How women’s hormonal cycle can delay an ADHD diagnosis - Podcast #103 #shorts

Name: How women’s hormonal cycle can delay an ADHD diagnosis - Podcast #103 #shorts
Uploaded: 2023-03-17T14:41:39+00:00
Duration: 30 s
Channel: Claudia von Boeselager
Description: In this short podcast segment, the speaker explains that women's ADHD traits can fluctuate with hormonal cycles, making symptoms more manageable at times…

17 Mar 2023 · 1 min

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In this short podcast segment, the speaker explains that women's ADHD traits can fluctuate with hormonal cycles, making symptoms more manageable at times and overwhelming at others. When hormone levels drop, ADHD symptoms become more pronounced, leading to feelings of being overwhelmed, whereas higher hormone levels can mask these traits. This variability contributes to delayed ADHD diagnoses in women, as clinicians may miss the condition during periods when symptoms are less evident. The speaker contrasts this with men, whose hormonal changes are less variable over the lifespan, noting that men experience a gradual decline in testosterone but not the cyclical swings women face, which further explains the diagnostic gap.

our traits can be cyclical. So sometimes we can function much better and our traits much more manageable because of the role the hormones are playing in the body. And at other times when those hormones drop off, the lid comes off and we feel really overwhelmed and it's really challenging. We think, oh my gosh, I can't do this. But then our hormones kick back in, we're like, oh, she's having a bad week. And I think this is one of the reasons we have this delay in diagnosis because men do the same thing from puberty to death from a hormone perspective. They get a bit of a decline in testosterone, but that's it.