Areas › Focus, starting, and ADHD › Treatment and medication
Managing the ADHD is not the goal. Being happy together is the goal, and the ADHD work is only worth doing to the extent that it gets you there.
Keeping that order straight changes the atmosphere of the whole effort. A partner who has spent years being a project stops being one. Requests stop sounding like symptom management and start sounding like two people trying to have a decent life. It also gives the reluctant one something they actually want at the end of it, which is a far better reason to take a tablet or keep a diary than being told to.
This explains how treatments work. Never start, stop or change a medication because of something you read here.
Qur’an and Sunnah
A healing for what is in your hearts, and guidance and mercy (Quran 10:57). What is being healed is the state of the heart, not the label, which is a fair thing to keep at the centre.
يَٰٓأَيُّهَا ٱلنَّاسُ قَدۡ جَآءَتۡكُم مَّوۡعِظَةࣱ مِّن رَّبِّكُمۡ وَشِفَآءࣱ لِّمَا فِي ٱلصُّدُورِ وَهُدࣰ ى وَرَحۡمَةࣱ لِّلۡمُؤۡمِنِينَ
People, a teaching from your Lord has come to you, a healing for what is in [your] hearts, and guidance and mercy for the believers
Qur’an 10:57read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
A randomised, double blind, placebo controlled trial in 445 young adults aged 18 to 30 evaluated atomoxetine on functional outcomes as well as on ADHD symptoms. Choosing functioning as an outcome is the same instinct as this one, that the score matters mainly through the life around it. It is a medication trial in young adults rather than anything about marriages, so it backs the principle and not the particular application.
Durell TM, Adler LA, Williams DW, Deldar A, McGough JJ, Glaser PE, Rubin RL, Pigott TA, Sarkis EH, Fox BK. (2013). Atomoxetine treatment of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder in young adults with assessment of functional outcomes: a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial.. Journal of clinical psychopharmacology doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
People will do difficult things for a life they want, and much less for a diagnosis they did not ask for.
This one is still a draft. It is waiting on a scholar and a clinician to read it before it is published.
Near this one
Sleep, food and movement will not cure anything, but they lengthen the fuse. Bad moments still arrive, and you handle them differently when your body is not already running on empty.
Think of ADHD as sitting at the centre of an onion. Poor sleep, sleep apnoea, low vitamin levels, allergy, ongoing pain, untreated anxiety or low mood all sit in layers around it, and each one makes the centre look worse than it is.
Supplements are not checked before they go on sale, so what is in the bottle may not match the label. Look for a third party mark such as USP or NSF before you buy.