Getting Help for Adult ADHD

You struggle with organizing your life. It seems hard to focus on information. You're constantly lost in your own world. Most adults don't realize that ADHD is more than just a disease for children, it also affects close to 5 percent of the adult population in the United States, many of which were undiagnosed cases when they were growing up. If you think you have ADHD, the good news is that you're not alone. There are medications to help you control this disorder, but many patients benefit more from getting help from others and learning tips and tricks to teach themselves how to better manage their condition. Before you consider medicines, you want to take a look at your resources.

1. Your Family Doctor

Quite a few adults with ADHD discover that they may have the disorder at the same time one of their children is diagnosed. If you're working on controlling your child's ADHD with your doctor, you could feel comfortable enough to discuss with them the possibility of you also seeking treatment. Explain to them the difficulties you've faced that are similar. Some doctors are happy to admit that they're not familiar enough with ADHD to make a firm diagnosis, but they can refer you to an ADHD specialist who can.

2. Mental Health Centers

You might feel that there is a stigma attached to seeking help from mental health professionals, but many of the reasons people need therapy or assessment are very common. If you find out what kind of mental health resources are available in your area, they will almost certainly have someone on staff who is an expert in ADHD and can give you more information. If there is a college or university near you with a strong psychiatry department, they could be a good source of information as well.

3. Therapists and Coaches

If you're going to get serious about controlling your ADHD symptoms, there are professional coaches available that are accredited through the Institute for Advancement of ADHD Coaches. These professionals can help you with both long-term goals and daily life. They will discuss with you the changes you want to make in your behavior and what steps you can take to get there. Many therapists have experience in adult ADHD as well, and they will be able to teach you ways to change your thinking.

4. Support Groups

Support groups are incredibly essential for anyone struggling with a mental disorder, and adult ADHD is no exception. When you listen to other people's stories, you will know how many regular, everyday people like you are affected by ADHD and be able to relate to what they're going through. You can also get ideas for how other people cope with the condition, which can leave you feeling less worried about your future.

Adult ADHD can have a major impact on your life, and it is not something to be taken lightly. If you suffer from ADHD, you have a much higher chance of problems at work and problems in your relationships. Along with that comes the feeling of never really being in control of your life. You owe it to yourself not to struggle anymore, and the first step to making that a reality could be reaching out to someone who is willing to lend a hand.

Sarah Martin writes for medical blogs. If you've been dealing with a short attention space, look into the ways in which training and mentoring can help you be more focused.

Avoid ovarian cancer tests

Tests commonly recommended to screen healthy women for ovarian cancer do more harm than good and should not be performed, a panel of medical experts said Monday.

The screenings -- blood tests for a substance linked to cancer, and ultrasound scans to examine the ovaries -- do not lower the death rate from the disease, and they yield many false-positive results that lead to unnecessary operations with high complication rates, the panel said.

"There is no existing method of screening for ovarian cancer that is effective in reducing deaths," said Dr. Virginia Moyer, chairwoman of the expert panel, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force. "In fact, a high percentage of women who undergo screening experience false-positive test results and consequently may be subjected to unnecessary harms, such as major surgery."

The advice against testing applies only to healthy women with an average risk of ovarian cancer, not to those with suspicious symptoms or those at high risk because they carry certain genetic mutations or have a family history of the disease.

Other tests rejected, too
The recommendations are just the latest in a series of challenges to cancer screenings issued by the panel, which has also rejected routine PSA screenings for prostate cancer in men and routine mammograms in women younger than 50. The task force is a group of 16 experts, appointed by the government but independent, that makes recommendations about screening tests and other efforts to prevent disease. Its advice is based on medical evidence, not cost.

The recommendations against screening for ovarian cancer were published Monday in Annals of Internal Medicine. The warning is not new -- the panel is reaffirming its own earlier advice.

Although the task force has sometimes drawn fire in the past, particularly with its stand on mammograms, in this case it has plenty of support. Other medical groups, including the American Cancer Society and the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, have for years been discouraging tests to screen for ovarian cancer.

But some doctors continue to recommend screening anyway, and patients request it, clinging to the mistaken belief that the tests can somehow find the disease early enough to save lives. A report published in February in Annals of Internal Medicine, based on a survey of 1,088 doctors, said that about a third of them believed the screening was effective and that many routinely offered it to patients. "We are fueled by hope," Moyer said.

Ovarian cancer is among the more rapidly fatal forms of cancer. This year, 22,280 new cases and 15,500 deaths are expected in the United States, according to the American Cancer Society.

In most cases, ovarian cancer is already advanced by the time it is diagnosed. Doctors say the only advice they can give women is not to ignore symptoms that may be the first warning of the disease: persistent bloating, pelvic or abdominal pain, feeling full early while eating and needing to urinate frequently.

For its latest recommendations, the panel relied heavily on a large study published last year in the Journal of the American Medical Association of 78,216 women from ages 55 to 74. Half were screened and half not, and they were followed for 11 to 13 years. The screening consisted of ultrasound exams and blood tests for elevated levels of a substance called CA-125, which can be a sign of ovarian cancer.

Many false positives
The death rate from ovarian cancer was the same in the two groups. But among the women who were screened, nearly 10 percent -- 3,285 women -- had false positive results. Of those women with false positives, 1,080 had surgery, usually to remove one or both ovaries. Only after the operations were done was it clear that they had been unnecessary. And at least 15 percent of the women who had surgery had at least one serious complication.

To find one case of ovarian cancer, 20 women had to undergo surgery.

By DENISE GRADY @ New York Times