ADHD, Gender Bias & Medical Research with Creator Sydni Rubio
This week I talk with ADHD content creator Sydni Rubio about gender bias in medicine and what to look out for as a patient.
Highlights:
Sydni's diagnosis story and personal experience with gender bias
Sydni gives her take as a scientist on gender issues in medical research
How can patients be more discerning when reviewing medical research
Sydni's work with Inflow and how she came to do what she loves for a living
Mentioned this episode:
The gender gap in ADHD diagnoses - https://www.getinflow.io/post/diagnosis-data-review
Inflow - https://www.getinflow.io/blog
Twitter handles:
- Sydni @WhatTheADHD
- Inflow: @get_inflow
What in the ADHD? YouTube channel - https://www.youtube.com/c/whatintheadhd
Summary
In this episode of the Adulting with ADHD podcast, host Sarah interviews ADHD content creator and advocate Sydni Rubio. Sydni shares her personal journey with ADHD, including her late diagnosis at age 24 after years of academic struggles and self-doubt. She discusses the challenges of being an undiagnosed woman with ADHD, including the indirect effects of gender bias in medical research and diagnosis, and how these biases often delay or complicate treatment for women and other marginalized genders1.
Sydni recounts how her diagnosis and subsequent treatment transformed her life, enabling her to thrive academically and at home. She emphasizes the importance of self-advocacy and offers practical advice for patients seeking reliable ADHD information, such as checking the publication date and study cohorts of research articles to ensure women were included in the studies1.
The conversation also highlights Sydni’s professional work as a content manager for Inflow, an ADHD management app. She describes how the app provides CBT-based modules on topics like procrastination, impulsivity, and rejection sensitive dysphoria, along with accountability coaching and a resource-rich blog. Sydni encourages listeners to become critical consumers of ADHD research and to seek out communities and resources that center diverse experiences1.
Listeners can follow Sydni on Twitter (@WhatTheADHD), YouTube (“What in the ADHD”), and the Inflow blog for more insights and updates on her research, including upcoming work on hormones and ADHD1.
“Just be aware of the research that you’re consuming… Were women involved? Yes or no.” – Sydni Rubio
Topics Covered:
Sydni’s ADHD diagnosis story and its impact
Gender bias in ADHD research and treatment
Tips for evaluating medical research as a patient
Sydni’s role and content creation at Inflow
Resources for ADHD support and advocacy
Transcript
[Sarah] This is the Adulting with ADHD podcast, self-empowerment for people with ADHD. Today, I am very excited to have with me ADHD content creator, Sydney Rubio. Sydney, welcome.
[Sydni] Hi, thank you for having me. This is very exciting. Happy to be here.
[Sarah]I am very excited as well. I found you on Twitter, where all the cool kids are. And I I really appreciated a a tweet you posted recently, pertaining to women's health. And that's a little background of how we found each other. So welcome again. Do you want to tell us a little bit about your diagnosis story and when that happened?
[Sydni] Yeah, a little background on on me right now. I'm almost 29 years old. I have a six-year-old son who just finished kindergarten, or not just finished, almost, almost done with kindergarten. He likely also has ADHD. I believe he might be 2E, which uh is twice exceptional, gifted and ADHD. And like many women, I didn't get a diagnosis until after my child was born. Many women don't get their diagnosis until like their kids' diagnosed, but he was still a baby when I was diagnosed.
But I was diagnosed with ADHD when I was 24, I believe. And I'm pretty sure it was obvious as I was growing up that I had ADHD. I was always the kid that was like hyper in class, interrupting people. I had to turn my card a lot, like with it was on green, I had to turn it to yellow and orange and red, and then my mom was called and I got in trouble all the time when I was a kid because my room was a mess, I forgot to do homework, etc, etc. So I just grew up thinking that I was just a nuisance and that was just how I was. And then I got into college right after high school. I like barely skated by in high school and I got into college, did not do well, ended up dropping out after a year. And then I'm like, you know what? I'll just go dabble around in some other stuff, did some other stuff.
Finally, I met my husband, we got married, had our son. And then I went back to college, this time more determined, but I was still struggling. And specifically, the biggest memory that comes to mind when I think about my ADHD diagnosis is I was studying for a cell and molecular biology unit exam. And I like first of all, that was the hardest class I've ever taken. I think I got a C and I was proud of it. But I'm sitting there studying for it and out of nowhere, I started like hyperventilating. And I started crying and I couldn't control myself. Like tears weren't coming out, but I was like sobbing and I was panicking and I'm like, oh my god, what is wrong with me? And so I called the psychiatrist office and I like the nurse answered the phone. Hi, how can I? I'm like, I need help.
