Transcript

#81 Late Diagnosis ADHD with Jules Galloway

[00:00:00] Welcome back to episode of the Hormone Hub Podcast, where we talk all things perimenopause, menopause, and have the conversations no one else is having. Sit back, relax, and enjoy this episode.

Kylie: Hello. Hello ladies and welcome back to The Hormone Hub and today on the Hormone Hub. Oh, I’m your host, Kylie Pinwill, of course. And I have a very special guest who also happens to be a very good friend of mine. And if we can get through this episode, I. Without hysterical laughing. We’ll be doing well. 

Jules: You know that’s not gonna happen.

Kylie: I would like to introduce my very dear friend, Jules Galloway. Jules is a naturopath, she’s a practitioner mentor, she’s a speaker, she’s a podcaster, and she has a very special interest in the areas of fatigue, mental health, ADHD, inflammatory issues and complex cases. [00:01:00] And Jules is gonna come and talk to us today about something that is, you know, a bit of a hot topic at the moment and something that she was recently diagnosed with that I have not been diagnosed with, which is questionable (Jules) yet.

So please, Jules Galloway, welcome to the show. It is great to have you here and you know you are going to bring, I know, a wealth of knowledge and drop a few bombshells I would imagine into the podcast episode today. So Jules, it’s great to have you here. 

Jules: Thank you so much for having me. It’s so weird seeing you on Zoom rather than just having a breakfast with you in real life.

Kylie: I know. It feels, we feel very grown up and you know, responsible today where it’s just what we have breakfast together. We are not like that at all. 

Jules: This is very formal. I love it. 

Kylie: All right, for all our listeners, Jules is a bit of a legend in the practitioner world. [00:02:00] You know, I don’t wanna say she’s been around forever ’cause she’s actually younger than I am, but she brings a wealth of knowledge, to our industry.

And she’s kind of a big deal, which is why it’s very exciting to have her on the show. And Jules and I sort of talk a lot about, when we get together, we talk about everything going on in the world. But we also talk a lot about, cases and, if I need to pick someone’s brain, on a case, Jules is kind of my go-to.

So I am, in all seriousness, I’m very excited to have Jules on the show. Now, one of the things that comes up for us in conversation a lot is ADHD and Jules, went through, well it still started with James really didn’t it? Jules’s husband. I’ll let Charles tell the story.

Jules: Yeah, we should get him on the show. But, yeah, he doesn’t really have much to say about hormones and perimenopause, so maybe we’ll leave him out. But he, it, it started about a year and a half ago now that it was a very si just a, a, an [00:03:00] in passing comment from his mom sitting outside a fish and chip shopping ballina, waiting for our fish and chips to come out. ‘Cause I was having a non naturopathic, meal obviously, and she, we were just sitting out there just, you know, like talking about family stuff and, and another family member who had some mental health stuff going on and she said, oh yes, Jamie used to have ADHD as a child, we think, but he grew out of it.

And oh my God, like that turned our whole world upside down because we had never considered it for him. But then we looked into it and all the pieces of the puzzle fell into place about how he shows up in the world and where he struggles in the world and where he feels like, ’cause he, he hasn’t failed in the world, but where he feels like he’s failed and fallen down in the world.

So, we took him through the diagnostic process first with a psychologist and later with a psychiatrist, and [00:04:00] as he was going through that diagnostic process I was sitting in on one or two of his sessions, because that’s part of the process here in Australia is I’ll often get a loved one or family member, someone who knows you really well, to get it, get them in there and ask them questions about ADHD symptoms.

And I was sitting there, and this is what’s happening with a lot of my clients right now, except it’s not their husband necessarily, it’s they’re sitting in on their kids’ assessments. But I was sitting in on James’ assessment, answering the questions for him and keeping a mental telly in my head, answering them for myself as well.

Going, yeah, I do that. Yeah, that’s me. Yeah, that’s so me. Oh my God, I’m 10 out of 10 for that symptom. What do you mean that’s a symptom? I’ve had that all my life. Am I ADHD two? And then, so once James had been formally diagnosed, then we switched to myself and I ended up being diagnosed, [00:05:00] I think it was just before Christmas, 2022.

Kylie: Yep. Yeah, no, I remember ’cause you called me. Yeah. Um, yeah, so, and it’s really interesting because it’s, it’s obviously something that, we are bringing more awareness to. And, there are more adults being diagnosed with, with ADHD and the more I sort of read into it, certainly, there’s elements of it I can relate to as well, but why?

What is ADHD and women in particular look like, because it’s different from, that stereotypical the naughty boy in the classroom, you know? Yeah. What does it sort of look like for women? 

Jules: That stereotype is being dissolved even for males at the moment as well. Like, because James wasn’t the naughty boy who ran around the classroom either.

He just never handed these things in on time. But he, you know, and he thought he was dumb because he didn’t learn things the way that everyone [00:06:00] else learned things. But he wasn’t hyperactive in, in that outwardly obvious way. And that’s also the case for a lot of women. And we, there’s, there’s actually like three types of ADHD as well.

