Add And T?

[Guest Cody_T]

I apologize if this has been posted before, but the search thing didn't show it to me...

Basically, I'm planning to start T this summer. I'm gonna call tomorrow to start all that, and that's awesome and all but... I'm also planning to take summer classes. Organic Chem and differential calculus, to be exact. These classes will be shoved into a month's time, meaning I don't have time to mess up in them.

Unfortunately, I'm about 99% sure I have ADD. Never been diagnosed so I can't say for sure, but the symptoms all fit and it's been going on basically forever. I get by, although it's really not optimal, and since I put school before any other concerns, I've been able to pass my classes by letting everything else fall apart. However, from what I've heard, T will make this worse. I realllly don't want to screw up my science GPA any further by compromising my grades with escalating ADD, but I also want to double major in four years so summer classes are important. I'm afraid that if my ADD gets worse, I'll get way behind on the classes and end up failing or actually failing.

So anyway, my question is simply, has anyone experienced having ADD and going on testosterone without being medicated/assisted for AD/HD, and how has it affected that? And I guess the old, "if you were me, what would you do" as well.

[Guest Pól]

Hey Cody, welcome back!

I guess the first question is obvious, but have you considered getting diagnosed. Even if it's not ADD, you might be able to get some help that way.

Mine got worse, and I had to readjust my study habits (or lack thereof) to account for that. It was complicated for me because about a month after I started T, I injured my knee and was on percocet and vicodin (though not at the same time) for about 6 weeks. I'm not sure how much of that readjusting was due to T and how much of it was from the percocet and vicodin. It's not as bad now, but I don't know if that's because I've gotten used to it or because I'm not on the drugs anymore.

[Guest Evan_J]

**throws arms around Cody and hollers "kill the fatted calf!!"

I have absolutely no knowledge about the ADD question but stick around, there're bound to be others with some knowledge.

I'm just glad to see you're alright. (and yeah, its fine bein M.I.A . when you need to.)

[Guest My_Genesis]

Hey Cody, as Pól said welcome back

I'm hoping to start T soon myself, and I'm also going back to school (I've been on leave) for summer classes probably in July. I have been unofficially diagnosed with ADD I guess you can say. I've been prescribed meds for it in the past but I dunno if I was ever officially diagnosed.

There's actually a chance that in our case our focus might improve. A lot of the reason I have trouble focusing in school is b/c I'm often so sidetracked by being trans and/or unmotivated to do work b/c well, being trans can get depressing and just make you apathetic about life in general. I hope that after starting T and living as a guy the apathy will fade and I'll be more motivated to do stuff. Not sure if this is gonna happen, but I'm hoping.

I guess maybe people say ADD can get worse b/c it's more common in boys than in girls. It's often thought that girls and boys each have some sort of "threshold" for testosterone (obviously in boys it's much higher than in girls) and if you're exposed to T beyond that natural threshold prenatally, you have a higher chance of having ADD. I wrote a paper on this; this is a theory though idk if it's true. I'm also not sure if that means taking T will make it worse.

Dunno if that helps but those are my thoughts.

[Guest StrandedOutThere]

Cody! It's good to hear from you!

Testosterone seemed to make my ADHD a lot worse. As far as I can tell, most of that action has been on the hyperactivity side. Even if I can sit still for long enough to do work, I have a lot of difficulty with "deep" focus - I have mental hyperactivity. I haven't noticed any increased tendency for me to "zone out", but then I have never had many inattentive symptoms.

Another issue that T seems to exacerbate is my impulsivity. This indirectly affects my academic functioning in several ways, as you can imagine.

I can't offer much advice about successfully coping with these issues because I haven't really found good coping strategies that restore me to pre-T levels of functioning. Of course, I don't have a good metric (i.e. grades) to gauge my academic functioning. What I can say is that the type of unstructured tasks that used to give me difficulty before have become even more problematic. Speaking of which... I should probably quit posting and go back to writing, which is what I am supposed to be doing right now.

