This is my review of the whole process from referral to diagnosis, treatment, and nearly a year of taking stimulants for ADHD.
Hey i’m done thank you for watching so today is a really short video just to talk about the the process of getting diagnosed or re-diagnosed in the uk and under the nhs so across the country knowing that we’ve got problems with services diagnosing people and huge waiting lists and some people if you were diagnosed as a child like i was that you can’t be diagnosed
Again depend on the provision that’s in your area which is bizarre so others waiting years on lists and not being seen so i decided to to contact a private diagnostic service called psychiatry uk i have done a video previously about the service and how i found it and what happened but the the video was recorded in the garage with barely any light which is the
Same i’ll just be fair but i’m in the conservatory there is light in the day time so it’s a bit better i think the other video talks of a green screen and it looks a bit awful but i wanted to kind of go over that anyway and talk about the whole process and it has changed so when i first found out about psychiatry uk i completed a form on their website and they
Contacted my gp on my behalf that’s now changed slightly you need to approach your gp and ask them to to contact psychiatry uk who will then contact the ccg which is the commissioning group for your local area and if there is no service locally that can see you then you you should be able to well you have got the right to to have service elsewhere must be treated
Elsewhere and any issues with that they can probably help you out with but that is your writing of the nhs constitution i’m not going to go into that because i don’t know a great deal but that’s there so if you’re struggling to get your diagnosis that options available if the gp doesn’t agree that you could have adhd then you should ask to speak to another gp or
Just see the gp again try to understand more because they’re not qualified to to say you haven’t got that they can’t diagnose it but they can’t also turn you away so speak to your gp if there’s a really good reason why then speak to them again and see if they can otherwise speak to another gp or speak to the practice manager um other than that probably get some
Advice but if the gp won’t support you i bet he agrees that you could have a you could be diagnosed with adhd and refers you to another service but won’t support your application to go to psychiatry uk then again speak to the practice manager or speak to your clinical commissioning group directly for advice because you do have the right to choose so that’s what
The first part once i saw it and you’re under the the service and the ccg have agreed to fund you it’s usually quite quick it was for me it was probably a week or two later i had confirmation from then i spoke to a doctor he introduced himself i had some forms to fill in about my history and what’s happening now what happened in my childhood and i had another
Form for someone close to me to fill in would you give me to my partner because i’ve lived with her for probably 13 years now so we did that i spoke to the the doctor had a virtual meeting which was probably around 45 minutes to an hour and i was nervous at first i’ve seen people say to me they’re quite anxious and they’re worried about it and they’re not sure
What’s gonna happen but as soon as i spoke to that doctor he was really friendly he he listened to me he let me speak he had read everything that was sent over and he agreed early on that i still have adhd so he diagnosed me with adhd or rediagnosed but either way for me that was a relief straight off the bat no matter what happened from there i was happy and
I think just being listened to and not being wrong was good it feels like a weight off your shoulders and obviously just with that diagnosis you have got rights then you’ve got rights in the workplace you’ve got to rise to certain things and help you need them and there’s all sorts of things you can get but just clarity and confirmation was really what was good
For me so from there the doctor put me in touch with a nurse practitioner who contacted me a week or so later to start the titration process so begin medication and see how we got on i started off on methylfundate which is ritalin or known as other brands it’s it’s concerta in the u.s and some parts of the uk have concerto or conserter excel it’s medicanet um
Equisim i think it’s one of the names that’s available um but ritalin and medical and concerto are the ones i’ve heard of but it’s the same kind of drug anyway and written in l.a and medical net exile or the extended release it could be different where you are or depending on what your pharmacy supplies but it’s the same drug anyway myth of the date so i started
On that built up from a slow dose up in a low dose and built it up slowly over a four week period and then fed back to the nurse each week and at the end of that month we chatted over the phone and discussed what was working what had changed and how i felt the medication and to me it wasn’t amazing it i’ve seen some good effects but it didn’t really do why what
I’d expected um we moved on to another drug list in and again the same thing but for me that made things worse i probably noticed then that the the first drug had some good effects that probably hadn’t noticed at first because it didn’t kind of like switch that some people get but also i think i was expecting a lot more from medication than eventually had so once
We’ve done that we went straight back to medicare net so the ritalin or methylphenidate but the prolonged release um which i’ve by one now once that was done psychiatry uk contacted my gp for prescribing which which was fine so then i’m not going out buying private prescriptions which by the way if you if you’re on the nhs and your cct are funding the treatment
And you have to pay for a private prescription you will get the money back so just just don’t be alarmed if you get a pink prescription just lip come through and you pharmacy wants to 300 pound for a prescription you can claim that money back and if you can’t pay for it contact psychiatry uk because they can’t help with that as well and whether it’s calling at
The pharmacy and paying for it um or just agreeing that they’ll pay it back but i did that once and then after a couple of times i had to pay for it on my card um just to get it and then claim the money back but it was pretty quick a day or two later i had the money back and it was it was fine so also in the uk if you if you get to do that and you have to pay
