New York Times columnist Judith Warner wrote this week about her struggles with migraine headaches — meds help, but sometimes she hates the meds for the weight gain or other side effects. She notes that migraine sufferers aren’t the only ones who wrestle with the pros and cons of medication:

Many people who take daily medications come at some point to hate them. Teenagers with ADHD routinely rebel against their meds. Long-term users of anti-depressants risk relapse because they can no longer stand the way the drugs make them feel.

Some people do manage, through diet and exercise, or by protecting themselves from their worst “triggers,” to free themselves from their drugs. But many can’t do it. Many find they can’t accept living in the compromised condition that drug-free existence requires.

A smart high school girl I know switched a few years ago from a mainstream school, where she was struggling with dyslexia and ADHD, to a school that specializes in teaching kids with severe learning disabilities. Being there has permitted her to function without her ADHD meds. But now she’s bored. She’s dispirited by the lack of academic challenge and she wants out, because she’s afraid that, without academic challenges, she won’t be able to get into a mainstream college.

That’s the tradeoff: taking daily drugs, or living a life that feels not quite worth living.

Do you struggle with the side effects of whatever you might be taking for adult attention deficit disorder or anything else? My trials with Strattera and Provigil provided modest improvements for ADHD and anxiety, accompanied by modest weight gain and modest reduction in libido. At the moment, I’m not taking either — in part because of the “tradeoff math”, and in part because I cling to the hope that I can manage and even succeed without taking “yet another pill”. How about you?

Quote: Judith Warner, “Domestic Disturbances: The Migraine Diet“, New York Times, October 25, 2007