I do take medication for ADHD. It seems like my medication is less effective now than it was pre-T. However, all of this is speculation. I, like everyone else, have no hard evidence. ADHD is diagnosed in males at a much higher rate than in females. Maybe testosterone IS a causal factor.

[Guest My_Genesis]

Cody! It's good to hear from you!

Testosterone seemed to make my ADHD a lot worse. As far as I can tell, most of that action has been on the hyperactivity side. Even if I can sit still for long enough to do work, I have a lot of difficulty with "deep" focus - I have mental hyperactivity. I haven't noticed any increased tendency for me to "zone out", but then I have never had many inattentive symptoms.

Another issue that T seems to exacerbate is my impulsivity. This indirectly affects my academic functioning in several ways, as you can imagine.

I can't offer much advice about successfully coping with these issues because I haven't really found good coping strategies that restore me to pre-T levels of functioning. Of course, I don't have a good metric (i.e. grades) to gauge my academic functioning. What I can say is that the type of unstructured tasks that used to give me difficulty before have become even more problematic. Speaking of which... I should probably quit posting and go back to writing, which is what I am supposed to be doing right now.

I do take medication for ADHD. It seems like my medication is less effective now than it was pre-T. However, all of this is speculation. I, like everyone else, have no hard evidence. ADHD is diagnosed in males at a much higher rate than in females. Maybe testosterone IS a causal factor.

I think it may depend on whether your primary issue is inattention or hyperactivity. Me, I have this issue where I tend to hyperfocus (some may even call it obsession) on things I enjoy, and then I put off stuff like schoolwork cuz I'm too busy intensely focusing on a video game or facebook... or reading posts on Laura's lol. Then again I guess that's how the inattention stuff works. My mom always asks how I can focus on stuff for so long, and if I really had ADD I wouldn't be able to focus on anything. Obviously that's not true.

Hmm.. like Ains and I were saying it's diagnosed at a higher rate in males. But one reason for that might be males are more likely to display symptoms of hyperactivity and impulsivity. Some docs/psychologists think ADD is underdiagnosed in girls b/c inattentive symptoms are often overlooked, since they're not as obvious. But in boys it's blatantly there a lot of the time lol. So maybe you will see some sort of shift from inattentive to more hyperactive/impulsive symptoms? I dunno, just speculation.

[Guest StrandedOutThere]

I think it may depend on whether your primary issue is inattention or hyperactivity. Me, I have this issue where I tend to hyperfocus (some may even call it obsession) on things I enjoy, and then I put off stuff like schoolwork cuz I'm too busy intensely focusing on a video game or facebook... or reading posts on Laura's lol. Then again I guess that's how the inattention stuff works. My mom always asks how I can focus on stuff for so long, and if I really had ADD I wouldn't be able to focus on anything. Obviously that's not true.

This is something I experience as well. It seems contradictory to people who do not have the disorder. My guess is that this is a way of compensating that we've developed. I can play video games for hours at a time but have a hard time focusing on less immediately rewarding activities.

Hmm.. like Ains and I were saying it's diagnosed at a higher rate in males. But one reason for that might be males are more likely to display symptoms of hyperactivity and impulsivity. Some docs/psychologists think ADD is underdiagnosed in girls b/c inattentive symptoms are often overlooked, since they're not as obvious. But in boys it's blatantly there a lot of the time lol. So maybe you will see some sort of shift from inattentive to more hyperactive/impulsive symptoms? I dunno, just speculation.

Yup. It's way easier to overlook inattention. I'm not sure if there would be a symptom shift. I actually think that primarily inattentive ADD and primarily hyperactive ADD are different disorders. It's just that the name is the same. Remember, the DSM uses symptom-based taxonomies, so things aren't always grouped in meaningful ways. When you think about it "attention" is a difficult construct to pin down. The kind of attention problems hyperactive people have are that hyperactivity displaces other activities...it's qualitatively different than the "zoning out" kind of inattention.

