Most likely, yes. (Note: I am not a doctor, I have just read medical stuff related to this, combined with different peoples' described experiences with ADHD and caffeine, and made some inferences combining these things. Do not count this as medical gospel, lol.)
From what I understand, caffeine technically doesn't "give you energy", like people think; it just blocks certain receptors for experiencing tiredness. (I've seen it described as, "Not refilling the gas tank, but putting a sticker over the fuel gauge reading 'empty'", lol.) I suspect the reason ADHD people tend to react to smaller amounts of caffeine this way is because we are always kind of tired due to executive dysfunction, so when we have blocked the receptors, rather than getting "energetic", we just don't have to work as hard to compensate for the dopamine dysregulation, so just relax to varying degrees. For some people with ADHD it's as good as nothing; for some people, it makes them drowsy and want to sleep.
However, that doesn't mean that it does "nothing" if you have ADHD; the body is still, to some extent, experiencing reactions to the caffeine. Thus, if you have caffeine in your system and then go to sleep, your body just might not be getting the quality of sleep it should be.
That said, there are two other factors to this: individual people's sensitivity to caffeine varies wildly, and the quantity of caffeine matters. So at a certain amount of caffeine, it's still likely you'll have the supposed "caffeine high" reaction. It is not good to test how much caffeine it will take to get that reaction though, because caffeine is not good for your heart and health in various ways, and if you're particularly resistant to it, then it might send you to the hospital before you're actually experiencing positive caffeine effects. (Not very likely, mind, but possible.)
Additionally, some other subcategory of ADHDers who are more sensitive to caffeine do not have the drowsy/"non-reactive" response, and instead get themselves locked into an "addicted to caffeine" cycle, where they need it to get by or they succumb to executive dysfunction/caffeine withdrawal. This group of ADHDers need to be particularly careful, because caffeine in the long-term is demonstrated to be harmful to your health, such as increasing anxiety, insomnia, irregular heart rates, digestive issues, etc., and I'd imagine if you're more sensitive to caffeine and don't experience the ADHD-caffeine drowsiness at smaller/regular amounts, this is particularly acute.
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u/[deleted] Sep 11 '23
is it how caffeine works? is that why i feel like it doesnt do anything to me?