<p>I just drank my first Red Bull ever (sugarfree). Isn’t it supposed to give you energy and make you feel a bit hyper? Well, the complete opposite happened to me. I’m completely calm and a nap sounds real good right now.</p>
<p>I’ve always joked to my husband that I think I’m ADD. With much self discipline, I’ve managed to get through life thus far pretty darned well. Now that I’m retired and really don’t have a need to be self disciplined, I find that I get distracted very easily. It’s the same feeling I had when I was a kid in school trying to focus on a lesson while my eyes and imagination focused on the ant crawling up the wall or the water dripping from the lab faucet on the other side of the science room. Forget about reading a book. Unless the plot catches my attention right away, I can’t keep focused long enough to bother finishing it. </p>
<p>When my friend and I go shopping and get one of those fancy calorie/caffeine fueled mocha frappes, she gets hyper and I get completely relaxed. </p>
<p>Another fun fact: I had foot surgery a few months ago. I was given tylenol w/codeine post-op to take for the first couple of days. My husband said I talked for hours and wouldn’t shut up. I stayed up all night. After the first 24 hours of taking it, I threw it away because it made me so hyper. Isn’t codeine supposed to make the average person sleepy?</p>
<p>Weird.</p>
<p>PS–I’m not a coffee drinker (or a big coca cola drinker) so I haven’t had many high caffeine experiences. I find it weird that the red bull made me so calm.</p>
<p>Maybe it’s just what you said. Perhaps you don’t have a disorder. It may be a lack of discipline, drive, etc. ADD is most likely a chemical issue - I don’t think one just “gets” ADD.</p>
<p>^Not that I suddenly have ADD, but that I have been able to compensate for it with much discipline over the years. Gosh, I can so remember sitting at my desk in the classroom when I was a kid and taking all of my energy not to get up and dance around the room.</p>
<p>Nysmile - many years ago when I was first starting out as a school psychologist, I was working with a parent on an assessment tool for ADD. In the middle of it I realized that if my mom had answered those questions about me, I would have qualified. I thought of all the teachers who told my parents I wasn’t working up to my ability and how difficult it was for me to remain on task. </p>
<p>My one other clue was that whenever I needed to really focus on writing a report I would have a coke or a cup of coffee. </p>
<p>That moment of realization helped me a lot personally - not that it changed anything - I just consciously used more strategies to help me cope.</p>
<p>Maybe. Caffeine and stimulants often bring ADD people into focus and appear to slow them down, while depressants and medicines that tend to put others to sleep can hype an ADD person up - keeping them awake half the night.</p>
<p>However, if you’ve made it through your life without being diagnosed or medicated, and you get along fairly well - this new knowledge may not be a lot of real help to you. You may already have the compensation skills you need to deal with your ADD - if you have it.</p>
<p>A distinct possibility, lol. I also react completely differently to stimulants, will have a cup of coffee if I am having trouble getting to sleep. I was diagnosed with ADD twenty years ago, in my mid-thirties.</p>
<p>LOL–cromette. I’ve managed these 50+ years, so I have no intention of searching out a diagnosis or medication. It’s just kind of funny that my one and only experience/side effect of drinking a Red Bull sort of supported my long time suspicion of the possibility of ADD.
Life goes on as usual.</p>
<p>Yes, I’m absolutely sure I am ADD after being a psychologist diagnosing kids and then having my kid wonder if he’s ADD and he clearly is and I didn’t get it. It took years for me to get it for me and then for him. I think it does help to know it for some of us, even if we don’t do medication.</p>
<p>I’m addicted to coffee, but I don’t think it either makes me more or less sleepy. However I have had weird reactions to OTC medications - in general the ones that are supposed to make you sleepy make me wired. I think it’s a distinct possibility that I am ADD, but like nysmile, I’m not likely to do anything about it.</p>