Ritalin: It Just Doesn't ADD up

Dr. Whitaker.com ^ | 11/21/01 | Dr. Julian Whitaker

[shield]

When I was a kid, there were class clowns, busybodies, and cutups. Today, such children have a "disease," attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and a drug to treat it, Ritalin (methylphenidate). The numbers of children being diagnosed with this "disease" has increased 500 percent in just the last ten years — and the production of Ritalin in this country has increased by over 700 percent.

What these shocking statistics tell me is that the United States is performing a drug experiment on a massive scale, and millions of American children are the unsuspecting guinea pigs.

Drug Causes Long-Term Brain Changes
Over 6 million American children — some as young as 6 years old — take Ritalin, and the long-term effects of this stimulant on their still-growing bodies and brains are largely unknown. The prevailing view in the medical establishment is that Ritalin is a short-acting drug, and that once it has been metabolized, it is gone from the body. Yet a recent study suggests that this is not the case.

When researchers at the University of Buffalo administered Ritalin to young rats and later examined their brains, they found that Ritalin triggered a reorganization of the brain similar to that seen with cocaine and amphetamine. As with these drugs of abuse, Ritalin switched on a gene that is linked with addiction. This research comes on the heels of another study showing that rats given Ritalin during their adolescence became more sensitive to the effects of cocaine, and self-administered this drug more frequently than rats that had not been exposed to Ritalin.

It is hardly news to me that Ritalin can be addictive — and not just in rats. After all, no less an authority than the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) recognizes its potential for abuse and classifies Ritalin as a controlled substance due to its ability to cause psychic and physical dependence. Ritalin can also cause nervousness, insomnia, nausea, abdominal pain, loss of appetite, weight loss, dizziness, palpitations, headaches, and irregular heart rhythms. Is this a drug you want to give to a young, developing child who has difficulty sitting still and paying attention?

There Are Natural Alternatives
I know many doctors, teachers, and even parents will say nothing else works, but I doubt that they've really tried anything else — or even been given other options by psychiatrists who so readily prescribe Ritalin. At the Whitaker Wellness Institute, we utilize several non-drug therapies with children to help overcome hyperactivity and attention problems, and none of these therapies has the potential to stunt growth, disrupt sleep, or cause addiction. Here's the protocol we use:

First try to rule out and correct the more predictable causes of learning and behavior problems, including problems at home, lack of sleep, poor diet, and so on. Consider having your child tested for food and environmental allergies. Dr. Doris Rapp's books, Is This Your Child? (Quill/William Morrow, New York, NY, 1991) and Is This Your Child's School? (Bantam Books, New York, NY, 1996) give an excellent overview of the role allergies may play in ADHD.

Two supplements that we have had good success with are dimethylaminoethanol (DMAE) and LECI-PS. DMAE, a natural compound found in anchovies and sardines, was actually used for children with ADHD in the pre-Ritalin days. LECI-PS is a blend of specialized fats called phospholipids, which provide protection and structural support for the brain and facilitate communication between brain cells. Almost 3,000 studies have been carried out on PS, and it has been demonstrated to enhance concentration, attention span, and memory. Pedi-Active A.D.D., by Nature's Plus, contains both of these supplements. It is sold in health food stores. Amino acid formulations that target neurotransmitter activity are also helpful. The key amino acids are GABA, glutamine, and glycine. They are available as stand-alone supplements, but for ease of use I prefer combination formulas like Brain Link, Teen Link, and Anxiety Control. These are available from the Pain and Stress Center of San Antonio, Texas, www.painstresscenter.com.

To learn more about alternatives to Ritalin for children with attention and behavior problems, I urge you to read Dr. Mary Ann Block's book, No More ADHD. It is available in bookstores and on the Internet.

[Harrison Bergeron]

Careful there. The parents who have been duped by this modern day public school "Soma" promoted by boy hating bigots will be here any minute to tell you that it might be overprescribed, but that their child "really does benefit from it."

[doc]

What % of the student population taking Ritalin are males. You can rest assure that it is a lot higher than females. The ultra feminst(lesbian) movement is hell bent on neutering males.

[Harrison Bergeron]

Jill and Michael Carroll of Berne, N.Y., are under court order to medicate their son, Kyle.

Just say yes to Ritalin!
Parents are being pressured by schools to medicate their kids -- or else.

- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Lawrence H. Diller, M.D.

