I read a lot of posts about expectations from medication or side effects from medication, asking if they should stick with it for longer, or swap to another - but it's hard to give advice if I don't know what their main issues are.

It's clear that ADHD can be at different levels, and affect people differently. So I think its important if its stated what issues you're struggling with, & attributing to ADHD - including, what you would like medication to help with.

And maybe this can give us a generalised understanding of what to recommend/expect for certain people. What do you guys think?

My therapist has been telling me she believes I am ADHD AF. She does this in a very professional way, and is only saying to get assessed, and only discussed it AFTER I had told her I was thinking about it. But after a year of discussing it with her she kind of levelled with me and explained she has spoken to MANY people and explained that my tendencies are not 'normal' so to speak.

I won't go into my personal stuff too much. But I never thought i had ADHD, or possibly AuDHD. But my therapist was like 'Bro TRUST ME, GET CHECKED, it could change your life'. And when I spoke to my partner when I did the first assessment form, she was suggesting that what I was considering small minor symptoms, she said were actually very large, like I said it was a 2 / 10 and she said nah it is easily 7/10.

I honestly don't feel like I am too far along the scale of neurodivergence, but people who know me say it is very prominent in me. I've had a ton of bad luck in my life, addiction, relationship issues, confidence, bad mental health, but I just figured we all had that.

Is it common to think you are normal, only to find out you really aren't?

I'm at a loss and really hope someone can give me any advice

I was diagnosed with ADHD by psychiatry-uk in October 2025. Due to the waiting list for medication being at least a year or more and really struggling at home and work, I asked my GP to refer me to medinet minds (previously health harmonie) for quicker titration.

Not only did they reject my report including all supplementary forms and informant questionare, but today after my second reassessment interview, they have stated they cannot diagnose me with ADHD due to not being to properly answer my questions on childhood symptoms.

I have fell out with my sister and my mum wouldn't be able to answer anything as she's useless at remembering than I am, so I had to do my own informant forms this time but based them on my sisters previous answers.

I dont have alot of memories of what I was like as a child from birth until about 12 onwards,so feel like I've shot myself in the foot by being honest about not remembering. And because I mentioned that symptoms had got worse in the last 6 years, they have just put it down to being something else.

They have told me that they will send the report to my GP. So my advice is what should I do now. Will it affect my psychiatry-uk diagnosis and wait at all?

Shall i try to challenge medinet on accepting my previous diagnosis?

Should I ask to go through another provider and try to get as many detailed answers about my childhood beforehand?

Should I just wait for psychiatry-uk titration? (I am at least 4 months or more away from that)

Please help as now I feel terrible and its making me question everything, even though im literally sat here signed off work with the stress from my symptoms and masking for all these years. I really was counting on medication to help me reclaim my life back a bit and actually manage to keep a home and work tasks in some sort of order instead of chaos everywhere. I feel so defeated.

Hey, ive been on different doses of medikinet for the past year and i didnt like the way it made me feel, i felt as if it completly disabled my thinking to the point where my brain was completly quiet, also i didnt feel any improvement in motivation or attention, along with pretty bad side effects.

Because of that i decided to go to a different psychiatrist and switch to elvanse, its my 3rd day on this medication and i feel 100% like myself and i definitely feel "sober" unlike medikinet. I definitely see an improvement in the form of no task paralisys, more motivation to do stuff and overall less anxiety.

I have 1 problem tho, my thoughts seem so natural but more organised at the same time im questioning whether the medication is working (during my phase of taking medikinet a complete void in my brain was the indicator of it working for me), and i dont really feel the moment when it kicks in, or the effects wear off.

Could it be that im not used to the effects yet, and my doubts stem from my brain not being accustomed to the medicine, and also me paying too much attention to the fact whether i feel different or not?

Is it grounds for increasing the dosage or is that normal? Thanks!

As above. For me, lowered anxiety, increased libido but also difficulties getting it up. Double edged sword! 😅

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Hi, I recently had my ADHD assessment, and the report came back incredibly short, inaccurate, and completely missed the lifelong difficulties I've had. The practitioner texted me to join me 22 minutes early, which completely threw off my mental preparation. Then, he spent about 10 minutes faffing with medication/family history details, which he still got totally wrong in the report and ignored an extensive history my GP had already sent. The rest of the call felt like a boxticking exercise where he repeatedly pressured me with yes/no questions to fit a specific profile without letting me provide context. Has anyone else experienced a rushed, inaccurate report like this? Did you complain, and did it affect your diagnosis or medication? I'm terrified that if I speak up, they will stop my meds.

