I take concerta, 18mg, and it works wonders. The only small negative is the its life is a little too long... even if I take it at 7am, I find I have difficulty getting to sleep sometimes up till 3am... and then my whole sleep schedule gets shifted and it’s damn difficult to get it back to a proper rhythm.

That aside, I _so_ agree with grandparent post about the negative stigma associated with medication for adhd. I’m so angry at society, parents, everyone for having done this to me in my early years — if only I had started earlier instead of in my mid-20s.

Growing up I was perscribed ritalin, however I stopped taking it within a few months because my middle-school brain was not enjoying the side-effects (mostly drowsiness). Now I'm perscribed Adderall and it works great. It can be annoying because every college student under the sun is taking adderall to cram last minute but it's a different drug when you actually need it to function. For most people Adderall just keeps them awake and hyper-focused so they can do whatever they need to get done, regardless of the hours it takes them. For someone who has ADHD, it really just brings us to what that baseline is for most people.

I can focus on my work all day with no medication if I'm doing something that I find personally interesting. However, when I have a week's worth of online coursework and boring bookkeeping to do it's impossible to get more than 5 minutes done without staring out the window, putting something on in the background, and twiddling my thumbs. I can still buckle down and get work done without it, but it's so much more mentally draining to do a week of work without any medication than if I were just to take what the doctor recommends. YMMV obviously, I just wanted to suggest something for people like me who have been 'proudly' living with ADHD un-medicated.