why does caffeine make many people with adhd tired or have no effect?

Question

here is a post from the adhd $ub containing a couple thousand annecdotes showing that it either makes us tired, or has no effect for most people with adhd:

(link in comments else aut0m0d flags this as being about r3dd!t drama)

one of the top comments was a guy saying he drank it to sleep at night,

and i personally wanted to test this on myself, i dont consume much caffeine regularly, i usualy have one cup of coke containing 30mg per day, but today i drank two cups of coffee (the first two of my life it, was fucking disqusting) and 3 energy drinks. i got 8.5 hours of sleep last night, and its 6pm, i feel incredibly tired, and have done all day, the most awake i felt today was in the morning just before my first cup. my heart rate is 58bpm as writing this, which is the same as usual, maybe a tiny bit more. despite me consuming about 350mg, and about half of that was chugged about 45 minutes ago, this is the most tired i’ve felt today.

i’m interested in the science behind why this happens to adhd people?

In: Biology

Answer 1

The problem is that we don’t actually know what causes ADHD. The underlying neurochemical processes just aren’t understood well enough to give a solid answer. One theory I’ve heard lately is that, whether as a cause or side effect, ADHD might be caused by a reduced production or reception of dopamine and other brain chemicals. Stimulants boost the body’s ability to produce and receive those chemicals. This would mean that an ADHD person who takes a stimulant, like caffeine, is going from a reduced dopamine state to a normal one, rather than from a normal one to an excited one like a non-ADHD person would be. And it could be that the normal state of someone with ADHD is tired as hell from having to spend their whole lives forcing themselves to focus on things that don’t interest (read: dopamine-triggering) them.

Don’t cite me in a paper about this, though. It just seems to make sense to me.

Also, try drinking strong black tea or more Coke inst ad of coffee. A cup of coffee has 95 mg of caffeine in it. Two cups of black tea will get you the same amount, as will 3 cans of Coke (try Coke Zero or Diet Coke, though, you probably don’t want the extra calories).