So there’s the hyperactive, which is the, the typical stereotype. When we think about the, the kids on the red, cordial, but also hyperactivity can be inward, not outward. So, just because your body’s sitting still doesn’t mean that you are not hyperactive because your brain might be going at a million miles an hour.

Like that monkey mind that never shuts off is still a form of hyperactivity. And so you’ve got your hyperactive type and they may look like the stereotype or not. Then you’ve got your inattentive type, which are not hyperactive. You drift off of people. You know, I always think you, do you remember Luna in Harry Potter?

Yes. You know how she just kind of like, Think that she, I always think she, she’s [00:07:00] neurodivergent that character. I love her. I’ve always loved her. Yeah. But yeah, that, that real, like just not, not there, you know, like not able to focus, but, but also just the, you know, the brain just kind of going on its own, on its own wandering journey.

Like that’s, that’s more your inattentive type, but obviously there’s a lot more symptoms than that. 

Kylie: At school, we used to call or refer to those kids as the Space Cadets, I think. 

Jules: Yeah. So the Daydreamers, and think about how many girls got done for being a daydreamer on their school report. Yeah. Oh yeah.

Caught her staring out the window, daydreaming. Now she’s not gonna get in trouble, trouble. Because she is not the one standing up throwing the chair at the teacher or throwing a soccer ball across the room when they’re meant to be sitting. Like she’s just like not getting things done, but she’s, but she’s also not the squeaky wheel.

Then you’ve got the combined type of, ADHD, which is actually what James and I both are and ’cause we like to do things [00:08:00] together. And, and the combined type has both. Yes. So you might have some attributes of one and some attributes of the other, which, which basically means you get to have all the things as much as you want.

So, and, and look, all of those types can show up differently for people you know, like whether they’re male or female. But also there’s, I think there’s a lot of social conditioning that comes into it as well. A lot of the women currently getting diagnosed at a later age find that they were the inattentive type, but not all.

There’s a few combined coming out as well. We, we get to little girls get told to sit still and to not make noise and to be good, and we learn to mask our symptoms. So in ADHD talk, there’s this thing called masking. And masking is where you basically show up in the world, like you don’t have it. So it might be like masking, could be like a hyperactive person who’s just like, [00:09:00] stopping their leg from jiggling, like, but they have to tense themselves to stop their leg from jiggling so that they can sit still.

Or it might be, it might be someone who’s overly talkative, who’s like, makes themselves shut up. They’re like, stop talking. So there’s, there’s so many ways that we mask in the world. It might be people forcing themselves to make eye contact if they’re autistic. Like we see a lot of, we see a lot of autistic women.

At the moment, getting their diagnosis and then realizing they’ve been masking their whole lives to look neurotypical, to act neurotypical. So yeah, it’s basically like women I think have, because of social necessity and social expectations, we become like these champions at masking. Whereas the blokes are kind of told that, you know, they, they just, you open the back door, chuck ’em out into the backyard and go, yeah, go run it off.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I think that [00:10:00] there’s, uh, there’s a really big explosion of women becoming diagnosed at the moment because no one ever picked it up because we were so good. Like I did 10 years of jazz ballet, right. I learned how to put a game face on. Like you don’t know when I’m in pain, right? If you don’t, you don’t PE like people won’t know when I’m sad or they won’t know when I’m in pain unless they know me really, really well, because like I’ve got 10 years of like dance training behind me that allows me to show up and fake it in a way where most of the world wouldn’t know. So this is what women have done to ourselves. Yeah. And it’s not terribly healthy, but here we are. 

Kylie: Yeah. Yeah. And it’s really interesting, you know, because I, yeah, just sort of talking to, to you after your diagnosis and sort of like looking down sort of my family line and yeah.

So my brother has been [00:11:00] diagnosed and then I look at my dad and I’m like, oh yeah, I see it there. And then it wasn’t until you made me look at myself and I was like, oh, maybe. But I think, I’m happily, living in denial for the time being. But part of me sort of thinks like, is it because we are all just wired differently?

Like, is it necessarily that, an ADHD brain or an autistic brain, like yes there’s differences a hundred percent, but is like, who’s to say what’s normal?

Jules: Yeah, there’s a lot of chat around this at the moment because if so many more people are neurodivergent than we thought.

In what is normal? Where do we put that line in the sand? Do have we moved it or do we move it again and we need to remember that autism and ADHD are both [00:12:00] spectrums, right? We like, so we’ve always called autism a spectrum, but we need to recognize that ADHD is as well. And that whole, like with you saying you’re in denial.

I don’t think you’re in denial ’cause I know you quite well. Um. I don’t think it’s denial so much as it’s priorities. Yeah. And if, and if knowing isn’t going to do anything groundbreaking for you right now. Yeah. Then it slips down the priority list where I encourage people to get it back up. The priority list in terms of going and getting an assessment is if they’re curious about taking ADHD medications and they wanna give it a go because you have to in Australia and most countries like you have to have been formally assessed and diagnosed by a psychiatrist in order to be able to access those meds. And normal GP can’t give you ADHD stimulant meds, right?

