Ritalin Debate: Some Experts Doubt Existence of ADHD

Cybercast News Service (CNSNews.com) ^ | April 18, 2003 | Patrick Goodenough

[SauronOfMordor]

That may be correct and I am not disagreeing (and here is the..) but I have read stories of parents who are warned about having their children kept out of school, doctors who interview the teacher and watch the child for five minutes. This can not be a coincidence. There are school districts where 40% of the young boys are medicated! Please do not tell us that there is not abuse going on. Doctors are financially rewarded for prescriptions why not for prescribing ritalin? Teachers can not diagnose legally, but for all intents and purposes their "strong suggestion" is equal to the same thing.

Here's why it gets over-diagnosed: schools get more money for "special-ed" kids. It creates a financial incentive. Teachers find that rowdy boys can be made less rowdy if they're drugged. It makes life for the teacher easier

Schools have a list of docs/shrinks that they recommend. The docs get paid for each evaluation. The docs understand that if they do not give the evaluation that the schools want to hear, then they will be dropped from the list and get less business. This gives the financial incentive to the doc to provide the diagnosis that his real customer (the school) wants him to provide.

[luckystarmom]

You have the perfect example of when it is needed. The big telling sign is that your son could not read, and you tried other things to help him.

It just irritates me the parents that their kids can read, they don't try different non-med alternatives, and they put their kids on meds.

[longtermmemmory]

100% CORRECT. I went to a private school, and we STILL filled out the forms for school lunch because (until it was cut) the government paid money fore ease APPLICATION not qualifying student.

As parent, I would be very alarmed at these NEA hacks destroying the futures of little boys for money.

[SauronOfMordor]

You mean aspartame, right? I always hear terrible rumors about it but nothing substantive - do you have a link?

Aspartame metabolizes into formaldeyde and other nasty compounds

From National Institute of Health study

It is concluded that aspartame consumption may constitute a hazard because of its contribution to the formation of formaldehyde adducts. [adduct = "something that leads to ..."]

Formaldehyde is what undertakers use to embalm bodies. It's not good for the living.

Do a Net search for +formaldehyde +aspartame

[luckystarmom]

Thanks! I'll try to get it. I think it is fairly common for people that have brain injuries to have problems with aggression and impulse control. My doctors never told me this, but I've done a lot of research on the web.

We've also started giving her EFAs (essential fatty acids). Supposedly, they increase blood flow to the brain, and can help. We're still not sure if it is helping, but it doesn't hurt her. It's just fish oil, and we do not eat much fish.

[luckystarmom]

The public school has been really good with my kids. They tested my son and told me he was gifted and not ADD as his private school teacher thought.

With my daughter, she is not falling under special ed, but they did get her reclassified under a traumatic brain injury. She's doing well academically, but they knew she needed help.

[Sloth]

ADD/ADHD is *ridiculously* overdiagnosed, but it is certainly a real disorder. My wife has it... she takes Ritalin when she works because without it she is so scatter-brained that she might have diffculty holding a job.

[nmh]

I am always amazed at the great lengths people will go to, to defend their drug addiction and not take personal responsibility for the root problem. Hey, if ritalyn and other drugs make you feel better, so be it. Others prefer not to treat symptons with liver damaging drugs and get to the root cause so as to avoid drugs. Obviously fo ryou it is easier to remain on drugs rather than resolve the root problem. As this article stated ADHD doesn't exist. Never has ad never will exist.

[Zipporah]

during a scolding.. would be what I referred to as escapism.. My kids were quite good at it.. tuning me out. Anyway.. good luck.

[Zipporah]

RE kids not reading by the 2nd grade.. having some knowledge of this.. many times it's not the kid it's the curriculum..the method of teaching reading.. do a search on outcome based education.

[lepton]

There are brilliant adults who are almost completely unable to "stay on task" and it can be pretty damaging to them professionally. I don't believe much in medicines ---and I don't believe they necessarily have a "problem" except with life in modern society. I know people who are off on so many tangents, they forget to renew professional licenses, they put off paying bills even if they have plenty of money to pay them, they don't get around to opening their mail and their lives become almost a disaster.