Like I was crying into the phone. Yeah. Ended up talking to this doctor when I finally got in about this panic attack and how I also am pretty sure that I have ADHD because that is where the problems come from is because I'm sitting in class and I'm trying to pay attention in this difficult class and instead of listening, I know I should be, I start staring at the periodic table and like trying to figure out what words I can make out of it. And 30 minutes later, my professor's like, all right, sound good. Don't forget any of that. And I'm like, okay, I wasn't even paying attention. Oh, wow. Yeah. So I knew that then when college that there was something. Turns out I was like many women, first diagnosed with anxiety and uh depression. Yes. And I noticed some improvements, so that was likely there.
However, I was still struggling with motivation and just a brain fog, low energy, can't focus for the life of me. And I went back to the psychiatrist. I was like, look, dude, please just I need to talk to someone about the possibility that this could be a thing. Turns out he didn't believe in ADHD, apparently. Oh, that's cool. And he was like, but yeah, I'll just I'll give you drugs. Like he was not the greatest. Wow. But I ended up getting medication and I took it, I think the next day, I'll tell you what, it has changed my life. It has changed how I am at home. I ended up making the Dean's list my last semester in college before graduating. I'm more patient with my son now. I help around my house more. So yeah, that's a little bit about like what it was like before and through my diagnosis process. And now it's been five years and I'm living my best life, I think....
[Sarah] Yes, this this sounds so, so familiar. And you touched a bit on what we're going to talk about more, which is gender bias and how it can really impact us in our ADHD treatment. How have you personally experienced this?
[Sydni] Like I mentioned, a lot of it it could have been addressed sooner in my life. Um if there wasn't wasn't like nobody like went directly up to me and is, you're a woman, you can't have ADHD. Right. It was more indirect and I think that's something that a lot of if not most or all women and not just women, non-binary and trans, the trans community as well. Like it's just the medical research focuses on men. The the diagnostic criteria is based on the research that they've observed when men have ADHD or more specifically, nine-year-old little boys. Because that's focused on there, it indirectly impacted me. Instead of a teacher, my parents being like, hey, maybe Sydney has ADHD, they were like, why are you so loud? You need to sit still. Why your sister is being quiet? Why can't you be quiet? So, you know, that in my childhood. And then treatment wise, I experienced it also indirectly. I know there are people out there that experience it more in a direct in your face way.
But treatment wise, last year I was pregnant and I this so when I was pregnant with my son, I hadn't been diagnosed yet. But when I was pregnant last year, I was like, okay, so I'm still taking this medication. Is it more dangerous to just quit cold turkey or should I just taper down? Should I keep taking it? Should I switch? I didn't know. And I tried to look online for information, tried to talk to doctors. The big thing is, nobody knows. Nobody has any clue how medication would affect pregnant women because people don't touch pregnant women. And I understand there's health risks, but there it's more of a risk in my opinion to not know. And then all these people are like, I don't know what to do. And then so yeah, that's uh that's like my personal indirect experience with that.
[Sarah] Absolutely. You covered my next question, which was how this all happens in medical research. And and that's a really good point. Like it's not overt. It's not like this big flashing sign that, hey, we're being screwed here, but man, boy is it happening. And thank you so much for sharing your story....
So as a patient, even if it may not be our responsibility, how can we become more astute researchers when we're trying to, you know, advocate for our health, given that there's not a lot of research out there?
[Sydni] I first of all, I I was in research. I was in science for a while. I had graduated with a degree in uh biomedical science and chemistry and I had started on a masters in genetics and microbiology, but life events prevented that. Last year I got super close to defending. But so I have a pretty strong science background. So when I see articles about ADHD, one of the first things I do is I I try to find the medical research that they're talking about. So if I'm reading it in an attitude magazine or another blog or whatever, I'm like, okay, so what are these people talking about?
That's the first thing people can do is if there's no link, write to the editor, ask for a link. Like, hey, could you could you, you know, post the link on on this blog? I would love to know like where this research came from. And then once you have your hands on the article, by the way, you could you go you can go to pubmed.gov or uh Google scholar and you can find papers there. Sometimes for free, sometimes not, it's science. But you find these articles, these actual scientific articles, the first thing you should do is check the publication year. What year was this even published? This goes for anything, not just things like regarding women. Check that publication year because if it was written, right now we're recording this in 2022, if it was anything before 2017, honestly, I'm like, I don't even there's been research since then. And what was the other thing?