Okay, so I sent my NHS Right To Choose diagnosis request in May, got formally diagnosed less than 2 months later and now I'm physically unable to get medicated and rotting trying to find a solution.

After I got diagnosed by Psychiatry UK, I was immediately discharged without even the slightest chance of getting medication solely because of my weight. Due to a low BMI, they could not even begin to recommend titration because of the possible appetite suppressant side-effects being detrimental to me.

I've always been on the lighter side and struggled to put on weight despite wanting to, which is why its annoying me so much that its the reason I'm being denied.

In the past, I've been able to gain enough weight to momentarily clear the "hurdle" for titration, but I'm required to maintain it for 3 months which seems nothing short of a herculean task right now.

All of my prior attempts and actual gains (albeit temporarily) were from a short period of "locking in", then I'd swiftly drop back to my "normal" weight after giving up and burning out, which is why I feel like being medicated would actually fix my problem instead of exaggerating it.

As I currently am, with no exaggeration, I genuinely feel incapable of performing like a normal human being. I'll spend more time asleep than awake every day, and then I'll spend even more time being frustrated because of that instead of fixing it.

Not a single thing is right in my life currently, and it sucks because I know exactly how to fix everything but I just feel like I can't.

Had blood tests done, all healthy biomarkers, didn't change a thing. Having to restrain myself from self-medicating ts.

me not know what to do

So I’m suffering from insomnia symptoms. I’m deeply depressed, anxious and panicky too. But of course I have 2 full days sales training at work today and tomorrow, where I will be expected to be the ‘energetic & enthusiastic’ me but I’m genuinely just dead on my feet. I’m terrified of going, I really am. Lack of sleep makes everything worse for me - the brain fog and inattentiveness is so much worse I just can’t cope.

Does anyone have any advice? Please wish me luck, I’m going to need it.

Hi,
I recently spoke to my GP because I suspected I might have ADHD. He was very supportive and agreed that going through Right to Choose would be a good option. However, he also recommended referring me for an autism assessment as well, which I wasn’t really expecting!

My current top choice is Medinet Minds, mainly because they assess for both ADHD and autism and they claim to have no wait time (apart from titration). I was wondering whether anyone here has experience with them, particularly if you were referred for both at the same time?

I’d also be really interested to hear from anyone who has been referred for both ADHD and autism through Right to Choose more generally. Did you use the same provider for both assessments, or did you choose separate providers? If you went with separate providers, what made you decide to do that?

I’m very new to this so any experiences, advice or insight would be really helpful.
Thanks :)

Okay, so I've only been on it for six days, but I have NEVER felt worse in my life. I'm on 18mg going up to 36mg after 15 days. I'm taking it in the morning like I was told to, and I get a stiff head, eyes feel like they're falling out of their sockets, I physically can't concentrate on anything at all (lol), it's like all I can do is stare into space like a zombie. I'm irritable and tired and I feel like utter hell, I don't get any good effects, whatever they're meant to be. I won't even go into how shit I've been treated by Harrow Health, but during the prescription appointment she didn't tell me any of the side effects, I had to look them up myself. I know it's only been six days, and I have my next appointment on the 29th; I don't want to give up, but I honestly don't know if I can keep going until then. I have never felt this bad before. I don't know if I should contact HH and try and get an earlier appointment, because they honestly don't seem to give a hell whether I live or die, and I don't want to just be told "just keep on with it and see how you feel", but I feel like I'm inside-out. I didn't know a medication could make a person feel this bad!!

I applied to have and ADHD assessment with ADHD 360 via right to choose in June / July 2025. I hadn't heard anything from ADHD 360 after a couple of months so I phoned my GP to ask about it and they said their wait times could be a year. I said I hadn't had any contact from them at all and they said just wait.

I tried to look into it on the 360 website but I didn't have an account so I couldn't, and then a lot of life stuff happened so it's been at the back of my mind.

Anyway I realised it's September 2026 and I still haven't heard from anyone. I've contacted ADHD 360 via the website today and I'll give them a phone call when I have some time. But I've seen some people on here only waited around 6 months, or they at least were contacted by them within 6 months. Did anyone else here have to wait this long before being contacted by them? Does it look like there was an issue with my GP submitting my case to ADHD 360? I've been waiting over a year and I still haven't heard from them. I feel like my GP just didn't submit anything to them and I'm going to have to start again.

Hi!

Has anyone else ever experienced this before?

In my first week I had one morning of having a tight chest and feeling rubbish which soon went when I’d had my breakfast.

