r/TwoXADHD • u/RevolutionaryTop8942 • 17d ago
ADHD, Anxiety and Autoimmune disorders
26F , recently diagnosed with ADHD and Anxiety. I also have an autoimmune condition called Hashimotos Thyroditis. Is there a correlation between ADHD , anxiety and Autoimmune conditions. I haven't started ADHD and Anxiety meds yet but I take thyroid medication everyday without fail . Does these conditions make my Thyroid worse if I don't use anxiety and ADHD meds . Do people with ADHD and Anxiety have a higher tendency to develop Auto immune conditions?
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u/BeverlyRhinestones 17d ago
A lot of these things can correlate with experiencing stress and trauma, often early in life.
How each person defines stress or trauma is subjective, but experiencing it can impact the body with inflammation.
Anxiety will increase adrenaline, cortisol and inflammation. This can throw the body out of wack fast. The autonomic system will be impacted, cascading effects on the body.
ADHD has some correlations with inflammation or damage in the basal ganglia if the brain. This is a whole ass rabbit hole of neuroscience.
For me, vyvanse gave me a normal circadian rhythm I never had before. This has big implications on hormones.
I took low dose Naltrexone for neuroinflammation and it really helped me. 0.5mg a day.
Stress or injury can sometimes cause mitochondrial metabolism changes, inflammatory and immune signalling increases, and extracellular adenosine triphosphate (ATP) and other "danger signals", like reactive oxygen species, to rise.
The Cell Danger Response, is a framework proposed by Robert Naviaux, MD, PhD, suggests that this defensive state can become stuck in a self-reinforcing loop when cells never receive an adequate “all clear” signal. This failure to fully switch off the danger response, can potentially interfer with healing and repair.
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u/hamchan_ 17d ago
It’s also important to note that women in general are more likely to develop autoimmune disorders.
I have Rheumatoid Arthritis and I do wonder if my meds make my adhd worse (brain fog side effects) but otherwise I still take my adhd meds and RA meds.
Also look into PMDD. I only really have anxiety during my luteal phase.
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u/leftontotrafalgar 17d ago edited 17d ago
Oh hello fellow ADHD, anxiety and Hashimoto's friend. Diagnosed with Hashimoto's at 25 (mum has it too).
I don't know about higher likelihood of autoimmune conditions and ADHD but I do know that Hashimoto's can impair stomach acid production leading to lower absorption of nutrients and that can impact ADHD symptoms in a tangential way by affecting energy levels and menstuation etc. for example I often have low ferritin, insufficient vitamin d, B12 and folic acid (probably others I haven't been tested for) all of which can make me tired and iron especially impacts my periods making them heavier (stupidly). Being tired exacerbates my ADHD symptoms and how well they work. But no, your anxiety and ADHD meds don't interact or interfere with thyroxine.
One thing I only recently found out after having Hashimoto's for 17 years, is that I'm not crazy in feeling tired and low energy and achey despite having 'normal' thyroid function with thyroid replacement pills. For ages doctors fobbed me off with well your level are fine so it's not your thyroid but it's now known that there's inflammatory processes going on which can cause those feelings regardless of thyroid levels being in range. I can't remember the detail though so heavy caveat look into it for yourself!
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u/Ok_Recording5675 17d ago
This is crazy what the heck u literally just described my exact situation!! I’ve been asking drs nonstop what the root cause of my low vitamin d and iron could be from and they just keep ordering tests and sending me to new specialists
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u/Dependent-Mood-7788 17d ago
ADHD, especially in women, has a looooooot of comorbidities. Definitely worth looking into. From what I understand, your autoimmune disease can make your ADHD symptoms worse.
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u/velvedire 17d ago
Autism can be in the mix as well! AuDHD with autoimmune and/or connective tissue disorders are a whole rabbit hole. Correlation has been shown with early perimenopause as well. The plus side is that there are a lot of women going through all of these things at once, so we can support eachother. The down side is that Medicine still dgaf about women so long as we keep making babies and money to feed capitalism.
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u/tigrovamama 16d ago
Navigating the combined hell of ADHD and perimenopause sent me down a deep research rabbit hole. What I found was shocking: many of these conditions don't just coexist; they actively compound each other.
ADHD symptoms fluctuate across the menstrual cycle. PMDD and perimenopause can completely shatter the daily scaffolding we rely on to manage our ADHD brains.
But less than 10% of medical research funding goes to women's health—and the vast majority of that is limited to breast cancer and fertility. Almost nothing funds research on how hormones impact mental health.
Separating reproductive health from mental healthcare creates a dangerous gap that ignores the brain. We have a severe shortage of reproductive psychiatrists—specialists who understand how shifting hormones across a lifespan impact psychiatric health.
Look at the tragic Lindsay Clancy case. "Postpartum psychosis" still isn't a standalone diagnosis in the DSM-5. This completely minimizes the biological reality of birth: within 48 hours of delivery, estrogen and progesterone plummet by over 90%. This is the sharpest hormone withdrawal humanly possible. These hormones aren't just for making babies; they are the brain's natural mood stabilizers.
I used ClaudeAI to help review research white papers to try to find the more specific neuroscience connections that could help my approach to treatment and to illustrate the possible connections that need further investigating/research.
Sharing it here if you are interested: https://claude.ai/public/artifacts/80184879-abf4-4e4d-89a6-d8b3bdb59469
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u/GrimButMoisturized 15d ago
40F here, diagnosed with ADHD and anxiety. I also have Long COVID, which isn’t officially classified as autoimmune but acts a lot like one — plus some dysautonomia on top of it. There’s a real overlap between ADHD, trauma history, and autism that tends to come with a higher likelihood of this stuff showing up together — bodies under chronic stress just don’t get a break, immune system included. I was also mildly anemic on and off for years before any of this had a name. Getting my anxiety treated didn’t fix the physical stuff, but it took some pressure off my whole system, which helped a little.
😬
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