Tl;dr: Awesome
Was officially diagnosed and put on medication (MPH/Medikinet) 5 weeks ago. I work far from where I live, so I got my own one-room apartment with a cat near my workplace and at the weekends I commute home to my wife and our shared apartment. I take my meds in the morning and they last for 7 hours. So, when the meds have an effect, I’m always at my workplace, but when I come back home to my working apartment in the evening, the effect is gone and I’m unmotivated again. Or it’s the weekends and I’m at my “real” home with my wife, doing all sorts of activities.
This means, everytime I was at my “work” apartment, I was unmotivated to do anything. The apartment looked just like you would expect it after 1.5 years.
Today is my first day at my work apartment with the meds working, and suddenly, I’m cleaning like a single guy expecting to get laid. No forcing necessary, no motivating tricks. I see something I don’t like and I do it. I can prioritize and focus and it requires no effort.
Medication really turns your life around when it works. And neurotypicals will never experience how much they play on easy mode.
What side effects did you experience, and for how long after you started?
The only side effects I currently experience are a loss of appetite while the meds work and a high demand/thirst for water.
I had headaches during the first two days on meds, but those stopped when I started drinking a lot of water (~6 liters per day) and kept eating small things during the day. During the first two weeks, when the meds stopped working in the evening, I experienced around 20-30 minutes of some itching, additionally, I had increased reflux during the night. This however stopped completely after two weeks.
Also during the first two weeks, around noon, I’d have around 20 minutes where I just had a strong desire to talk to someone face-to-face. An hour later, this would be followed by another 20 minutes of hot flashes. I interpreted this as the stages where blood-concentration was the highest (pink line, hour 3) or changed the rate of diminishing (hour 4).
But all of this was extremely manageable and completely overshadowed by the positive effects.