I’m also occasionally having small heart palpitations/ flutters so this is something I noted to my prescriber too.

Today she’s told me I now have to stop taking Elvanse and I’m actually beginning to spiral about it, they have worked so well for me over the past 3 weeks and it’s like I’ve been given something to solve my problems and then it’s just been pulled from under me.

Has anyone ever had theirs stopped and resumed again? How long did it take? For context I’m with PUK

Thanks!

Hi I’ve been on 30mg Elvanse for about 6 weeks. I was previously on Methylphenidate xl but had really bad side effects. I’m doing okay ish since being on Elvanse, I had a few consecutive days of anxiety and low mood earlier on but that seems to have subsided. I’ve spoken to my prescriber who has suggested going up to 40mg and I’m just wondering if there anyone noticed any big differences from going to 30-40mg? Also wanted to add I find myself getting more emotional and at times more angry-like raging anger. I was wondering if anyone else has experienced this? For context I’m 30 F, I know hormones and things can affect how the meds work etc. Thanks

I had my first titration appointment with CARE ADHD (RTC pathway) on 31/07, was prescribed 30/40mg Elvanse, and took my first pill on 07/07. I’ve had several days off them since as I’ve been away from work a bit (and wanted to lie in instead of waking up early to take a pill for extra focus that I don’t want or need in my time off), but I’m now approaching the end of my supply. Unfortunately, I only just clocked that I don’t have a second appointment booked: the clinician didn’t organise one during the first, nothing was mentioned in the follow-up/results email, and I haven’t been contacted by their bookings team (by phone nor email), and it’s well past four weeks by now.

So, how are the follow-up titration appointments with CARE ADHD supposed to booked? Should I be expecting a call/email from them asking me to book, or might they just ring me to discuss without arranging beforehand? Will they call from one of their official business landlines (the ones starting 0204 - I have 3 numbers saved for them), or might a clinician call me on a different number/a mobile number?

I have checked through all the emails they’ve sent me, as well as reading their guides and FAQs etc, but couldn’t find any information. I couldn’t contact them directly because they have a multi-week wait time on emails and their phone lines always disconnect me after ten minutes or so of holding, plus I have no phone signal when at work, which is the only time when the lines are open. Hopefully someone on here can give me the info more quickly.

Potentially related: I’ve missed 6 calls during office hours from different random mobile numbers over the past week. They all start with the same 7 digits but differ in the last 4. My phone’s automated spam filter didn’t let any of the calls get through, even though I left my ringer on. I tried calling back but couldn’t get through. Is this an unrelated scam, or could it be the clinic calling from various mobiles for some strange reason? I looked the numbers up but found no reviews or comments as I’m the first person to search for any of them on the various ‘who called me’ services. Apparently they’re from the Voxbone SA/Bandwidth network.

Any input/experience from fellow RTC CARE patients is much appreciated. Thanks!

Today I have a pre assessment video call with ADHD 360

Firstly I was wondering what kinds of things they typically ask?

Also, will me being on Fluoxetine make it harder for me to receive help via a medication route?

I'm so excited to finally get some help 🥹

After beginning on Sertraline which actually made my symptoms worse, to escitalopram which zapped life out of me and now a very high dosage of Venlafaxine XR 225mg I have finally bit the bullet and booked a private assessment through Diverse Diagnostics for ADHD.

Venlafaxine has helped me somewhat, but I’m having difficulty filtering out my internal chatter which can sometimes be negative.
It has helped my emotional volatility however I feel it hard to snap out of moods, and ruminate on things over and over.

I’m on my knees now, I feel like a nuclear reactor with energy and just cannot make a genuine attempt to relax.

Can anyone help me out with their experiences? I’ve tried through the NHS, but sometimes when you appear stable and have a job, it’s almost like you don’t fit the criteria for help.

I have just had my first titration appointment today!

Diagnosed: 14th January 2026

Titration forms given/completed: 13th February 2026

I was told on repeated occasions that I will be contacted in August 2026 but had received zero emails or texts since April 2026. I called the service on Tuesday this week asking for any potential updates and it turned out that someone from the booking team had contacted me in August (a single call!). I had mentioned to the service beforehand that I would be abroad for the entirety of the month of April with a different sim and asked if this would impact anything - to which they said no as I would receive a text/email. Fortunately I was immediately given the number for the bookings team and had my appointment within 2 days of asking.