That’s not on the, not on the cards. So if you are, if, if you’re not medication curious or if you, if that’s not where you wanna go right now, [00:13:00] then it, then it comes down to, do you need an assessment for your own peace of mind or for your own guidance, or to help you work through your own stuff? Yep. Or don’t you, and like you are, you are in a pretty good place like that, so it might not be as high a priority for you.

Whereas with James, it really was because he wasn’t totally happy with where, how his life had turned out and where he was at because he, he didn’t go on and study because he, he didn’t know how to study. He didn’t realize why he couldn’t study. Now he knows, and he hasn’t, there’s a, we, we’ve actually got a podcast, which I’m sure we’ll mention later, but, there’s a whole podcast episode that James and I have done together that talk.

We ha we, we call it the great job off where we actually compare how many jobs each of us has had. Yeah. And I ended up all right, like I could go to uni and I could study because I was studying something I was really, really passionate about. In ADHD there’s this thing called [00:14:00] hyperfocus where if you’re down a rabbit hole that you love, you can focus, right?

You find that that dopamine kicks in and then you’re there, but, with James, he never found the thing that he was passionate about, and so he’s drifted a lot from job to job. And so for him getting, getting going through that process in getting the formal diagnosis, it, like, they gave him a lot of validation about why things have been the way that they have, and it, it put him through, it’s a bit like a bandaid.

It gets worse before it gets better, but it put him through a grief process. Yeah, but, but about what his life could have been had he known earlier, but when he started to come out, the other end of that, things got better for him. Yeah. So like it, that’s when I do encourage people to go and get assessments and, and, and find out if it’s, if, if they need to know that information so that they can really move forward and like, you know, properly move forward with their lives and start to see like the p like you [00:15:00] just said, the pieces fall into place for the other family members and your, you know, so many times James and I have talked about family members and people that we’ve known throughout the years going and the, the conversation will go, I’m not a psychologist, but, I reckon that person might be in our club. Yeah. Because we, you know, we can’t go and tell everyone we’ve ever known. When we look back and go, oh yeah, they’re an A d H, adhd. We’re not gonna go and be like, Hey, yeah, I think you should get assessed. Like, that’s for them to find out in their own time. But, oh goodness.

When it like, as you know, when it’s a family member, like there’s all that extra baggage that comes with it and all the extra emotions and all the extra stuff that comes with it. So again, like if you get a formal assessment and you know exactly what your brain’s made of it then helps you to see your family in a new light as well.

So I don’t know, like where, where is that line in the sand gonna be drawn in a few years from now? [00:16:00] Nobody knows. Yeah. But I think, I think we. There was, I think we always had a ADHD as in in the tribe, like way back, way, way, way. Like when we were living in tribes, when we were hunting and gathering all of that.

I think we always had ADHDers and I think they served an incredible purpose. ‘Cause we’re the go-getters, we’re the thrill seekers, we’re the risk takers and often we are the quick thinkers and we’re, you know, we, we are sometimes out the front of that pack taking that risk and, and blazing trails and all of that.

Like, and I, I read it somewhere, someone was like, oh yeah, like if someone had to try a new mushroom to see whether it was edible or whether it killed someone, it was probably the ADHD that was like, oh yeah, I’ll give that a go. You know, maybe some of us didn’t survive living in those, in those days.

But look, I, I do think there, there’s [00:17:00] a really like brilliant and beautiful place in, in our community and in society. For people with these sorts of brains. Yeah. But what’s happened in the last few decades is I think our brains have all caught fire. So we, we’ve, we are now going through something which I like to refer to as neuroinflammation.

And you know, a neurologist would say that it doesn’t show up on an M R I and therefore it’s not real. But you and I both know from like a nutrition, holistic naturopathic point of view, there are levels of inflammation beneath that sort of what shows up on an M R I that still affects people’s health.

Yeah. And so what we are seeing in the last few decades is people with gut issues, people with mold exposure, people with food intolerances, people with trauma, people with nutrient deficiencies, lots and lots of different causes of neuroinflammation. And then that neuroinflammation when it occurs in an ADHD brain,

yep that’s, that’s [00:18:00] when the symptoms start to go out of control. So we go, we go into from, we go from being like the risk taking out the front of the pack bunch to like the anxious insomniac bunch who can’t focus, can’t do things, can’t get off the couch, like, and, and so once that brain is inflamed, hmm, then what you’ve got is a person who is struggling to function in our current society, like and with all the screens and all the, yeah, shared offices and all the distractions and all the things that are going on in our lives right now. This world is not built for us. Yeah. I, I, I don’t think you and I are built to sit still all day in front of a screen, and so many people aren’t.

But it’s the, it’s the ADHD crew that are gonna suffer when these sorts of like societal norms are placed upon us.

Kylie: Yeah, yeah, definitely. And, and I think that’s where [00:19:00] we tend to see, and the more you sort of read about it and the more, research that’s coming out and that link between, with those sort of ADHD brains, aren’t coping, there’s, it’s a very short link between ADHD and addiction as well.

