ADD and Compulsive Eating

SD 7/23/13; First fill 9/23/13; Second fill 11/4/13

In the week I’ve been taking my recently prescribed Adderall I have seen some noticeable changes to my desires to snack during the day. Aside from other obvious improvements in meetings and in computer tasks (I am more easily able to stay with a project and can draw my attention back to back to a subject under discussion when my mind starts to wander), I have noticed that this driving urge to eat something while at work is reduced, and when I think about eating something my thoughts are clear enough to question why I am thinking about eating, and in most cases, I can decide not to eat at this time and not feel frantic about it.

I am quite surprised by this result – to think that my pattern and preferences for eating could be tied to a condition I’ve known about for at least 10 years and for which I chose not be medicated. So I typed in “ADD and Compulsive Eating” in Google and found several references to studies on women with ADD or ADHD and eating disorders.

Some of the articles focused mainly on binge eating, but I did find some that seemed to speak to me and what I’ve been going through as I attempt to gain control over a clearly psychological eating problem.

This website, entitled ADDitude, Living Well with Attention Deficit, said this:

“In Understanding Women with ADHD, Dr. John Fleming and Dr. Lance Levy discuss the use of food in the context of addictive behaviors. Dr. Fleming found that the women who were the least successful in losing weight in his eating disorders treatment program had a much higher incidence of undiagnosed ADHD than the general population. Upon interviewing these women, it was discovered that many ate out of boredom and need for stimulation. One of his approaches in working with them was to help them develop other better sources of stimulation.

Another pattern that was found in the questionnaires completed by women with ADHD in our survey was that food was calming for them. Many women reported a pattern of eating carbohydrates at night — snacks and desserts — as a means of self-calming. It is known that high carbohydrate intake can temporarily raise serotonin levels. Additionally, a dopamine deficiency often occurs with ADHD, which is also associated with disordered eating patterns and obesity. We can infer from these studies that women with ADHD may use food as a form of self-medication — one that is more socially acceptable than drug or alcohol use.

http://www.additudemag.com/adhd-web/article/2032.html

Of particular interest to me is the second and third sentences in the second paragraph. The last sentence is also of interest, considering the warnings I’ve heard of increased incidents of “transfer addiction” in women who no longer eat the same way after bariatric surgery.

I intend to explore this further – here – as I do additional research and meet up again with the new psychotherapist who prescribed the Adderall. Although I did lose 1.8 pounds this past week, I do not believe it was from the Adderall, as I had just started taking it. Nor can I be certain that my most recent band fill, up to 6cc, is not part of my decreased desire to snack.

All I know is that I have finally moved from this plateau between 178-182, and I now have an additional tool at my disposal. My next course of action is to bring up this topic on Band Forum and Facebook pages to see other reactions – whether they be positive or negative – about the issue of taking medication in addition to bariatric surgery.

Medication

SD 7/23/13; First fill 9/23/13; Second fill 11/4/13

I have one addiction.

All throughout my life I have engaged in activities and avoided succumbing to emotionally and physically addicting behaviors. At the age of nine I spent my entire savings gambling – playing a game at a school carnival trying to win a teddy bear. I did not win the teddy bear and vowed never again to spend all my money in pursuit of trying to gain something. When I walk into a casino, I go in with a set amount of money, play until that money is gone, and leave with whatever winnings I accrued while playing. The first time I tried a cigarette at 13 I coughed and found it tasted disgusting, yet I became a brief social smoker in my early and mid-twenties, not inhaling to avoid becoming addicted to nicotine. I did inhale other substances, but none to the point of making it anything other than a fun weekend or a social activity that I easily put away when it came time to engage in a productive life.

I suppose I could become addicted to shopping because I like to buy things and I have way too many things, but I never got hooked to the point of corrupting my paycheck-to-paycheck existence, spending so much that I could not pay my mortgage. I drank fairly consistently in my late teens (when beer was legal at 18) and into my 20s, but one too many hangovers left me unwilling to continue drinking alcohol enough for it to become an addiction. Now I’ll have a beer or glass or two of wine a few times per month, and a hard drink maybe once every several months.

I believe, however, that we all have an addiction. We are all tied to at least one that feeds our mind or our emotional state with a release of endorphins or seratonin. It sure as heck isn’t sex for me.  I am addicted to food.

I suppose that many obese individuals have this problem and we become willing to have surgery to control our eating when we cannot do it ourselves. I chose the surgery that does not make me sick when I eat a cupcake (or two), or a candy bar for Halloween, or a second helping of my favorite pecan pie at Thanksgiving. Therefore, much of the success a band patient experiences, or doesn’t experience, comes from between our ears. We must tackle the addiction to food with a restricted stomach but an unfettered mind.

I saw a new psychotherapist last week, because my health care insurer sent me a notice that my former psychiatrist was leaving their network. One thing I addressed with this new psychotherapist was my desire to address my overeating – my urges to snack despite my reduced stomach capacity. We discussed my caffeine habits (I drink coffee and tea during the week) and she told me that many people drink caffeine to calm them down – despite caffeine being a stimulant. We discussed my issues, in addition to snacking, with concentration, daytime fatigue, difficulty focusing and my disorganization and cluttered environment, all symptoms in common with Adult Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD).

This is not news to me. I forayed into a diagnosis of ADD with another psychiatrist over a decade ago and took a popular (non-stimulant) ADD medication at the time, which did help my concentration and focus.  I stayed on the medication for several months but I gradually stopped because I was not convinced the changes were significant enough to warrant my being on yet another medication.  However, my new psychotherapist indicated she wanted to prescribe for me Adderall. Adderall is an amphetamine (a stimulant), of which one of the side effects is weight loss.

The goal is not to use the drug for weight loss, but to address the issues (such as distraction and the repetitive behaviors associated with eating) that might encourage me to snack. It still does not address any emotional connections I have with food.

I do not feel guilty using medication to help me on this journey. I am committed to making this band and weight loss program work, any way I can, until I can get a better understanding and control over all the reasons I put too much food into my mouth.  I see this as adding additional tools to my toolbox to get me healthy – physically and psychologically.

I’ll let you know how this goes.

In addition