Sept. 25, 2000 | Public school administrators, long the enthusiastic adherents of a "Just Say No!" policy on drug use, appear to have a new motto for the parents of certain tiny soldiers in the war on drugs: "Medicate or Else!" It is a new and troubling twist in the psychiatric drugs saga, in which public schools have begun to issue ultimatums to parents of hard-to-handle kids, saying they will not allow students to attend conventional classes unless they are medicated. In the most extreme cases, parents unwilling to give their kids drugs are being reported by their schools to local offices of Child Protective Services, the implication being that by withholding drugs, the parents are guilty of neglect.

At least two families with children in schools near Albany, N.Y., recently were reported by school officials to local CPS offices when the parents decided, independently, to stop giving their children medication for attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. (The parents of one student pulled him from school; the others decided to put their boy back on medication so that he could continue at his school.)

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Meanwhile, class-action lawsuits were filed earlier this month in federal courts in California and New Jersey, alleging that Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corp., the manufacturer of Ritalin, and the American Psychiatric Association had conspired to create and expand the market for the drug, the best known of the stimulant medications that include the amphetamines Adderall and Dexedrine. The suit appears to be much like another lawsuit brought against Novartis in Texas earlier this year.

As a doctor with a practice in behavioral pediatrics -- and one who prescribes Ritalin for children -- I am alarmed by the widespread and knee-jerk reliance on pharmaceuticals by educators, who do not always explore fully the other options available to deal with learning and behavioral problems in their classrooms. Issues of medicine aside, these cases represent a direct challenge to the rights of parents to make choices for their children and still enjoy access to the public education they want for them -- without medication. These policies also demonstrate a disquieting belief on the part of educated adults that bad behavior and underperformance in school should be interpreted as medical disorders that must be treated with drugs.

Unfortunately, I know from the experience of evaluating and treating more than 2,500 children for problems of behavior and school performance that these cases represent only a handful of the millions of Americans who have received pressure from school personnel to seek a "medical evaluation" for a child -- teacher-speak for "Get your kid on Ritalin."

Most often, evaluations are driven by genuine concerns first raised by a teacher or school psychologist. But too frequently the children are sent to me without even a cursory educational screening for learning problems. With a 700 percent increase in the use of Ritalin since 1990, parents have been repeatedly told that their kids probably have ADHD and that Ritalin is the treatment of choice. More and more often, the parents who buck this trend are being told they must put their children in special restricted classrooms or teach them at home.

Patrick and Sarah McCormack (not their real names) came to my office in a panic last year because a school wanted them to medicate their 7-year-old son. Sarah tearfully explained that the principal and psychologist at Sammy's school in an upscale Bay Area town were absolutely clear that the first-grader should be on Ritalin. An outside private psychologist who had previously tested Sammy did not find any learning problems but concluded that he had ADHD and was defiant of authority. She suggested medication. The school psychologist, in his report on Sammy, was straightforward in recommending "psychopharmacological therapy" for the child.

The McCormacks were told, in no uncertain terms, that unless Sammy's behavior changed, he would be transferred to a special class for behavior-problem children at another school or the McCormacks would have to consider alternatives to public education like home schooling.

Next page | I felt optimistic that Sammy could be successful without medication
1, 2, 3

Photograph by AP/Wide World

[ChemistCat]

Make sure when you post an article here that you give the source--from the format, I assume that the above article is a Salon.com special.

My autistic son was given meds several times when he was younger. When he was three, it was prednisone. I am 100% positive that the prednisone had the effect his pediatrician hoped for--to fix some small part of his brain that was becoming inflamed. His autism hadn't manifested AT ALL until after age 2, and it was his developmental pediatrician's belief that steroid therapy can stop and even somewhat reverse late-onset autistic symptoms. My son began again to actually communicate with us, make eye contact, and many of his autism symptoms became much, much milder after this. So you see, the success we had then made me much more willing to try meds than I should have been. But I have to give credit to the prednisone. I wish this treatment was being tried with more autistic children while they are still toddlers because even if it doesn't work all of the time, there's no question it worked for my son. I think he's doing as well as he is, and he is doing great--fully mainstreamed and getting mostly As with a few Bs.