Jules: Absolutely. Absolutely. ‘Cause we are dopamine seeking, uh, humans and we, you know, and sometimes the addiction happens because we’re trying to actually just shut down the noise in the brain as well. It’s not just about seeking that dopamine high. ‘Cause a lot of people are like, oh yeah. Adhd, they’re just like short on dopamine.

That’s a really limited view of what’s going on and like a lot of people that I talk to who’ve had like substance abuse issues or even gambling issues or any type of addiction is sometimes they’re doing it to actually quite in the noise in the brain. Oh. And that, that’s not even a dopamine thing.

That’s more like a norepinephrine, like dopamine. So there there’s more going on than just the [00:20:00] dopamine. Yeah. We know with ADHDs, they’ve got problems with norepinephrine, they’ve got problems with serotonin. They’ve potentially got problems with other neurotransmitters as well. And so what, what you’re seeing isADHD is will also have what we call comorbidities. And the comorbidities for a ADHD is are things like anxiety, depression, insomnia, body focused repetitive behaviors, so like nail biting, skin picking, hair pulling, et cetera. Um, OCD. So, If those things are starting to rise up in a person and become a problem, like that’s when addictions can sometimes happen as well, because we are trying to buy ourselves, you know, or, or give ourselves some, we’re medicating it and we’re, we’re trying to numb ourselves in a way.

So there’s, and that’s the thing, once that, that, once that, ADHD brain is inflamed. That’s when some of those comorbidities will start to really show themselves. And then what you’ve got is a person [00:21:00] who just wants the pain to stop. 

Kylie: Yeah. Yeah. And it’s interesting ’cause I’ve got a, a few women that I’ve worked with across the years who some of them diagnosed, either on the spectrum, the autism spectrum or with ADHD, and then some of them just not, but possibly, yes. And these are essentially like high functioning, women, so very high functioning, very, very good at what they do in their career, executive roles, things like that.

But they come home and, it’s a bottle of wine every night. So essentially like a high functioning alcoholic. And, it’s sort of after I’d had this conversation, maybe, half a dozen times with different women, I was sort of like, actually there’s a pattern here. These are very high performing women, but that wine is just, there’s, there’s that addiction every night, and it’s just to calm them down.

And like almost every single one sort of said, oh, I just don’t know how to wind down [00:22:00] at the end of the day and that’s the only way I can do it. And it’s just, like if I drank a bottle of wine every night, like I would wake up the next morning and it’d take me until three o’clock in the afternoon to function again.

But it’s, it’s just, they’ve got themselves into that pattern that that’s their, their crutch that they’re using to, to wind their brain down, you know? But they can get up and they can perform at that, that high level the next day. Um, which is 

Jules: Yeah, it’s really common. 

Kylie: Switched on women, you know?

Jules: Oh, but they’re the ones who get missed. So I think that’s, that’s why I never saw myself as possibly being an ADHD, or until I sat in on, on James’ assessments because, I never considered that, that might be me because I did manage to get a university degree and I have got a, a thriving business and I can focus on my job when I, when I was storing tasks that I really enjoy.

Um, so I, I didn’t, I, [00:23:00] I would put myself in that class of that high functioning, which I know is a term that, that we’re, we are trying to use less and less. But it is also, you know, like it’s a term that people know, but, uh, we’re when we are talking about what we, you know, what we’ve always referred to as high functioning, what we’re talking about is people who can’t stop.

So they’re really driven, they’re often very intelligent and they cannot stop, they cannot wind down. And so that’s like your, in inverted, like your high functioning anxiety person as well. Like there’s a, a lot of women will, will refer to themselves as being high functioning and anxious, so, the ADHD is notoriously cannot wind down. Like their idea of the worst holiday ever would be sitting on a sun lounger for a week. Maybe they could do it for a day or two, right? Yeah. You, and I’d be like, oh my God, I’ve been working so hard. Get me a sun lounger, and a, you know, and like a [00:24:00] nice cocktail and a pool and da da da.

And we’d, we’d be like, this is amazing. I love this holiday. And then on day two we’d be like, I’m bored now.

Kylie: Should we go and play something? Should we go and do something? 

Jules: Yeah. Yeah. Let’s do something we like. Can we go on a trek? Like what can we do? And so like my idea of an amazing holiday is one where every day I’m going and discovering something new in a new place and seeing new things and, and so, that’s, that’s that high functioning thing in, in action in that if you stick me on a sun lounger, like I said for one day, I’ll be like, oh, this is great to rest but like, from then on, I am more ans like antsy and it’s that hyperactivity, that inner, see that’s the thing. Inner hyperactivity. Yeah. Like you don’t wanna sit still in that Sunland. You’re like, this is great, but I, and, and immediately I’ll feel like I’m wasting my time. Yeah. Or that I’m, I’m pissing my time up against a wall.

Kylie: Somehow there’s 600 other things we could be doing on stage. 

