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ADHD and sleep: what actually helped you, timing of meds, wake-up time, or something else? (lemmy.world)
submitted 3 hours ago by to c/adhd@lemmy.world
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Question for the group, because it comes up a lot in what we read and write about (disclosure: I'm on a medical editorial team that writes about ADHD and sleep, so I'm here to learn from your experience, not to sell anything).

Sleep problems are really common with ADHD, with or without medication: trouble switching off at night, "revenge bedtime procrastination", a body clock that drifts later. Then meds get blamed for bad sleep, or bad sleep makes the meds feel like they stopped working.

For those of you who found something that helped:

  • Did changing the timing of your dose (earlier, splitting it, switching to a shorter or longer acting form) change your sleep?
  • Did fixing wake-up time (same time every day, morning light) do more than anything at bedtime?
  • Anyone found that sleep was the real problem all along, e.g. sleep apnea or a delayed body clock that got diagnosed later?
  • What did NOT help, even though everyone recommends it?

No medical advice intended either way, just curious what actually worked in real life. Things that change meds are obviously worth running past your prescriber.

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[–] 1 point 2 hours ago

I found several years in the meds were what was behind my total inability to wake up in the morning

No doctor ever warned me that taking it everyday for a prolonged period can lead to daily withdrawal, or about the very long withdrawal that comes when getting off the meds suddenly. I had to learn from someone who went through the same experience

Going 2-3 days a week without the meds can help avoid getting to the daily withdrawal phase... It creeps up on you over a long period. And if you have to stop the meds, do not let them tell you "there's no withdrawal" and pull you cold turkey. It will slowly get better over the course of 6+ months, and although it will not directly put you in danger directly, it puts you in a state where you can't keep your eyes open. Not great for a morning commute

It's criminal that this isn't known by most prescribers of this medication, I don't know if there's nothing in the medical literature or what.

Dextroamphetamines are the only pharmaceutical treatment to hypersomnia, and during both types of withdrawal many people will meet all the criteria for hypersomnia

As far as the sleep procrastination, I've seen some improvements with medicines that cause drowsiness, but glp-1s seem to actually reduce the nighttime dopamine cravings behind the behaviors

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