Later, when he was 3 and 4, he had a terrible time with anxiety. He had always been a happy child, but suddenly he was afraid of many, many things. Again, I suspect a physical cause. This time another pediatrician tried Prozac liquid. I had severe doubts about this and I had to be talked into it, not just the first time, but several times afterward. He did indeed settle down. It helped his concentration and his ability to attend to things other than what he wanted to do. Still, I was not very happy about it. He did not grow at all while he was on Prozac, about eight months, and I wanted him to LEARN how to pay attention at school, not be drugged into paying attention. When it seemed he had adjusted well to the things that used to bother him, I tapered him off against medical advice. Unfortunately, his first grade classroom was not an ideal environment for any child: too many children and a stressed-out teacher. The pressure from the first grade teacher grew so great that they were documenting that "all of Ricky's problems stem from his mother's ill-advised withholding of his prescribed medication." Back to the doctor we went because it looked like we had legal trouble coming. I wanted to be backed up that the child's difficulties stemmed from a bad teacher and bad classroom. Unfortunately, what happened instead is that the child was put back on meds--this time, Ritalin, since it was attentional difficulties, not anxiety, that worried his teacher.

Ritalin has a common side effect not listed above. It stunts growth in most children who take it. Against my better judgment, the pediatrician agreed with the teacher, and Ricky was put on Ritalin. I endured all kinds of hassles any time his behavior made his teacher thing I'd taken him off of it. This teacher seemed to think I was deliberately sending the kid to school undrugged.(I later found out that this teacher had pressured the parents of ALL OF THE BOYS IN THE CLASS PLUS THREE GIRLS TO GET THEM ON RITALIN! And several were insecure enough, like me, to bow to the pressure.) Anyway, once again my son was on a med I didn't trust. Prozac affects bloodflow in the brain (is that a good thing to do to a growing brain???) and Ritalin is a powerful central nervous system stimulant. My son spent the many months he was on Ritalin once again not growing. He didn't even outgrow his SHOES. When have you seen a little boy who stayed the same shoe size for four seasons in a row?

He went without Ritalin for a summer, and then he had a better teacher who wasn't so uptight about how little kids fidget! Funny thing, with a teacher who didn't scream, the kids were quieter and calmer and my son did much better. He was able to get by without a one-on-one aide in 2nd grade. We pulled him out of the public school entirely after that, because of dangerous buses and scary bus drivers, and he has THRIVED in a Lutheran school. Nobody says anything about him needing drugs anymore. I don't know if he will make up for the lost height, however.

Parents should trust their instincts, not someone else's agenda. If parents think a trial of ritalin might increase their child's chances of enjoying and succeeding in school, that's between them and their doctors. A pharmaceutical treatment CAN help with severe problems, but to prescribe any drug to a CHILD needs to be done with trepidation and caution. Remember their brains and nervous systems are growing and developing, and you mess with their biochemistry at your peril. Teachers and schools who prescribe or pressure parents to use meds on their kids should be jailed!!!!!! I don't know if my son will make up for his lost inches of height. Maybe his growth was permanently stunted. My husband has several kids in his high school who have been on Ritalin all their lives, and several seem abnormally short, especially when you see them with their parents. Short isn't the end of the world....but...neither is fidgeting and being a noisy kid at age 6.

[cva66snipe]

The numbers of children being diagnosed with this "disease" has increased 500 percent in just the last ten years — and the production of Ritalin in this country has increased by over 700 percent.

Let's see isn't Nitendo about 10 years old or so? I think it is. But what does Nitendo or such things as video games and the special effects entertainment bombardment have to do with the rise in Ritalin use? Plenty if look beyond ADD ADHD to a more common disorder. Central Auditory Processing Disorders behavioral symptoms are almost identical to those said to be ADD ADHD.

The problem is games like Nitendo, cartoons like Lion King, movies of high drama, and certain audio stimulis set off ADD ADHD behavior in C.A.P.D. kids. The medical condition has been dormant probably since mans time on earth. We are now asking ours and our kids bodies to respond to what is to many the very limits of their abilities to process sensory input. The result of sensory overload in the case of CAPD is mistaken as ADD ADHD.

Common sense says there is a common problem triggering kids and many adults to ADD ADHD symptoms. Seeing that the Ritalin is well over 50 years old it makes more sense to look beyond the Ritalin market as the cause. If drug companies wanted to make a fortune then would it not make more sense for them to make a simular medication improved so to speak that isn't Generic?

I think Ritalin is over used and I think ADD ADHD is ain many cases a gross mis-diagnoses of a pre-existing medical condition likely being Inner Ear damage which is usually permenant in nature.