Jules: Yes. And that this is not time well spent. This is a [00:25:00] poor use of your time sitting around doing nothing. Which we know naturopathically, complete bollocks, like we should be scheduling in that downtime. And it’s exactly what I teach to everyone else.

Yeah. Is that they should be meditating or doing yoga or chilling out or having a bath and all of that. And I find it really hard to do myself because I am in, in that, you know, inverted commas, like high functioning kind of box. Yeah. But I really feel like it’s, it’s not a high functioning thing. It’s a, it’s intelligent and can’t stop thing.

Yes. And those people, they’re the ones who get missed for assessment. Those women, like you said, who have got these amazing high-powered jobs that require like intelligence and drive and all of that, like they’re the ones you gotta watch out for because they will never suspect they’re in ADHD until the last possible moment, when moment it’ll drop into their lap like it did with me.

And tho those people are the most prone to burnout. They’re the most prone to things like, [00:26:00] like autoimmune diseases or like big, you know, big health like challenges coming their way because they’re push, push, push, push, push, push, and then they fall in a heap ’cause they didn’t see it coming and they’re usually optimists.

So they never thought it would happen. 

Kylie: Yeah. Yeah. Just sort of going back to, like a diagnosis means that, access to medication, should you choose to do it. Now you’ve, you’ve tried the medication and you know,

Jules: I did. I’m not your average naturopath, 

Kylie: And it’s totally okay. And what I always sort of say to my clients is, what we wanna do is be in a position where we can choose and make informed choices. So I think, understanding what the medication means and how it can help, I think would be really important. And how do you know if it’s right for you or not?

So, you know, do you wanna share sort of your experience on the, on the, on the meds? 

​[00:27:00] I would love to invite you to our Nourish and Thrive one day retreat in the beautiful Noosa coming up on Saturday, the 7th of October. This menopause gut health and pelvic wellness retreat is hosted by myself and also by the beautiful Alex Main. Join us for this transformative one day event, which will give you all of the practical insights into navigating this perimenopause menopause transition. So you’ll walk away confidently knowing how to nourish your body, optimize your pelvic floor, and core function. Hope to see you there.

Jules: Yeah. And look, I honestly, the, the way that the medications are prescribed at the moment, it’s, it’s honestly, from what I’ve seen out there, it’s a little bit like throwing spaghetti at a wall and seeing if anything sticks.

It’s a bit frightening in that regard, but it seems to be the only way that it, it’s getting done or that it can be done right now in the way our system’s set up. So there’s three main stimulant medications [00:28:00] that, uh, that are out there. So the, like the first one I actually, I was actually offered a choice, right?

And that this is, see this is already like, I’m thinking, well this is, this is weird ’cause I’m not a doctor and I’m certainly not a psychiatrist. And he’s like, well there’s three types of medication. Which one do you wanna try? And I’m like, I don’t know, which one do you think I should try? Like, and it’s, but he’s basically like, well, one’s a short acting one, one’s a medium acting one, and one’s a fast acting, long acting one.

Which one would you like to give a go? And I’m like, Hmm, the medium one. So I went home with methylphenidate, which is Ritalin. Yep. And that’s, that’s your medium acting one in terms of length. Right. And so like, The short acting one is dexamphetamine and the long, long, long acting one is, uh, Liz Dexamphetamine, which is Vyvanse.

Right? So I went home with Ritalin and I started taking it like, and, and I, you know, I’m, [00:29:00] I should probably like add here that, like I said, I’m not your average naturopath, but also, I, I’m one of those people who just wants all the experiences in life. So if, if someone says, oh, do you wanna try a medication?

I’m like, I’ll be like, oh yeah, I wanna know what that feels like because if I’ve got clients coming to me who are on these meds, I actually wanna know what it feels like to take them. So what better way than to see what it does for me? So off I went. Took some Ritalin.

Kylie: Just a little aside here. A complete, complete zombie.

Yeah. Sorry, just a little aside. Auntie Jules was also the one who had the chat with my teenage son before he went to Thailand about what to try and not to try. Thank you Auntie Jules. How did that go, by the way? Uh, he was on his 19th birthday, miss Lady Boy Chang Mai. 

Jules: On stage, but Auntie Jules was [00:30:00] sitting there teaching him about which, which types of drinks have got the drugs in them and which ones have got the names, what stay away from Yes.

Someone offers you that one maybe don’t have it because that one’s got some like extra stuff in it that isn’t alcohol and Yeah. Yeah.

Kylie: So Auntie Jules is, you know, experience from trying what works and what doesn’t. She’s to share that with my teenage children, so thank you, Auntie Jules. 

Jules: Happy, happy to help. I must say that, that the, you know, the reason I know some of that stuff is because of a life. I lived very, very long time ago. Many decades. 

Kylie: Yes. That’s, we all had our twenties with, thank goodness it wasn’t on social media. Right. So the Lady Boy is now forever on social media. 

Jules: Oh God, God help us all. I have seen that photo. Um, so I like, I’m, I’m in for all the things. Like I wanna see what it, what it all feels like.