For your prescription even temporarily some of the supermarket pharmacies i think asda is one of the better ones they’re apparently a lot cheaper than your your local pharmacy could be so instead of paying 300 pounds i think someone paid nearly half of that amount by going to the supermarket pharmacy um but i didn’t do that because of covered and i’m not close
To a supermarket but the option’s there um so from there i’ve had medication now for probably it’s got to be nine months now i’ve been on this medication i can see a difference i can see when i start something i can actually finish it some things are less overwhelming but i do know that it’s not the be-all and end-all it does help but it’s not a cure and it’s not
Amazing it’s just it helps um so if you’re looking for medication to just just fix everything and be quick cure that that doesn’t happen unfortunately but it can help and if you take your medication and remember to take it which is a big thing and remember to actually get it in before you run out another big thing then with your own strategies in place and with
Cbt it can be quite useful so for me the the whole process of going through cybercard uk has been amazing from from day one really when i first started in the context of the gp it was that quick everything went through it was like well if i had learned about that if the service was available probably a year or two before that i wouldn’t have to run around speaking
To a doctor getting rejected for referrals because because i’d already been diagnosed previously in childhood and i was just left in limbo that wouldn’t have had to happen but i’m glad i’ve been through it so i can see how other people cope across the country and what’s happening and i’m trying to play my part in that in you know what i do on the council try to
Highlight the fact that there’s a lot of people still struggling to get help but also if you’re not aware of these services and you come across this video then look into it look into psychiatry uk speak to your doctor speak to ccg and look up the right to choose which is the nhs right to choose and also the time to treatment which is on the nhs uk constitution
So from referral to treatment there’s a time there as well for various things and it does it does change slightly i think for certain conditions but look up the the also the nhs nice or nice guidelines on adhd and you’ll see the medication i’m talking about and what they should follow which is you know the process of giving these drugs if you’re as long as you
Can take stimulants and you haven’t got a history or anything that will stop you taking stimulants and you can read through that and if you even if you’re not going to psychiatry uk and you’re going elsewhere you can see the process that medical professionals in this country should be following and the medications they’re talking about and what should happen if it
Doesn’t work the only thing i would say if you if you get to the point where you’ve stopped taking all these stimulants and even if you’ve moved on to a non-stimulant like oxidant if you’re not getting a massive benefit from any of these drugs they can apparently combine some of the drugs use a mixture of both but if you get to a certain point you know three four
Months down the line you’re not seeing any benefit at all and you say it’s not good for you it’s not working then your gp is going to be won’t be very keen to do shared care just yet or share prescribing because the the benefits aren’t there so you do need to kind of look for the benefits i don’t mean like lie about them but don’t make it out to be all bad if
There is some benefits be open be honest and tell them what is working and what doesn’t work but if they don’t see a great improvement for these medication there is only so many different medications you can try so i found out at one point i was hoping to find something much better and it doesn’t come along but by using cbt by getting your own help and putting
Strategies in place and and learning as well your environment and what things make you worse and what can help you putting all these all these things into place along with your medication will have a massive effect on you and hopefully it’ll be really good so yeah if you found this useful i’ve probably fought on a bit i haven’t got any kind of scripts that i
Normally have from doing anything for my my business and it’s quite late at night as well because it’s quiet so i have to wait all day to do the video but if it’s helpful anyway um let me know also if you’re still watching thank you for watching and staying to the end i would love you to join me online in may 2021 an event called adhd unlimited and briefly
Mention that i was on the show with dr dawn brown um a friend and she’s an adhd expert and also has adhd herself she runs the adhd wellness center in america and there’s all sorts of other things as well she’s been on tv she works with nfl all sorts of athletes to be fair and um we had a chat we were on a show we were talking afterwards and i was talking about
One of the things i’ve been planning for a while but i hadn’t quite come around to doing that and put into action and just by speaking to her we we said this great idea i came up with a name for it i put things into place and organized it which in the process we’re doing now so that’s adhd unlimited it’s going to be a live event for adults with adhd obviously
My focus some of the things i want to be doing there is is around business and entrepreneurs and letting people know that they can run a business and how they can do different things and how they can take the idea they’ve had in their head for a while and actually turn it into a business but the whole event i’m hoping will have something for absolutely everyone
Young adults people are being diagnosed late in life and just all sorts of people we’ve got some really great speakers involved that have agreed some have signed up already some have said they’ll happily do that and i’m working on a list of really really good speakers that i’m going to reach out to and pray that someone joins in or someone joined in but even now
The lineup of people that have agreed is perfect that’s called adhd unlimited and i’ll drop a link to that in the notes below if you’re interested you can come along for free you can watch it you can grab an all access pass for 39 at the minute before the price goes up and if you want to speak or you’ve got any recommendations for a really good speaker someone
You’d love to see there or a topic you’d like to hear about let me know um i really want to make it so it says something for everyone so yeah feel free to speak feel free to contact me and let me know your thoughts take care thanks again for watching you
Transcribed from video
Adult ADHD Diagnosis and Treatment Review Psychiatry UK 1 Year On By ADDtrepreneur