[Clifdo]

Thanks for posting this. Someday, maybe, just maybe, the unsuspecting public will wake up and understand just what the drug prescribing doctors are doing to our children - and us! All for the love of money - tragic isn't it? Love, Do

[ChemistCat]

You may very well be on to something. Had a psychiatrist friend once who said that 90% of mental disorders or more would never develop if people still lived on farms, worked hard, ate natural foods, and lived without all the entertainment, stress, and distractions that come along with modern life. I think my kids have less powerful imaginations and less ability to entertain themselves than I did at their age, and if I could change anything about their early childhoods, I would have thrown out the TV and VCR and kept them out of the house. We didn't know better.

[Harrison Bergeron]

I have a son, so I can appreciate what you say, and I can only hope and pray that our pediatricians would have as much insight if we were to find ourselves in the same predicaments. But my argument is that Ritalin is being abused as a social engineering tool by feminist run school bureaucracies. The eveidence to back this up is overwhelming. Referrals for medication should not come from teachers or social workers.

The positive effects of certain stimulants, including caffeine, on boys who have so much excess energy that they are literally climbing the walls and harming themselves are well researched and proven. That kids are being prescribed drugs like Prozac given the absence of studies of its effects on children, is a little troubling though.

[Harrison Bergeron]

I have a son, so I can appreciate what you say, and I can only hope and pray that our pediatricians would have as much insight if we were to find ourselves in the same predicaments. But my argument is that Ritalin is being abused as a social engineering tool by feminist run school bureaucracies. The eveidence to back this up is overwhelming. Referrals for medication should not come from teachers or social workers.

The positive effects of certain stimulants, including caffeine, on boys who have so much excess energy that they are literally climbing the walls and harming themselves are well researched and proven. That kids are being prescribed drugs like Prozac given the absence of studies of its effects on children, is a little troubling though.

[Tijeras_Slim]

There is also the scam aspect of Ritalin/ADD ADHD. I believe that SSI and other benefits are available to "poor" families whose kids are "diagnosed" with ADD ADHD. Just another angle of the system for them to work.

[Slyfox]

According to Lorna Luft's book about her mom, Judy Garland, it was ritalin that gave her mother such a problem with drugs.

[GraniteStateConservative]

Concerta is a lot better. Doesn't have the side effects of Ritalin. It's also time-released-- gives 12 hours of help.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

"The problem is games like Nintendo, cartoons like Lion King, movies of high drama, and certain audio stimulis set off ADD ADHD behavior in C.A.P.D. kids. "

I tend to agree with you, however, your statement is a bit too general.
Games like Nintendo, cartoons like Lion King, movies of high drama, and certain audio stimulis can set off ADD ADHD behavior in some C.A.P.D. kids.
The link is not absolute and is, as yet, unproven.
Additionally, this whole discussion, I feel, points up the need for increased attention to pre-natal care for infants in the womb. Special attention must be given to dietary concerns of the fetus. Granted, genetics plays a role. But, to ensure proper physiological development, special attention neeeds to be given to the nutritional aspect of any pregnancy, as well as screening out harmful chemicals that may be introduced by exposure to alcohol, tobacco and even common cold remedies.
The stakes are too high to take the gamble and do otherwise.

[cva66snipe]

C.A.P.D. kids and adults are set off by sensory distortions or misinterpretations. This alone is a constant stress factor that is being dealt with 24/7. When other stresses or task start getting added conflict arises as C.A.P.D. kids and adults function best at single task. The most common cause of C.A.P.D. they think is linked to Inner Ear dysfunction caused by ear infections and sinus allergies.

I would recommend treating these illnesses with medication instead of letting them run their course as the longer it is left untreated the more potential for damage. Streph can be added to this to and can cause what is called tics. Food allergies and genetics do play heavy into this as allergies and other underlying causes are hereditary.

But in general with sensory interpitation disorders the offending event can be limited to one specific event like a sound at a certain frequency or can involve most all the sensory spectrum both audio & visual. The cognitive symptoms seen with CAPD are secondary to the actual cause of it. Vestibular dysfunction is probably the most common and least diagnosed cause of such other nice problems as Anxiety Disorders. Again a researcher in the 1970's linked it. Look up Harold Levinson MD. A lot of his research in Psychriatry/Neurology is being confirmed outside the mental health circles an in Vestibular research. But Vestibular researchers recognize the cognitive aspects as secondary. In short Shrinks are not ENT Docs or Audiologist and commonly misdiagnose it as ADD ADHD.