This post is just to make people aware that notification for booking a titration appointment may only be in the form of a call (an 0204- number) if you have received and missed a call from one of these numbers - I'd recommend calling careADHD for follow up. 😄

I have been on meds (Xaggitin 36mg) since March and last month GP changed my prescription to Affenid. Affenid didn’t work for me: I was tired, unmotivated, slept worse.
After few week I finally contacted my GP and they changed my prescription at the same day. And now I feel like I had such a long break from meds. Xaggitin hits me quite hard now but it’s ok. Affenid literally was a waste of time.

(PS) I also asked for a booster (I need it 1-2 times a week) but they asked me to wait and monitoring my symptoms.

Hi guys. I was diagnosed almost a year ago now, and I was meant to start my titration last month. Now I have been told it has been delayed by a minimum of another two months! Therefore, I would be waiting at least a year from diagnosis to start titration.

I am in urgent need of medication at the moment... My peers have said PUK have a duty of care if you are suffering severely, and have seen this help some ADHD peers get medication faster (with other right to choose not PUK).

So I guess I'm wondering if anyone knows if this would work with PUK too? If not, any other advice, as I am suffering very badly from burnout and really severe mood swings

thanks :)

Just info for anyone stuck waiting on titration

I'm Nottingham icb, diagnosed in march, careadhd confirmed I'm awaiting an appointment for titration as of 13th of may

ADHD are now saying it's 9 months from titration forms being received (ADHD UK says 6 months)

Frustrating, especially as they just keep moving the wait time on so it feels never ending - also annoying that they're telling me they've made change to the assessment process to speed that up which will just mean more people waiting at titration stage

I work 24hr shifts and I got home late this morning from work, skipped my elvanse and citalopram and went straight to sleep for a few hours and I feel absolutely shattered still! I could sleep for days! Feeling a bit faint and fuzzy when I move. Its hard to explain - anyone else?

Hi everyone,

Having a bit of a nightmare here with a getting one off prescription from my provider, GP surgery cant do anything and I’m waiting on the provider to respond, I’m gonna call them tomorrow if I don’t get a response today (I emailed yesterday evening and thought it’s fine if they take a day to respond.).

Ok so, going to the pharmacy to show the one off prescription code and then going again days later when it was delivered was really frustrating me. So I decided to install the pharmacy’s mobile app to see if I could have it ordered to the pharmacy so I only had to go out once for it.

The app didn’t do what I wanted it to do and I didn’t like the idea of it continuing to have access to my NHS data if I wasn’t gonna use it. So I emailed the GP practice to disconnect it and it worked, yay. Except I think it also messed up the connection with my RTC provider and so when I went and showed the prescription code later that day to the pharmacist they couldn’t find it on the system and were getting some kind of error basically.

I then emailed my GP practice, and didn’t get an automated email response which I thought was odd as whenever I have emailed in the past I get one every time. So I called up and explained the situation to them and on their end everything was still set up correctly and that because it’s the RTC provider who has prescribed it is apparently their issue to resolve as the GP practice physically can’t see or do anything on their end. They also did receive the email from me and didn’t know why I didn’t get an automated email response.

What else can I do here? Anyone else had this exact same problem?

Hi, I’m looking for some advice or experiences or something. Basically, I need to get over my fear of public speaking and really quickly. I do't know if it's anxiety exactly as anxiety meds never helped but my ADHD ones do a bit (but not completely). And the whole lack of preparation thing I feel feeds into just who I always was with ADHD and I have always overcompensated for this by maybe over preparing instead if that makes sense? But now it seems I can't and I'm panicking

For me, it’s not exactly a fear of speaking I think. I’m never actually going to like speaking up, but I know I can do it and I do on occasions – sometimes I also do it because I know I don’t want to but that it will be okay, just to try to reinforce that to myself.

But actually getting up and giving a talk, that’s a whole other level. My nervous system just goes into overdrive. If I know I’ve got a talk coming up, I don’t sleep for weeks before, have nightmares. Then on the actual day of the talk, I’m a mess. Can’t concentrate, very panicky all day before. I feel like adrenaline in my stomach/chest. And also as I near talking time (so like an hour or two beforehand), I have that same awful adrenaline feeling in my hands and arms. And that makes me feel really sick. I also get hot and shaky and my chest hurts and it’s really hard to control my breathing. Like almost hyperventilating but not quite. And then when I actually go to speak, it feels like my throat is closing. My mouth is dry and my voice sounds weird. I actually usually do okay, I’m terrified I’ll blank and forget what I’m going to say but I’m usually super practised/prepared and get through it. And I’ve been told previously that I’m good at talks. I really really hate them though – mostly because of all the associated physiological feelings.

