ADHD Care for Children, Teens, and Adults
More than a stimulant and a refill. ADHD care that looks at the whole person, at every age.
Whether ADHD was named in second grade or you are only now wondering at forty five, attention is more complicated than a quick script for a stimulant.
ADHD gets handled badly in a lot of places. A ten minute visit, a stimulant, a refill, and not much else. Or, on the other side, a flat dismissal: you are just distracted, just anxious, just not trying hard enough. Neither one looks at the actual person sitting in the room.
I do.
ADHD does not stay in childhood
We used to treat ADHD as something children had and outgrew. We were wrong. Plenty of adults have spent decades believing they were lazy, scattered, or somehow falling short of their own potential, when what they actually had was unrecognized ADHD. Many were never evaluated. Many were told, often as girls, that they were just daydreamers.
I evaluate and treat ADHD across the whole lifespan:
children and teens, in close work with parents and schools
college students who hit demands that finally outpaced the workarounds that used to carry them
adults seeking a first evaluation, sometimes after a child's diagnosis made them recognize themselves
adults treated for years who want a more careful, less piecemeal approach
The piece almost no one connects: ADHD and hormones
Here is something I offer that very few prescribers do. I am a certified nurse midwife as well as a psychiatric nurse practitioner, and I pay close attention to how hormones shape attention.
ADHD symptoms are not steady. They shift with the menstrual cycle, through pregnancy and postpartum, and especially through perimenopause, when falling estrogen can make focus, memory, and emotional regulation noticeably worse. Plenty of women reach their forties, feel their ADHD go haywire, and get told it is stress or menopause and sent on their way. It is real, it is physiological, and it is treatable. If that is you, you are in exactly the right place.
And this is not only an adult story. Puberty is an upheaval for every adolescent, boys and girls alike. Sleep slides later, demands jump, emotions run hotter, and a medication dose that fit at ten may not fit at fourteen. For girls there is an added layer. ADHD is often missed in childhood and then surfaces, or worsens, once cycles begin and estrogen starts rising and falling each month. A girl who did fine in elementary school can suddenly struggle with focus, mood, and feeling overwhelmed in middle school, and too often it gets waved off as hormones being hormones. I watch for all of it, because my background means I am paying attention to exactly where development, hormones, and attention meet, at every age.
I look at the whole picture, not just the prescription pad
I am certified in integrative psychiatry, and that matters a great deal with ADHD. Attention is shaped by sleep, nutrition, thyroid, iron, stress, and the rest of your life, not by dopamine alone. Before and alongside any medication, I look at all of it. Sometimes the answer is partly medication and partly the things around it.
When medication is the right call, I do not assume it has to be a stimulant. I prescribe stimulants when they fit, but I also have real depth with non stimulant options, which matter for people with anxiety, a history of substance use, certain heart concerns, or simply a preference to start somewhere gentler. And I prescribe the way I always do: the lowest effective dose, the simplest plan that actually works.What I treat and untangle
First time ADHD evaluations for children, teens, and adults
ADHD that overlaps with anxiety, depression, or a history of substance use
ADHD in women across hormonal transitions, including perimenopause
Medication that has grown complicated, with stimulants, sleep aids, and add ons stacked on top of one another
The question of whether a non stimulant is a better fit for you or your child
ADHD BOOK AND WAITLIST
I am writing a book about ADHD
After years of sitting with people whose ADHD was missed, dismissed, or treated with a ten minute script, I am writing the book I wish I could hand every one of them. It is about understanding ADHD across a whole life, hormones included, and treating it with sense instead of reflex.
Want to know the moment it is out? Contact me via the button below, and I will tell you when it is ready. No noise, just the book.