[cva66snipe]

I tend to agree with you, however, your statement is a bit too general. Games like Nintendo, cartoons like Lion King, movies of high drama, and certain audio stimulis can set off ADD ADHD behavior in some C.A.P.D. kids. The link is not absolute and is, as yet, unproven.

BTW I am on disability with General Anxiety Disorder which is both audio and visual sensory triggered. In other words I'm non phobic. My personal experience in this comes from being diagnosed as ADHD over 35 years ago. I had a reaction to Ritalin and was taken off. Other neurological deficits are there as well that support CAPD but in the mid 60's who knew? IN 1994 I went into full anxiety disorder that the doctors couldn't figure out. Anti-Depressants were used and again a reaction took place. I found the answers to the puzzle in DR. Levinsons Book Phobia Free. For the first time the ADHD {he still uses the term} and the General Anxiety Disorder came together as a problem of a single origination.

A couple of years ago HBO did a special on Panic Attacks remember it? I do as someone taped it for me. That documentary was made to set off attacks in a substancial portion of persons with anxiety disorders due to the special effects they employed.

Here is the problem. What you see and hear must be interpited and processed for response from the brain. One of the portions involved in this is called the Fight / Flight portion close to the stem I think. Persons such as myself can watch a sitcom be laughing at the show and at the same time be in pre-attack or in an attack itself. The sensory system is sending danger signals to fight / flight. If you do not respond as the brain sees appropiate for the condition you get cognitive conflict or anxiety attacks. Finding the offending events takes a little detective work but can be done fairly easy by keeping a note pad handy. BTW this is the same situation that gives you such nice things as fear of heights. The brain is designed for survival. It like a computer runs checks on your CNS. Now let's say you are up on the roof and feeling uneasy or even down right cared to go to the edge. Is it a phobia? No! Not if you have Inner Ear damage known or unknown to you. The brain in it's checks and balances see's a problem or danger with you being in a high place. The fear is a defensive response to that. You may not realize you have poor balance but the brain knows the fact well.

[backhoe]

Rx Nation- are our children being medicated to death?

[ChemistCat]

The way teachers clamor for ritalin in the classrooms stems from our irrationally strong faith in modern medicine. We turn to drugs now even for small problems; we are desperate for drugs that can treat our larger ones. I'm 36 and I take 6 different prescriptions every day and every month I'm worse than I was the last month. Yet I feel even worse when I try not to take any of them. I don't know what to make of it, but I no longer see a lot of confidence in my doctors' eyes. It's like being on a rollercoaster blindfolded--none of us know what is coming next, and it doesn't seem to matter what we do to ourselves because the coaster's twists and turns are coming anyway. I've seen some children who were completely unmanageable with ADHD. There are some autistic children whose worlds are not the placid quiet sort of place we pulled my son out of--some of these kids are trapped in a horror-filled world that leaves them unable to interact with us at all except in violent lashing-out. If meds can do any good for those most desperate trapped spirits, or for children whose attention-deficit disorder leaves them completely unable to participate in the essential routines of education, we have to do what we can. But let's not pretend we're infallible. Some of the pediatricians and teachers I've dealt with behaved as if I were WRONG, even criminal, to question their determination to drug my baby instead of trying to teach him to deal with his attention problems with behavioral therapy. I was vulnerable to that criticism because of the success we'd enjoyed with prednisone. How could I question Prozac and Ritalin (and wellbutrin, and clonadine--meds we also tried, but rejected quickly) if prednisone helped? Excedrin kills a headache pretty well. We have this faith in meds, but when it comes to newer meds, we don't know what we're really doing!

Well, organic chemistry is just too complicated for any humans to understand fully enough, and when we put foreign substances into complex, unique, and developing children, we are gambling. Sometimes you have no choice but to gamble--sometimes the child is so sick or so disturbed that you must. Sometimes the stakes just aren't very high--I'm so sick that there's really only a sneaking sort of HOPE that they might manage to actually kill me (and I'm not much afraid of that.)I don't have much to lose, not being a child and believing that better things await me on the other side.

What do you do? It's more important that choosing between a Hyundai and a Suburu. I recommend prayer if you think you might want to try a medication with your child. For the love of the child--make sure it is necessary before you even think of it. This isn't a pair of fancy tennis shoes. This is a powerful drug.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

Fascinating info, thanks. I had a feeling that when I stated the link was as yet unproven, you would have research to refute it.
I stand corrected.