my adhd brain on drugs
since my cat, appropriately named the fussbudget, likes to see 4am, i got up early to read the newspapers/magazines and answer emails, etc.
i won’t detail exactly how i hop-scotched to :
http://www.lumosity.com/light/guardian.html
Brain Training by Luminosity is a series of word and logic games designed to, well, train your brain. i played the games before taking my adderal (ie, no adhd drugs) scored very high in memory, my reflexes were slow, and the verbal score? fuggetaboutit (unless i cheated with http://wordnavigator.com/starts-with-by-length/gal/ )
the memory test is a spatial memory test and i excel in that- my memory is not based on abstracts. i visualize the location of something or I visualize the note i wrote or, at the very least, its location on the page. even sound, if its an auditory memory, i will visualize where i was when i heard it. when i read something i remember a passage of interest by visualizing its location on a page- then i can at least go look it up. or if i write it down, i will remember where its written.
i wondered what effect adderal would ahve so i am going to take adhd drugs and find out what improves… (if anything).
out of curiosity, i took an online iq test and scored my 123.
then i took my little friend and proceeded to read some science news to give it a few minutes to kick in. i read this article in the new yorker regarding tinnitus- it seems that if you put someone in a completely silent room they will develop temporary tinnitus.
often tinnitus sufferers develop the condition after surgery, an infection, or a loud blast (that implies to em that the brain shuts down in response to overstimulation)- in my case, i developed tinnitus after a particularly long and drawn out ear infection in miami which was not treated effectively- believe it or not after a year of taking cipro (the same stuff they use to treat anthrax victims) i fired my doctor and called my sister in mexico to get me the cheapest most backwater medicine prescribed for children’s ear infection. my logic was that whatever infection strain i had was already immune to cipro so reverting back to an antibiotic not used in USA for a long time would have a better effect. the infection was cured but i have recurring bouts of tinnitus (but the diminishing sound level encourages me to think that it too shall pass..)
it is suspected that its actually a brain fart- a neurological attempt to fill in for silence that goes awry. it seems that the brain farts often and there are conditions that can only be cured by “tricking” the brain – like people with phantom limbs that still feel pain- neurologists treat that by using a mirror makes me wonder about fibromyalgia so of course all this leads me back to me and my own brain fart- adhd
the interesting thing about the adderall and me: my online iq test score (125) remained within the same range 123-126 i always score with or without the drugs. i don’t get smarter while taking the drug.
as for this mental agility test after taking the adhd drugs:
i doubled the verbal scores
i doubled the reflex scores but my “memory” score dropped by a lot
the result of that “memory” test implies that my natural spatial dexterity drops with the adderal drugs.
hmmm….
that kind of explains why i can’t draw or paint as well if i am taking the adderall (as a matter of fact, since i was diagnosed and started taking the drugs 3 years ago i have pretty much stopped painting and work almost exclusively on the computer)
there is some left vs right brain thing there but…