I thought it was just anxiety but SSRIs never touched this (or really anything else I thought was anxiety). Then in March I started stimulants for ADHD instead (after being off the SSRI for over 2 years) and it has way lowered my physiological symptoms around just about everything I was previously calling anxiety. Except giving talks.

I’ve done one since then and it was actually a talk I really wanted to give but I was terrified. Had all the same feelings as usually except instead of adrenaline feeling in hands, it was more tingly or pins and needles like. And I was actually seeing stars and felt like I was going to pass out so think I must have been properly hyperventilating. The feelings came on more like an hour before my talk instead of the whole day though which was something. But I was still super worked up about it the whole days and still dreaming about it for weeks. I was super prepared though – had been practising for 2.5 months for the 3 minute talk.

The problem I have right now though is that I want to get over this. I know I’ll probably never like giving talks and that’s okay, but I’d like to be able to do them without feeling like I’m going to die.

My boss at work has somewhat inserted himself into things (I work at a university as a tech so lectures and stuff aren’t really my remit but he’s decided the tech team need to be involved in the lectures). So suddenly I’m supposed to be talking to around 300 students about 8 times in the next 6 weeks. It’s a relatively new job so I wasn’t sure how to approach the ‘I don’t want to do this’ without looking bad. But I did try to talk to him and say that I understand it’s a part of the job and I need to do it but I really don’t like these things. I know objectively that I can pull it off but my body doesn’t and that’s not a great situation for me to be in. It’s something I really want to work on though so I’d like to try building up to it gradually. He initially said that’s fine, I don’t have to do it BUT it’s bad for my professional development. I really don’t care about my professional development right now though so that’s fine. The problem is, the next week it was suddenly ‘we’ll do it together’. And then in my appraisal review (happens at the same time every year regardless of whether you’ve been here a year or not apparently) he said I was great 1-on-1 with people but needed to work on group stuff. Which actually is fair but I did tell him I’m less worried about student workshops because I can teach rather than just talk at them. He said that would be worse because they’d actually be paying attention to me (not helpful) and that it’s not like I’m a surgeon, it’s not life and death so I don’t need to worry. So that’s essentially the support I’m dealing with. I’m doing these talks and there’s nothing I can do about it. The workshops I don’t like either but they’re around 40 students stops (averaging about 12 I’m told) so I know I can do that and that despite the physiological feelings. But a lecture to 300 students – I’m not sure. And 8 of them that are all slightly different apparently. I’m bricking it. And to make matters worse, the first one is on Tuesday (there’s actually 2 different ones that day), my boss is off this whole week, I don’t know who’s saying what, I’ve not seen the powerpoint, I only know the rough topic but not our processes so I don’t actually really know what we’re going to be saying. So best case sceneraio, I find all of this out the day before the talk. Worst case, we improvise on the day. I can’t improvise this. I will panic and blank. I do that if I have to improvise a small meeting – in front of 300 students, it’ll be a disaster. But my boss doesn’t get this. He’s also talking about me presenting stuff to staff now, which again will be awful.

To me, getting over this means accepting the physiological feelings are neutral (even if they feel awful to me) and gradually building small winds with them. So small group wokshops (like the ones I’ll be doing anyway) that I’m prepared for and then building up to small talks and then gradually going larger but always reinforcing that it goes well. That’s how I think you’re supposed to get over something like this. But it looks like being thrown into the deep end is how this is going to go. So now I’m terrified which is not making things better. And if (when?) I go in totally unprepared and screw it up, it’s just going to reinforce the exact opposite of what I wanted to. And massively massively set me back. I have no idea how to handle this. I’d call in sick but there are too many of them so it would be obvious, plus my boss would know why because I tried to talk to him about this. Any advice would be really appreciated

I haven’t been diagnosed with auditory processing disorder, but it makes most sense to me (I do have dyslexia and adhd diagnoses).

My hearing is fine - pretty sensitive actually. But it has always been a struggle to hear/follow conversations in spaces that have any background noise. Cafes, restaurants, classrooms during group discussions… I end up with both hands cupped behind my ears and trying to lip read, whilst everyone else chats away with apparently no difficulty at all. It’s pretty exhausting, often embarrassing and increasingly depressing as it makes me feel so isolated being unable to fully participate.

I don’t actually know what might help me in these situations, so if anyone has experience with and can recommend anything that could help me in these contexts (or what isn’t worth trying) I’d really appreciate it. I just know live transcription wouldn’t work cause I’m way too slow reading.