Interesting thought though... We should be keeping data on this.

[Guest Cody_T]

Hey, sorry for the delay in responding...

First, thanks everyone for welcoming me back. I've missed being here, but what with my demanding college schedule (in which I don't manage to do anything productive) I never seem to get a chance. Hopefully that will change. Also, Evan, it took me a second to get your reference and I must say at first I just assumed you'd gone mad .

Second, thanks for the replies. Based on this and what I've read I'm just gonna go ahead and try to get diagnosed. I've been wary of that since when I tried that before, I got shut down because I get pretty good grades. So now I feel like the person will think I'm just making it up. But I'm not prepared to deal with it getting worse without a little bit of help so I should probably do that...

If the testosterone threshold is true, might that mean transguys would be more likely to get AD/HD? Seeing as we assume transsexuality is caused by the existence of testosterone in the womb as well. And if you don't mind, I'd be really interested in reading the sources you used for your paper.

RJ, I hope you're right about it making things better... but lately, I've been a lot less depressed since I'm pretty stealth in classes and some clubs and getting everything rolling, and I definitely feel more hyperactive than I ever have. I was pretty much depressed until I decided to transition and then until I actually started to do that process, so I think that may have actually subdued things. In a negative way, where I didn't get anything done, but it still made me rather more quiet and all. Now, I'm more like "let's do this *right now*" every five seconds.

Also, I was thinking about the video game focus, and that's not real focus, is it? Because you're constantly being stimulated by changing screens, lights, and sounds, and you're able to think about other things without a lot of consequences... whereas for school and other things, full attention is needed. Idk though, I don't pay much attention to my focus while playing video games. I mostly just go "crap, it's been three hours?"

[Guest Evan_J]

Also, Evan, it took me a second to get your reference and I must say at first I just assumed you'd gone mad

lmao. I gotta work on you with your referencing skills.

Definately do what needs to be done so that you do well in school.

[Guest My_Genesis]

If the testosterone threshold is true, might that mean transguys would be more likely to get AD/HD? Seeing as we assume transsexuality is caused by the existence of testosterone in the womb as well. And if you don't mind, I'd be really interested in reading the sources you used for your paper.

RJ, I hope you're right about it making things better... but lately, I've been a lot less depressed since I'm pretty stealth in classes and some clubs and getting everything rolling, and I definitely feel more hyperactive than I ever have. I was pretty much depressed until I decided to transition and then until I actually started to do that process, so I think that may have actually subdued things. In a negative way, where I didn't get anything done, but it still made me rather more quiet and all. Now, I'm more like "let's do this *right now*" every five seconds.

Also, I was thinking about the video game focus, and that's not real focus, is it? Because you're constantly being stimulated by changing screens, lights, and sounds, and you're able to think about other things without a lot of consequences... whereas for school and other things, full attention is needed. Idk though, I don't pay much attention to my focus while playing video games. I mostly just go "crap, it's been three hours?"

Yeah, I found the abstract - I had access to the full report in college, but I'm not there right now so I can only access the abstract. It correlates the 2D:4D finger ratio thing (which means higher prenatal T levels) to ADHd. This particular study says in boys but not in girls, but other studies say girls as well, so the results obviously are in conflict. Now, whether we are considered male or female, i dunno. I would say that if transsexuals in theory have the brain of the sex opposite the body, ftm's would have male brains. So then we'd fall under boys. All the sex difference stuff gets very fuzzy. But that's the basic idea. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18410167

Video games... lol I suppose you do need at least a short attention span to do things like play guitar hero or halo.. i dunno, i guess with school maybe it's more a long-term memory issue? Where you need to remember large amounts of material. Whereas with video games you just take it as it comes. And it's more entertaining - with ADHD you don't generally have an issue with focusing on stuff that interests you. I think that may be the reason.