I think a large part of the problem is that there are certainly people that can benefit from Ritalin, it is also waaay over prescribed. Many boys who are put on it are simply bright and bored, or for that matter, simply have more tactily-oriented personalities.

I have seen children who are all over the place mentally have wonderous immediate results with going on ritalin (major shifts in self-control within a week). I've seen far more that don't really recall much of their child-hood and teen years. Not like blank periods, but rather really fuzzzy memories. Many of these with fuzzy memories from those times actually have good memories for events since then (and from before ritalin)...though seem to have not learned many of the basic behaviours for interacting with other humans.

Many of those recommended for ritalin are simply smarter and more "boy" than schools are designed for. That said, I have a brother who responded well to it, and a friend who uses it for petit-mal seizure control.

Laz, good to see you back. Missed you.

[lepton]

I think one problem people with ADD have isn't that they can't pay attention, they are paying attention to many things at once ---multitasking. A kid who is talking to the kid behind him in school, playing with his erasers, watching the birds outside the window, thinking about the game cheats he's going to try for his video games, might still be listening to the teacher but doesn't get the assignment right because they missed part of the instructions. Often he is still learning and able to do well enough on standardized tests ---even if the teacher gives him bad grades.

Absolutely...and they tend to become very educated. I used to get in trouble for reading my chemistry book in math class, and my history book during English. Always learning, but seldom on the expected thing. In the job market it works horribly when you have repetitive tasks (first one to get it right, and six months later, can't remember how to do it anymore - because brain won't go there), and wonderfully if you have ever-changing tasks and whole new job-areas every few months.

I didn't need Ritalin, just accelerated classes.

[kaylar]

The Plug-In Drug, by Marie Winn, is one book that makes that claim.There may be others, and her index in the book might list the source you're looking for, if this isn't it.

[lepton]

RE kids not reading by the 2nd grade.. having some knowledge of this.. many times it's not the kid it's the curriculum..the method of teaching reading.. do a search on outcome based education.

In some cases it's neither...it's brain structure.

Through about age seven the brain is still undergoing major wiring changes (some of which begin again at onset of puberty). Seeing is not simply optics. There is an interpretaional level where the brain learns how to compute things like vertical and horizontal lines, depth, and patterns. Much of this basic learning is structural guided by environmental input.

It's like "late-talkers", sometimes there's a problem, sometimes the brain just isn't wired for it yet. Many loquatious and brilliant people have been "late-talkers".

[Zipporah]

..you are speaking of a very small minority.. the vast majority of kids who cannot read or are functionally illiterate is due to teaching methodology.

[lepton]

..you are speaking of a very small minority.. the vast majority of kids who cannot read or are functionally illiterate is due to teaching methodology.

By age seven, yes...it's a minority. Most kids hit it in the mid 4 to late 5 year old range, but it still exists as late as late-7s. By beginning of 7, things like dyslexia are far more common problems.

[Drew68]

To those who do not suffer from ADD, ritalin acts like a recreational stimulant, somewhat like methamphetamines.

No kidding! A few years ago I copped 40mg of Ritalin from my ADD-diagnosed brother. I finally went to sleep two days later.

[Zipporah]

I meant.. that it is a very small minority that have reading problems due to some abnormality.

[clamper1797]

I have HDAD as well. I'm 52 and STILL can't sit in my office for long periods of time ... It took a LOT of self disipline to get thru college

[Maximum Leader]

You're welcome.

I pulled out my copy of Amen's book,

the case studies he mentions (he mentions temper and violence issues in chapters 11 through 13), he had several patients who suffered head injuries (particulary to the left side) who responded well with anticonvulsants like Depakote. The saddest cases are the ones where the child suffers some kind of injury when they are very young and they aren't treated appropriately until they are adults. All their lives they had thought there was something wrong with them.

Good luck with your daughter, I hope she finds the right treatment so she gets better soon.