And I knew that I could do like the nervous system support and the liver support and the sleep support to make it as safe as I possibly could. So [00:31:00] off I went, took the Ritalin zombie. Absolute zombie changed up the dose, spoke to the psychiatrist, spoke to my local pharmacist, and by the way, anyone out here who’s listening, who is having trouble with any sort of medications, but particularly these sorts of medications, if you can’t get back in in a timely manner to speak with your psychiatrist, find yourself a friendly pharmacist. Because my local pharmacist was absolute gold during this time. Like I went in and I spoke to him and he was patient and he was kind and he was well researched, and he also speaks to a lot of other people who take those medications.

So he was like, well, from what I’ve seen, this is what people say. Yeah. And so he bit closer to it. Yeah, he’s on the coalface and yeah, he, I could just walk in there and, and make a time and talk, you know, as long as he wasn’t too busy, I could talk to him straight away rather than having to wait two weeks to go and see the psychiatrist, just to find out whether something was [00:32:00] right or wrong.

So, anyway. So like Ritland wasn’t for me. Uh, I actually was heaps more productive, but also I was crashing at 2, 3:00 PM and to the point where I didn’t wanna go out for dinner with my friends at 6:00 PM. Even though 6:00 PM is really early time to go out with your friends for dinner. 

Kylie: Who in Queensland?

Jules: No, Noosa people go out really early for dinner. I had to get used to that, but, but yeah,

Kylie: Seven years and I’m still not used to it. 

Jules: No, I, it doesn’t compute. But I, I was finding that, uh, anything. Anything that involved driving or talking to anyone after about 4:00 PM was just like, I was, I was honestly anxious about it because I was like, I don’t know, I might be too tired to drive home.

I was in such a hole. So decided that even though I was a bit more productive, that wasn’t the life for me and also I, I, my, [00:33:00] I lost my personality. Yeah.

I’ve talked to some people about this and I think it’s because, like a lot of my personality and the way I show up in the world is you would know, um, kind of centered around like cracking jokes and being fast on the comeback and just, you know, being, you know, I’m kind of, I I like being the fun one or the funny one.

Yeah. But on Ritalin did not have not happen. Yeah. Wow. Like I would sit there going. I could, I, I would think of the funny comeback to say in the conversation, and then I would open my mouth to say the funny comeback, but then I’d be like, it’s too much effort to say that funny comeback. And then I’d sit there and not say anything at all, and my friends would be like, you are quiet today.

Yeah. So, yeah, for me, the, the trade off was too great. So off I went. Got some dexamphetamine from, said psychiatrist. Tried that. Um, didn’t have that same effect. So that’s the thing. These, these drugs are different [00:34:00] for everybody. Yeah. And when I tried the Dex Amphetamines or the Dxi, as the kids call them, uh, they, I, I was more productive and more focused and I got everything done and I still had a personality, but I was crashing even harder than before at three, four in the afternoon. Yeah. And I tried all my usual tricks. I tried eating keto to keep the blood sugar stable. ’cause I’m like, ah, this is just a blood blood sugar crash.

And like I tried like adjusting the diet, doing all the things. Um, and the only solution that the psychiatrist had, Was to have more dexamphetamine later in the day. And of course that just interrupts your sleep and leads to insomnia and trouble getting to sleep. And so then my sleep time got pushed out from like 10 30 to 1130 to 1230 to 1:00 AM and I’m like, this is not okay.

This is not very naturopathic. That’s the thing I’m in for all the things. But also then my [00:35:00] naturopathic brain, like my there, there’s like a circuit in my brain that gets tripped where I’m like, Nah, this is too far now. Yeah, so I, yeah, I, I, I went one more roll of the dice. Of course I did. So I was like, yeah, give me the next one.

So I, I took, took home the Vyvanse and went again. Yep. Didn’t work. Just did nothing. Yeah, yeah. Upped the dose. Yep. Did nothing. And I, at that point in time, I was like, That was when that kind of grief hit or the dis It was severe disappointment only last a couple of days. ‘Cause I picked myself up and got on with it, but I just went through this, oh my God, nothing’s gonna work for me.

That’s it. That’s all the stimulant medications done and dusted and none of them were a good fit for me. Now I’m stuck like this. This is it like. Yeah, I, I don’t get to have any chemical assistance when I’ve got an assignment due or when I’ve got a slideshow due for that big speaking gig that’s coming up.

Or when I need [00:36:00] to write a program for the next thing I wanna do out, out there in the naturopathic world when, whenever I have to do grunt work. ’cause it’s really weird when, it’s not weird actually, ’cause it’s called hyperfocus. But if I’m sitting with clients face to face on Zoom, I am totally okay. I can focus.

No worries. Yep. But when I have to go and do all the grunt work, the back work, the book work, all the other things, that’s when I absolutely suffer. And it’s just like pulling teeth and even if it’s for something that I really love. And so that was the part that really hit me, ’cause I was like, well now I’m on my own.

