Do You Forget to Eat?

Written By Cynthia Hammer, MSW

For years I used unintentional intermittent fasting as part of my diagnostic screening for ADHD. While some people deliberately skip meals, whenever I heard a person say “I didn’t realize until 4:00 that I hadn’t eaten all day!”, I’d immediately add ADHD to the possible diagnoses to consider. Hyperfocus, distractibility, and inattentiveness to interoceptive states render some with ADHD unaware of their body’s needs until they become really hungry.

John Kruse, MD, ADHD psychiatrist

Cynthia Hammer, MSW

Cynthia Hammer, MSW, was diagnosed with inattentive ADHD in 1992 when she was 49 years old. The following year she created the non-profit organization, ADD Resources, with a mission to educate adults and helping professionals about ADHD in adults. She ran the organization for 15 years before retiring.

During the Covid isolation she wrote a book about her life with inattentive ADHD which should be published by the end of this year. In writing the book, she was dismayed to learn that children with inattentive ADHD continue to be under-diagnosed and adults with inattentive ADHD often are incorrectly diagnosed with depression or anxiety.

She created a new non-profit in 2021, the Inattentive ADHD Coalition (www.iadhd.org), to create more awareness about inattentive ADHD and the need for early diagnosis and treatment.

https://www.iadhd.org
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