Oh, check the study cohorts. So cohorts, that just means a group of people that were studied by the researchers. And you can find that in the sometimes the abstract, which is like the first part of like a science paper, but often you'll have to flip through and look at their methods. So papers are organized by like abstract, introduction, methods and materials, results, discussion. So you're going to want to flip through, find those methods, sometimes they're stuck in the back too. And check out those cohorts. First of all, first question you first thing you should look for, were women included? If they weren't, then you know that you should take this research with a grain of salt. If they're saying this is how ADHD presents itself and you're like, okay, but you only studied four 10-year-old boys like.
You would be surprised a lot of cohorts are like less than 10 people. It's just a few like white boys, yeah. Oh my gosh. Yeah, so I thought that was a joke. You you really are being serious here. I'm being 100% serious. Wow. Yeah. So I always do that with any type of research, any types of claims. But but that's those are two really big things to look for.
Like first of all, were women included? And then check out the parameters of these people that they're studying. So yeah, just be aware of the research that you're consuming, I guess would be my biggest tip. But don't look at it and be like, oh, only 10 people were studied. This is a bunch of malarkey and just ignore it. No, there's probably some truth behind it, but it's good to just be aware. Were women involved? Yes or no. So.
[Sarah] That that's fantastic advice. Thank you so much for sharing that. So tell us about the work you do with Inflow. We talked a little bit about this offline.
[Sydni]Yeah. So let's see. After I ended up not going to or ended up not finishing my master's degree, which thank God, honestly, I would be in a research lab right now and now I'm doing what I love. I didn't finish that and then I ended up trying to expand more of my online presence. I've been an ADHD advocate content creator for a couple of years now. And I I have my Twitter account and then I also have a YouTube channel, which I haven't posted in a while because I have a big girl job now.
But I I was posting stuff on there and people like I it got people's attention. I guess it got the attention of a co-founder of Inflow and they reached out to me on LinkedIn and they're like, hey, we would love to interview you for this position. We're hiring for a content um marketing manager person, runs the blogs, runs our social media, hires freelancers, etc. And I was like, oh, okay, sure. Yeah, I'll interview and I was just like super casual. I didn't realize it was like for a full-time job and then I ended up getting it. Wow. Yeah, so they're based in the UK and um I live in unfortunately the the Midwest in the USA. Yeah. Um cornfields. B
ut so they're in the UK and they started this company, I think two years ago the the idea was born. But last year they launched the app in like May 21, I think. And basically what it is, it's an AD management app and it consists of modules of like any topic you can think of that's ADHD related. So there's like some on like procrastination, impulsivity, there's some on women and ADHD. There's rejection sensitive dysphoria, which is a topic I really like talking about. Good one. We talked about enough. Yeah. Yeah. And so basically there's just all these modules. It's audio and it's so think of like short podcasts like and each each each module is one day and or not one day.
There's five to seven days per module and you learn things, there's transcription for people that don't want to listen to it and just want to read it. And basically it's like cognitive behavioral therapy based and it helps you learn more about yourself, your ADHD. You can do journal entries. There's accountability coaching that checks in with you, make sure you're doing the stuff that you said you were going to do. So yeah, some people find it overwhelming, some people find it expensive, which is fair. Sorry, my calendar keeps making noises. But I I like it because it's cheaper than therapy and I still go to therapy. Don't get me wrong. But yeah.
Yeah, we're still growing. We're dropping modules all the time. I love it because I get to I get to help people still and I get to spread information on our blog. If you don't want to spend money on the app, you can check out our blog which I manage. Yeah, I just like spreading information and I even have a whole entire blog about gender bias on there. Ooh. Yeah, about research. I did a survey and it's about basically comorbidities and ADHD diagnosis and like the difference in men and women and it's pretty interesting stuff. We'll link to that in the show notes. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Exciting. If listeners want to keep up with you online, what's your Twitter handle?...
[Sydni] What the ADHD. All one word.
[Sarah]Fabulous handle. And where else anywhere else we can keep up with you?
[Sydni] If you want to check out my old videos, maybe I'll get back to it at some point, but I do have a YouTube channel. It's called uh what in the ADHD. I have a Facebook group that I'm awful at keeping up with, but the same handle on there. And then yeah, the blog on Inflow, it's getinflow.io and you can just keep up with what I'm currently researching. And I'm actually I know you have a podcast on this that you released yesterday, I think, on hormones. Yes. Yeah, so I'm actually I've been doing a lot of research on that because I want to publish something about that soon.
[Sarah] Excellent. Sydney, thank you so much for being on the show. Is there anything else you wanted to share? Did I cover everything?
[Sydni] don't I don't know. I I don't think so. I yeah, panic attack, report cards, all changed my life. No, yeah, I think I got all the. All changed. Yeah. That sums it up. Well, thank you so much again, Sydney and hopefully we can have you on again and talk about RSD.