There’s no drug that’s gonna really be the thing that I can lean on on those days when I need a thing. Yeah. It’s all on me. I’m stuck like this. This is my brain. So that, I think that’s the moment where I felt the most grief because prior to that I was like, oh, I’ll just find a drug that works for me and then I’ll just take it on the bookwork days.

Yeah, yeah. But no, like unfortunately, I, I wasn’t the right person for that. [00:37:00] Yeah. So then I had to go down the supplement route and the herb route. And yeah, like I’ve got myself a balance that works really well now. Yeah. But also there’s a lot of lifestyle modifications and understanding. I think that having a diagnosis is brought to the table.

Like scheduling timeout, even when optimistic me thinks that I, I don’t need a day off after I’ve flown from Sydney to back to back to Noosa and, oh yeah, I’ll just pack my Tuesday with clients. Even though I’m flying in on Monday now, like even though optimistic me is so sure I’ll be okay. Realistic, ADHD diagnosed me goes, I’m going to block out that Tuesday. Yeah, because self care. Yeah. And. And so knowing, knowing the diagnosis has now given me a slightly new way of being in the world. But of course, that’s fighting against high functioning me. That’s [00:38:00] like, you should just see those six people. Otherwise, it’s a waste of a Tuesday.

What are you just gonna sit around? So it, it’s, it’s a, it’s a long road of learning and everybody’s path is going to be different because they’re, they’re gonna go through a completely different range of emotions in a different order to, to what the next person goes through. But I think what, when, when you come out the other end, the most important thing to do is come out the other end with something that works for you without depleting your health too much.

Like if you’re gonna take stimulant meds like. We need to be putting some naturopathic pillars in place to make sure that those meds like cause more good than harm over the long run. Like let’s make sure your gut’s okay. ‘Cause sometimes people’s guts get a bit upset by stimulant meds, right? And if your gut’s not okay, that’s gonna actually going, going to make you more likely to have anxiety in the long run.

So we wanna keep your gut right [00:39:00] so that your mental health stays good. Yeah. We wanna make sure we support your adrenal. So we wanna make sure that like, you know, we give you magnesium to help you sleep at night and maybe some B vitamins during the day to support your adrenal function. And we, like I said just before, like we wanna balance your blood sugar and get you eating in a way where you’ve got sustained energy levels throughout the day as much as possible.

So, If you’re gonna, if you’re gonna take the medication, there’s still some really cool things that we can do in place around that to make sure that you get the best possible outcome. 

Kylie: A hundred percent. And I think, and I’m very big on, sort of reiterating with our audience that, it doesn’t matter what you’re looking at, ADHD diagnosis with medication, menopause with HRT, cold and flu.

If you’ve got a cold, you know, you need to, 

Jules: No,, no. That’s where I’m drawing the line. No, no

Kylie: You need what? Regardless of what you choose to take, you know, you need to get [00:40:00] those foundations in place. You need good nutrition, you need to move your body, you need sunlight, you need fresh air, you need, you are essentially a living plant, so you need to take care of yourself and get those foundations in place to support, those medications and should you choose to go down that route too. So there’s no shame in taking the medication by any means. And there’s no shame in choosing not to either, but it’s just, wherever you are at and whatever choices you make, think, the, the more you understand the potential implications, the more you understand, you know, you really do need to get those foundations down, the better outcome long-term you, you’re gonna have for, for anything when it comes to any aspect of your health. 

Jules: And the thing that concerns me the most is, a lot of the A D H, well, not even a lot, the ADHD stimulant medications, none of them are really that good. If you get a bit older and you end up with high blood pressure or heart condition, they’re [00:41:00] probably gonna take them back off you.

Yes. So where all these people who are currently getting diagnosed in their forties and fifties, when they get to their sixties and seventies, and if they do end up unfortunately having high blood pressure, or a heart issue, whether they’re on blood pressure or heart meds or not, there’s a really strong likelihood that at that point that the doctor’s gonna take you off your ADHD meds ’cause it’s too much of a risk for your cardiovascular system.

Yeah. If someone’s been relying on just meds and not addressing diet and nutrient deficiencies and gut health and all the other things, if someone’s been just leaning on the meds for a decade or two and then someone pulls that rug out from under them, where’s it gonna lead them? And from what I can see in science and medicine right now is this mad scramble to find non-stimulant medication options that are going to be effective and appropriate for people at, you [00:42:00] know, over 30, over 40, over 50, et cetera.

Because they, you know, they’re even talking about how now they think that some of these stimulant meds are not as effective on adults as they might be on kids. But we don’t know ’cause there’s not enough data. And by the way, there’s. Absolutely sweet fa in terms of the amount of data that is out there on women.

Yes. So if, you know, if, if you are assigned female at birth and you are producing estrogen, progesterone, all of that, like, forget looking for too much in terms of research and science when it comes to ADHD, because there really is, there’s, there’s such a lack right now. And so, and then the other thing that we’re also starting to notice, and this is where your department is gonna really come into effect, is that, uh, when people go into perimenopause and menopause and their hormones start to change, it would seem right. And again, not much data on this, but anecdotally we see it big time, the stimulant meds start to become less effective. [00:43:00] We’ve, you’ll see it, you go into the ADHD forums and there’s people screaming that from the rooftop.

