Post by cassandro on Jun 15, 2022 9:27:06 GMT
Hi
TLDR: has anyone been able to have their symptoms investigated by a neurologist, and how did it go?
I haven't posted here for a while. A week ago an NHS psychiatrist moved me from immediate release methylphenidate to Concerta XL, but still very little improvement in terms of accomplishing plans, and very distractible (I shouldn't really be writing this probably and am underestimating the time it will take). Nausea and rebound tiredness and most of all insomnia still. More energy, true, but I could probably get that from caffeine. The medication leaflet still says it's given as a package with social and psychological interventions, but no sign of those. From a Russell Barkley video that someone posted here, things that might help but I could do with some help with:
* Greater rewards and positive emotions
* Pep-talk; statements of self-efficacy and encouragement.
* 10 minute breaks between EF/SR tasks; smaller units (10 work + 3 break)
* 3+ minutes of relaxation or meditation (don't work kids too hard.)
* visualising and talking about future rewards before and during SR demanding tasks
* Routine physical exercise; glucose ingestion to keep blood glucose up, sip lemonade - here's his source
* Pep-talk; statements of self-efficacy and encouragement.
* 10 minute breaks between EF/SR tasks; smaller units (10 work + 3 break)
* 3+ minutes of relaxation or meditation (don't work kids too hard.)
* visualising and talking about future rewards before and during SR demanding tasks
* Routine physical exercise; glucose ingestion to keep blood glucose up, sip lemonade - here's his source
Anyhow, distraction from the distraction, I've also been reading Edward Bullmore's The Inflamed Mind, about cytokines possibly causing depression, cell dysfunction or just 'sickness behaviour'; stuff about CFS and frontal white matter; and this week's New Scientist has something on brain fog: Anna Nordvig says: 'For a host of reasons - ranging from inflammation to compromised blood vessels - there may be brain areas where cells are no longer able to get the nutrients or blood flow they require to work at their best'.
I've never really found psychiatry of any use, and ADHD still usually falls on psychiatrists' turf because of the subjectivity of diagnosis and concentration on medication. There was a discussion of seeing things more biologically here, and the problems getting an expensive fMRI scan that probably wouldn't show much. I had an fMRI scan once as a research participant, and wish the data had been kept to help with specific diagnosis. I see private neuropsychologists offering consultations at £140 (eg Roz Halari), but don't know what they offer. I suppose in any case it would be a question of finding what works for me, but I'm getting pretty desperate at failure of medication and think I'll experiment with maximum doses of ibuprofen or aspirin (not together) on the glucose/BBB theory; and will check if my GP will send me for CRP & EST bloods. Having gone around the houses so long, some 'biomarker' of my problems would help understand them.
So has anyone been able to have their symptoms investigated by a neurologist, and how did it go?