd start an entry to track my progress and perhaps give others some insight, maybe a little hope and that perseverance helps ALOT
adhd has been apparent all my life however I have only just been diagnosed after an almost 3yr battle with the NHS. I never even considered it to be the reason for the way I have lived my life until I was given some information from a tutor after I started failing my 3rd uncompleted college course in 5 yrs. It always frustrated me that all my peers were progressing so well and completing their assignments where I was just drowning in coursework and eventually getting so far behind, dropping out. I have still not completed a course to date, but I am hopeful that this will change !
Here is some insight into my journey, so that people can understand what is sometimes involved.
It started out with an appointment with my old GP to broach the subject some three years ago. I live in the city so we have a lot of lokum GPs and it is rare to see the same one twice. Of course I was laughed out the office with the usual 'oh but we're all like that sometimes!' etc. I left in tears. I changed GPs a few months later and decided to try again. This lady was just as rude but I got so upset at the appointment she agreed to refer me to one of the local adult mental health services. This took at least a couple of months. Long story short I didn't class as depressed so I was discharged from their service! Back to the GP. As the first service was no use I was referred to a consultant psychiatrists team at the local mental health hospital, this of course, took months to get an appointment. By now I'd been in the system for around a year. I had various assessments via phone and eventually one in person. I was referred back to my GP with requests for a Dementia test (!) and a basic cognitive function test. Another couple of months wait as the 'Mind Clinic' was only small and already backlogged. The dementia test consisted of baby questions like pointing to a chair and being asked 'What is this object?' and 'Who is the primeminister?' Needless to say, I passed the tests. A couple of months later I have another appointment with the psychiatrist team, and finally someone starts listening ! I am presented with the adhd self assessment questionnaire. A few months later I finally got another referral, this time to the adhd clinic at the local hospital. Hallelujah ! By this time I was almost 2 years deep in system. I heard absolutely nothing for months so I spent weeks chasing departments and finally got a date for an appointment I should have received in the post weeks before ! However, this appointment was 7 months away.
So 8 months later here I am ! I had had to fill in and post off more adhd related questionnaires beforehand but my initial appointment at the clinic was around 3 weeks ago. I was there for about 2 hours, had to give a detailed timeline of my life from as far as I remember to now and then filled in the adhd diagnosis booklet with examples of struggles in childhood comparative to struggles in adulthood. She concluded on the spot I was definitely adhd but would have to add up the paperwork and apologised profusely about my 3 yr game of mental health service hot potato. She was so kind and understanding, more than everyone else I'd been passed around to put together! I was booked in for bloods and an ECG last week to check to see if I am suitable for stimulant meds and had my second appointment at the clinic this morning, which consisted of a few more physical exams and treatment discussion. I walked away with a prescript for 30x 18mg Concerta XL
Picked them up this afternoon and ready to start tomorrow as a brand new chapter I will keep ya'll updated with progress !
I just want to say, no matter how disheartened you feel, just keep at it. GPs in my experience can be very unsympathetic, but don't take it personally. They just don't know how to deal with it and are not familiar with adult adhd. Afterall, it was only recently acknowledged in adults. Don't give up !
I'm here to finish what I started, for a change!
Thought I'd start an entry to track my progress and perhaps give others some insight, maybe a little hope and that perseverance helps ALOT
adhd has been apparent all my life however I have only just been diagnosed after an almost 3yr battle with the NHS. I never even considered it to be the reason for the way I have lived my life until I was given some information from a tutor after I started failing my 3rd uncompleted college course in 5 yrs. It always frustrated me that all my peers were progressing so well and completing their assignments where I was just drowning in coursework and eventually getting so far behind, dropping out. I have still not completed a course to date, but I am hopeful that this will change !
Here is some insight into my journey, so that people can understand what is sometimes involved.
It started out with an appointment with my old GP to broach the subject some three years ago. I live in the city so we have a lot of lokum GPs and it is rare to see the same one twice. Of course I was laughed out the office with the usual 'oh but we're all like that sometimes!' etc. I left in tears. I changed GPs a few months later and decided to try again. This lady was just as rude but I got so upset at the appointment she agreed to refer me to one of the local adult mental health services. This took at least a couple of months. Long story short I didn't class as depressed so I was discharged from their service! Back to the GP. As the first service was no use I was referred to a consultant psychiatrists team at the local mental health hospital, this of course, took months to get an appointment. By now I'd been in the system for around a year. I had various assessments via phone and eventually one in person. I was referred back to my GP with requests for a Dementia test (!) and a basic cognitive function test. Another couple of months wait as the 'Mind Clinic' was only small and already backlogged. The dementia test consisted of baby questions like pointing to a chair and being asked 'What is this object?' and 'Who is the primeminister?' Needless to say, I passed the tests. A couple of months later I have another appointment with the psychiatrist team, and finally someone starts listening ! I am presented with the adhd self assessment questionnaire. A few months later I finally got another referral, this time to the adhd clinic at the local hospital. Hallelujah ! By this time I was almost 2 years deep in system. I heard absolutely nothing for months so I spent weeks chasing departments and finally got a date for an appointment I should have received in the post weeks before ! However, this appointment was 7 months away.
So 8 months later here I am ! I had had to fill in and post off more adhd related questionnaires beforehand but my initial appointment at the clinic was around 3 weeks ago. I was there for about 2 hours, had to give a detailed timeline of my life from as far as I remember to now and then filled in the adhd diagnosis booklet with examples of struggles in childhood comparative to struggles in adulthood. She concluded on the spot I was definitely adhd but would have to add up the paperwork and apologised profusely about my 3 yr game of mental health service hot potato. She was so kind and understanding, more than everyone else I'd been passed around to put together! I was booked in for bloods and an ECG last week to check to see if I am suitable for stimulant meds and had my second appointment at the clinic this morning, which consisted of a few more physical exams and treatment discussion. I walked away with a prescript for 30x 18mg Concerta XL
Picked them up this afternoon and ready to start tomorrow as a brand new chapter I will keep ya'll updated with progress !
I just want to say, no matter how disheartened you feel, just keep at it. GPs in my experience can be very unsympathetic, but don't take it personally. They just don't know how to deal with it and are not familiar with adult adhd. Afterall, it was only recently acknowledged in adults. Don't give up !
I'm here to finish what I started, for a change!