Yeah. Like the wor the, the further I go towards menopause, the less effective these meds seem to be and the worse my ADHD symptoms are getting. Yeah. And we’ve, you have already would’ve seen this with other mental health stuff, like women starting to have issues with insomnia or anxiety or depression or mood swings.

Well, it seems that it’s going to also exacerbate ADHD symptoms and also you don’t have to wait for menopause in order for that to happen. A lot of people have that happening to them. Premenstrually. So in the week before their period we’re seeing the same thing. Symptoms getting worse, meds becoming less effective.

Yes. So again, like you can’t rely on these meds to do everything for you because there’s a chance that they might stop working at some point or become less effective at some point as well. And also we may end up building up a bit of a tolerance to it and needing higher [00:44:00] dosages. And once we’re on those higher dosages, anything more than 10 milligrams of a stimulant medication a day is going to raise your cortisol.

That’s been proven. Probably a study done on men though, so who bloody knows it might be less for women, right? 

Kylie: Seem to get the raw end of the stick.

Jules: So, so there’s so much more that’s going to come out around this in the next little while, and we haven’t even touched upon the fact that you need estrogen in order for your dopamine to work properly.

So if you are, and, and we know that like, like I said, it’s not the be and end all, but, one of the features that you know that comes up over and over again in ADHD is this issue with dopamine, right? And you need estrogen to enhance the activity of dopamine. So estrogen doesn’t decide how much dopamine you make.

So estrogen isn’t responsible for how much dopamine you produce, but it then does something to affect the way the dopamine works in the body. [00:45:00] So if you know, if you’ve got lower estrogen, there’s a chance that this dopamine isn’t going to have the same effect on you that it has on someone whose estrogen’s higher.

So imagine how that’s gonna show up for someone in perimenopause. Like that, so there’s so much going on. Like if you go to PubMed and you type in like estrogen and dopamine and have a bit of a look around, it talks about how estrogen is really important for cognitive function, working memory. Reward processing.

Hello? Like all the things that are, that are problematic in ADHD. So, yeah. 

Kylie: Well, we’ve, we’ve done whole episodes on brain fog and overwhelm and, how so many women, are impacted by that during menopause. So, it’s sort of like we’re hit, hit all round. 

Jules: Oh, we’re lucky. We’re so lucky.

It’s. Yeah. Yeah. And then the research is [00:46:00] all on men and the medication dosages are being, you know, are created about men. And then when they’re working out dosages for women, they go, ah, We’ll just give you a little bit less. Sure. Yeah, man. Because we’re a bit smaller.

Kylie: We’re not small men. We have, we’re a whole lot more complex hormonal beings.

Jules: We are complex in so, so many ways, and some of those ways are really good, but some of them come back to bite us on the arse in this Oh yeah. Age group at this time. So like I’m, you know, I’m 47 years old. I’m in the thick of it too, and so it’s no wonder I’m attracting a lot of clients who are at that point in their, in their lives as well, and they’ve just received their ADHD diagnosis, or they suspect they’re an ADHD, and they’ve got

perimenopause knocking on their door and their gut’s not well, and they’ve got a bit of anxiety and then, and so it’s, it’s no wonder that I attract them because like I’m sitting there right in the middle of it as well. And, but like, you know, [00:47:00] for, I could tell you that there’s so much that we can do and, and there’s so many things that we, that we can like tweak in order to make this as smooth as we possibly can for you.

Kylie: Yeah, a hundred percent. And that’s it. You know, we don’t have to suffer through this. There’s, there’s a lot we can do to support you. So Jules, thank you so much. You have been a wealth of knowledge. Now I am going to put Jules’ website and her social links, so jules galloway.com and Jules Galloway Health on Instagram and Facebook and Jules has very kindly given us a little freebie here, What’s causing your fatigue? So, if you wanna find out more about Jules and how she can help you, you know, please go and have a look at her website and her socials. Jules, my love. Thank you so much for being on the show. It’s, I’ve been wanting to drag this woman on the show [00:48:00] forever and here she is.

Jules: It’s always a pleasure hanging out with you. It’s um, it’s weird doing it by Zoom. It’s actually really lovely. We should, 

Kylie: It’s nice. We, I feel very professional like our breakfast. I know. Look at us. 

Jules: But, um, thank, thank you so much and, and thank you for everything you do in the world as well. Like we make an amazing team.

Kylie: We do indeed. Thank you darling. Love you to bits and thank you everyone for watching listening. We’re watching you listening and we’ll see you in the next episode. Bye 

Jules: Bye.

Thank you for taking the time to listen today. You can head on over to the show notes at kyliepinwill.com/podcast where you’ll find all the links. Now, before we go, it would mean the world to me if you’d head on over to your favorite podcast channel, subscribe and leave a review. Don’t forget to share it with your friends.

Then stay tuned for next week’s episode and I can’t wait to see you [00:49:00] then.