Test anxiety? and ADD

So, I got back my biochemistry midterm, and I didn’t do as well as I had wanted. I got a “C”; however, in looking over my exam, I noticed that some of those mistakes that I thought were due to faulty recall, were due to just misreading the question and not answering it fully. Most telling of all, I was able to correct most of the test in front of the professor without resorting to my notes. “Now why didn’t you do this during the exam?” I don’t know; for some reason, I can recall much better when I am NOT being tested. This sounds somewhat like test anxiety to me, although I rarely feel nervous during an exam. This, however, does not mean that this problem alone is at the root of my grade problem; I still have difficulties in concentrating on material. So the spectre (?) of Attention Deficit Disorder may stil be present. Unfortanately, I haven’t found anyone who can test me on this. My own doctor wont’ write an Rx for any ADD meds until I get tested, but she doesn’t have any good referrals (I guess she doesn’t see any ADD cases; she’s a GP not a psychiatrist).

Maybe you can do some research on your own and find someone that does see adult cases of ADD. I’m not sure if those are different than child ADD cases.

Although I don’t have test anxiety (I’m stone cold for those), I have performance anxiety sooo bad that when I have to do a vocal performance (which doesn’t happen anymore- thank god) my knees don’t shake, they SLAP TOGETHER And I won’t mention the piano recitals!


BUT, I found something that helped me not to embarass myself as much, Beta Blockers. They’re prescribed for hypertension, but if you don’t have HB (and access to it), you can take megadoses of B-12 right before your event. It really helped take that edge off that I just couldn’t fight with all the self-talk in the world. I got through the performance better than had I not taken it and my performance was almost as good as my practice sessions. It’s a water soluable vitamin so there were no contraindications for me unless you consider a loose stool several hours later a contraindication, is this TMI?.


And just an FYI- I saw something on NBC News a few weeks back that caught my attention with how I might make it through med school: cognitive enhancers. Apparently the anti-narcolepsy drug Provigil, has an off-label use for heightening mental concentration and alertness (duh!)in non-narcoleptic people (I still remember the videos of narcoleptic dogs from all my psych classes LOL!). The guy on the news report had taken it to meet a publishing deadline and found it useful. I’m certainly not recommending it for you, but thought you might find it worthy of further inquiry.


I truly hope you find your solutions and can stick with your med school aspirations. Please know I’m rooting (sp?) for you

I’m just thinking they need to make ADD meds that can be taken while breastfeeding. I was finally diagnosed when I found out I was pregnant. Woops…no help for this scatterbrained mind. I’ve been doing it solo the entire time. Yikes!

I am buying the B-12. I just dropped a class due to a “C” test. It was a class I didn’t need for my degree and won’t show up on my transcript. It never happened. Oh, and it allows me more time on my 2 classes I am taking. Less pressure. But, still… Super Easy, Multiple Choice. For me, you can place me in front of an audience anyday. Test me, and my brain goes blank.

I can sympathize with your situation. I recently had to swallow my pride and admit that my previously-diagnosed ADD was still an issue. I went back on meds, and my brain is finally coming back under control. Life is much better now.


Your physician’s stance on prescribing ADD meds is fairly common. Even with my previous medical records in hand, I had to wait a week for my physician to review them before writing my script. It stinks, but physicians in college communities get hit up for stimulants and methylphenidates ALL THE TIME from student patients. They have to be careful, because there is a small (but growing) black market for these things on campuses. When my first script didn’t work and I switched to another class of drug, I gave my first bottle back to my physician to let him know I wasn’t pushing them on campus. He was dumbfounded, because no one had ever done that. He usually just had to walk the line of wondering how much a student needs versus how much they could end up selling to their Organic Chem lab partners.


Anyway, back to your original dilemma. Contact the office on your campus that handles concerns/service for disabled students. Granted, you my not have a physical disability, but their office probably also gets all the learning disability issues. Ask them what local providers can administer adult ADD testing. I would be shocked if they didn’t already have a list available.


Best of luck!!

Yea, I was also diagnosed with ADD as a child, but I hate taking the medication. I started to get really bad rashes and had an allergy to it. Sucks because it really did help me concentrate. Any other suggestions? How about Namenda or Aricept…medication they use for Alzheimer patients

Anna, I would suggest doing a some research into ADD meds specific to adult ADD. Not all ADD meds are recommended for both child and adult conditions. Be proactive with your provider and have a first choice of medication to start on, a “plan B” medication if the first one causes side effects, etc. Be patient with this process. These meds vary widely in their effects from one person to the other, so it could take a while to get “dialed-in” where you want to be.

Depression and anxiety are such disorders which most people face in there life as some stage for one reason or the other. If it’s children the pressure of studies gets over their head and if it’s adults the pressure of work attracts depression. Rather than going on drugs, one should look for the reason behind there problem . Keeping yourself busy and changing the schedule also helps sometimes to get over stress and depression.

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^ ^ ^ You really need to quit the copy-paste routine, and especially on threads that are over a year old.