BellaOnline Forums Health and Fitness Attention Deficit Disorder Why is taking ADD medicine a struggle?

Solid post Barbara.

I can tell that we definitely have different viewpoints when it comes to health and wellness. I think along the lines that a 'brain dysfunction' can sometimes be dramatically improved with proper nutrition and removal of toxins from body and lifestyle. Food = Medicine is basically what I'm trying to say.

I fully agree with adults taking medicine because they know and understand that they are having a problem with attention, concentration, etc. However, younger and younger kids are being given drugs, sometimes simply for doing nothing more than acting like a kid.

Barbara - What do you think of these facts (from 'Ritalin is Not The Answer', Stein, 1999:

10-12% of American boys 6-14 have been labeled ADHD

20% !!! of 5th grade boys in the state of Virginia are taking psychostimulant drugs

90% of the world's Ritalin is sold and used in the USA

5,000,000 school children in the US are on stimulant drugs

Ritalin is a Gateway drug for nicotine and cocaine

There has been a 300% increase in the use of Ritalin in 2-4 year olds over the past decade (2-4 !!! who would give a child 2 years old a psychostimulant drug!)


So my question to you is: Why does the US have such high rates compared to the rest of the world?

My opinion is that we are too quick to 'label and prescribe' in this country.

Nice post Cela.

I was busy writing my last one when you put yours up.

I didn't even get into all of the side effects of psychostimulant drugs and how terrible the withdrawal symptoms can be.

One of the kiddos in my DS's therapy group is on 13 different meds for ADD. That's the only diagnosis he has, per the mom. He takes one med. for the ADD, two meds to help him sleep, and the others are to counteract the side-effects of these three drugs. Its unreal.

So far as I know, there is no controversy, huge or otherwise, as to whether ADD is a valid diagnosis. It is a brain dysfunction. It is not psychiatric, it is not chemical, it is a brain function that does not work correctly. I would dearly love to see all of the people who believe that ADD is not a "valid diagnosis" function properly in the world when their brain isn't working correctly.

Okay, now that I sent that last response too quickly, let me add this:

Proper nutrition and exercise make your overall body healthier, including your brain, thus may somewhat improve symptoms of ADD. I think it's always wise to eat a healthful diet and to take good care of oneself. I don't negate that.

I also think that parents have to be very careful to investigate all of their options. If a child has ADD, it will make their lives so much better to receive proper treatment. However, food allergies and other things can present with ADD-like symptoms, so it's better to rule those things out first.

At the same time, waiting too long can cause the child problems in school that will take some time to overcome, so they shouldn't procrastinate.

For the record, I had 3 fosters sons for 2 years, all of whom were diagnosed with ADHD. Only one of them truly had it. The others were having food allergies. One of the ways I could tell that was that in the children who didn't have ADD, the ADD meds didn't work. Therefore, we explored other alternatives. Lazy parenting is as much to blame as medical misdiagnosis when it comes to misdiagnosing ADD.

Natural Health Nut (I love that name, btw!)

I haven't read Ritalin is Not the Answer, so I can't speak to it directly. Here's what I think of the rest of it, though.

I think that chemical imbalances can often be treated with proper nutrition and exercise. Thus, some people with depression are helped that way. However, in ADD, the neurotrasmitters in the brain don't work properly. Sure, a person can improve that to some extent with diet. There are different levels of ADD, as with any health concern.

You and I are not that far apart in our views of health and wellness. I take exactly one medication and that is Adderall. Okay, when I get severe menstrual cramps or a headache, I take Tylenol, but that's infrequent. I've had bronchitis a time or two and for that I took antibiotics. For anything else, include perimenopausal symptoms, I use natural remedies. I have Rheumatoid Arthritis and I am managing that, for now, by losing weight, exercising and eating well. I get that connection.

I also agree that we overmedicate children. I simply ask that parents not rule outADD meds without considering them. I'll give you an example. My nephew has ADHD. The neuropsychiatrist who diagnosed him (after many tests, btw) said his was the worst case she'd seen in her 30 year career. My sister and BIL didn't want him "labeled" and didn't want to give him medication. Guess what? He GOT labeled: the naughty kid. He had poor impulse control (a symptom of ADD), he couldn't learn to read, he couldn't pay attention, etc. He didn't make friends because he didn't learn social skills, etc. Finally, in first grade, we got him diagnosed. In the 5 years since then, his life has turned right around. He reads above grade level, he has friends, he can participate in team sports, all kinds of things. He takes on low-level dose of Adderall per day. He is a happy, well adjusted, confident little boy.

Ritalin is not a "gateway" drug. That is an absolute misconception. It is not addictive in a person with ADD.

As for why America? Honestly, I think it's partly our culture. Frankly, for many people who have more mild AD/HD, we could function just fine if we didn't live in a culture that is so obsessed with schedules and like that. I think Europeans and other developing countries prescribe Ritalin, etc less often because Europeans don't have to fit into American culture. But we do live here, and we do need to manage our lives accordingly.

I could give you a whole host of reasons why I think our children are getting all those meds (besides just the ADD ones) but I'll limit it to this: I think we don't value parenting in this country, so no one learns how to do it well. I think it's often easier to drug something away than learn to deal with it in other ways. That probably seems like a contradiction to all the other things I've said, but in a previous post, I mentioned being a foster mom and how that worked. I think being open to the possibility that your child may need pharmaceutical intervention is NOT the same thing as filling them with drugs at the first sign of child-like behavior.

btw, Ritalin is not a psychotropic, which are the drugs that can cause serious withdrawals if you don't titrate off. Ritalin is only in the body for a few hours, so if you don't take the next dose (and lots of us forget since we have ADD!) you don't have withdrawals. For some reason, it's not like if you stop drinking caffeine, you get those awful headaches.

As for side effects, some people have them, some don't. They tell you all the possibilities, so you can watch out for them. At the risk of giving you "TMI", the only side effect I had from Ritalin (which is the ADD med I started out with), was constipation. I ate yogurt and Bran Buds for breakfast every day and I was fine!

I constantly have to work at holding my tongue when talking to other parents who reached for meds first (the kiddo I mentioned earlier is one of them - they didn't even consider trying anything else first). The poor child is a medicated zombie. In our group of 6 kids in therapy, only 2 of us have tried altering diets and/or adding neutraceuticals. The rest reached for RX meds first. One mom told me it was just too much work to prepare special foods for her child so she wouldn't do it. Eek.

This has turned into a great thread.

Some info on Ritalin being a gateway to cocaine and/or addictive (these were just the first of many that came up in a google search):

BellaOnline ALERT: Raw URLs are not allowed in these forums for security reasons. Please use UBB code. If you don't know how to do UBB code just post here for help - we will help out!

Per Barbara: "As for why America? Honestly, I think it's partly our culture. Frankly, for many people who have more mild AD/HD, we could function just fine if we didn't live in a culture that is so obsessed with schedules and like that. I think Europeans and other developing countries prescribe Ritalin, etc less often because Europeans don't have to fit into American culture. But we do live here, and we do need to manage our lives accordingly."

[How do you guys make those boxes appear around other people's quotes? I need to know. ]

Barbara, my question would be, "Why do we HAVE to live accordingly?" If we don't like something about our culture, at least we're in a free country--we're free to try to live differently.

Incidentally, I probably misunderstood your meaning, but you're not calling Europe a developing country, are you? Firstly, it's not a country. Secondly, the countries that comprise Europe are among the most advanced in the world. Just checking.