Survey: How Does Your Menstrual Cycle Impact Your ADHD Symptoms?

There is so much we don’t know about ADHD in women, largely because medical research is paltry or non-existent. This Women’s Health Month, ADDitude’s Women Demand Attention campaign aims to change this by highlighting the research that doesn’t exist on or doesn’t fully reflect the nuances of ADHD in women.

We know that wild swings in estrogen levels dramatically worsen ADHD symptoms and that symptom severity grows more pronounced with age, according to more than 2,000 women aged 18 to 82 who participated in ADDitude’s research on the impact of hormonal fluctuations on female ADHD symptoms.

Most experts believe that hormonal fluctuations during the menstrual cycle exacerbate different symptoms of ADHD depending on the phase (menstruation, follicular, ovulatory, or luteal). ¹ However, research has not adequately addressed this relationship.

Which is why the ADDitude editorial team is fielding a survey of menstruating readers to discover how ADHD symptoms shift, spike, wane, and change during the four phases of the menstrual cycle. If you’re interested in contributing to ADDitude’s research on hormones and ADHD, please do the following:

1. Download the Menstrual Cycle Workbook.
2. Chart your symptoms for two months.
3. Fill out this short, anonymous survey: [survey will open on May 1, 2024].

Your experiences and insights will not only empower you to make more informed treatment decisions with your doctor, but it will add to a much-needed area of research about women with ADHD.

We will publish an analysis of the survey results later this year. Please know that ADDitude never shares personal medical information without explicit permission, and it never publishes survey respondents’ full names.

Source

¹ Eng et al. (2024). Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and the menstrual cycle: Theory and evidence. Horm Behav, 158, 105466.

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