Now That You Mention it, My Lack of Focus HAS Been Bothering Me!
We’ve all lived with symptoms that puzzle us and we ask ourselves: is this a new MS symptom? And then there are the problems that have hung around so long that we’ve almost given up finding a treatment or an answer.
I always figure I’m taking enough medicine, I’m taking enough supplements, I’m doing enough physical therapy; if this particular symptom isn’t responding to stuff I’m already doing, it can just take a number and wait its turn. I was sufficiently bothered by a very long-standing symptom, though, that I finally did bring it up to my neurologist. Let me tell you the story.
Is it MS or something else?
I have always had trouble keeping track of things like my handbag, my phone, my outerwear, and the various lists I use to keep track of what I’m supposed to be doing. I was shopping with a friend and she noticed the scatter. She asked me how long I had had ADD. “I don’t have ADD, I have MS,” I reminded her, and she gave me a quick tour of her own family incidence of ADD. It sure sounded like my difficulties staying focused and getting things done!
I asked my neurologist when I saw him next, “can you evaluate me for ADD? I’ve been having some problems right along, but they’ve gotten worse lately, and it’s starting to interfere with my day-to-day life.” “I don’t do formal evaluations, but let me ask you some questions,” he said, and started asking about my experience in school, at my jobs, my volunteer work, even my hobbies. After we talked for about fifteen minutes, he said, “even if I can’t formally diagnose you, I can certainly treat you. I think you would benefit from taking a low dose of Adderall, would you like to try it?”
My neurologist has never steered me wrong. He wrote me a prescription for a very low dosage, and I started within a few days. I do have an upcoming appointment with a clinical neuropsychologist who will do a formal evaluation, but in the meantime, Adderall has been a game-changer.
Learning to manage
If I take my dose in the morning with a little food, I feel calm and focused and I can tackle the long list of tasks I have to deal with. If you can imagine a stimulant making you feel calm and focused, then you have a pretty good idea of what Adderall is doing for me. And it’s out of my system by mid-afternoon, so it doesn’t interfere with me falling asleep!
But what kills me is that I have been dealing with symptoms of ADD all my life! I have been losing things like socks for as long as I've been wearing shoes, and you should see my dining room table! Fortunately, I have found ways to cope. All of my lists are kept in individual notebooks, each of them a different size, shape and/or color. My shopping lists for groceries are kept on customized forms we designed according to the layout of our habitual grocery store.
Never considered I could treat this
But with all the problems, I’ve never considered them to be anything that could be treated. Nor had I even considered the Attention Deficit Disorder constellation anything I could lay claim to. "ADD is something that happens to boys. Girls don’t get ADD, do they?" I thought. And there was reason for me to believe that: historically, girls have been under-diagnosed with ADD compared to boys, and less likely to receive ADD medication early on.1
I was ADD all right, and early on, as well, which is usually part of the diagnostic criteria. No wonder Adderall helped me! And having experience with knowing what it’s like to focus helps me even when the drug is out of my system. I can still focus, I can still complete tasks, because now I know what it’s like to have that ability.
Ask about your symptoms
There may be things like this that bother you. Don’t assume that just because so much bothers us, the problem that is bothering YOU is just part of MS. If something is bothering you, ask somebody about it. You might be surprised! The somebody you ask might tell you they don’t do formal diagnoses, but they have an idea of how to treat that problem.
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