Earlier this week I was finally able to meet with a psychiatrist once again. Long story short, I still have no hope of getting stimulant meds, probably at least until December. But there was some good to come out of this meeting.

First, unlike my last meeting with a psychiatrist, she actually listened to me and my concerns, desires, and frustrations. We met for about thirty minutes and had a fruitful discussion. The previous met with me for less than fifteen minutes and then charged me $200 to say, “I can’t do anything, talk to me after you’ve been tested.” This time she didn’t charge me anything.

Second, she also had concerns and actually discussed them with me. There’s that whole age thing and being afraid that I’ll take them and just drop dead of a heart attack. You see, I have a low resting heart rate. It’s typically in the mid 50’s and will drop into the low 40’s while sleeping. Throw on top of that the fact that I have elevated blood pressure that is managed well with medication, and she wasn’t going to be going to stimulants without a long trial of alternatives. That, and I have to get approval from a cardiologist, so I’m looking forward to another specialist visit.

Third, since I will be starting meetings with another psychiatrist and I’ll have to start all over again with her, we really didn’t get into the evaluation at all. What’s more, I can’t get in to the new one until the end of September.

Finally, I did get a lot of useful information and suggestions. She suggested that no matter what, I get tested and once and for all, get diagnosed. She said that if I have that, I can take it anywhere as proof, which will get me just that much further along if I ever change doctors. It also is proof of disability, which helps when it comes to accommodations with work and other things covered under the disabilities act.

She also suggested that I compile a list of things that I can take in for the tester when that finally happens. Things like excerpts from my mom’s diary voicing her frustration with “being smart, but not able to focus” when it comes to school, or any other description that gives insight into the way I was as a child. I also have all of my grade school grade cards with comments from teachers. I’ll review those as well.

So with testing not happening until the end of November, I’m not too optimistic that anything will change on the medication front until at least December. Until then, I’ll keep working to build habits and processes that help with the struggles of an old guy with ADHD.