[N]o other class of medications in virtually all of medicine inspires more baseless fears, intentional disinformation, and wild beliefs as do the stimulants used to treat ADHD.
Interestingly, these fears are almost entirely an American phenomenon that hardly exists elsewhere in the world.
[H]aving ADHD lowers a person’s estimated life expectancy by 12.7 years.
From other articles on the site:
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ADHD medication use lowers risk of death by 19%, risk of overdose by 50%, and it reduces hospitalizations
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[T]he risk of substance abuse decreases substantially when [ADHD] patients are treated with stimulant medication
I decided not to pursue diagnosis when I read that taking stimulants with high blood pressure is bad. I’d be happy to have this notion corrected.
I don’t have the medical knowledge to comment on the blood pressure thing, but I do know that there are several non-stimulant ADHD medication options these days.
It's not great, unfortunately. But there are also non-stimulant medications, and people can also respond differently to different stimulants. Even different isomers can have different effects (e.g. racemic amphetamine aka Adderal vs. L-isomer amphetamine aka Vyvanse).
e: You can always try a treatment and keep a BP monitor on hand to watch out for increased blood pressure. If you spy it, mention it to your doc and they'll try the next option.
Enantiomers are extremely significant in biology.
I've had the fortunate/unfortunate experience of learning that personally lol