ritalin

thing is, you can go into the doctors and get misdiagnosed very easily just by miswording your case or the docs misunterstanding them.

I find it very sickening that doctors can prescribe ritalin within 10 minutes of an interview. Theres something very wrong there.

I watched a show on Autism though, very serious. Should see a specialist for that.

 

In California, some doctors do recommend parents give their child cannabis for adhd. They aren't smoking it though. They are crushing it up and putting it in pills, or putting cannabutter on their toast in the morning. I am not in favor of this either, but personally I would rather give my child a low dose of cannabis than some cocaine in pill form.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yj72e5q61Fs

For me, both things have helped immensely at different times. But the pills are VERY strong, and the side effects are almost unbearable. It makes me feel like a crackhead. Jittery, nervous, no appetite, edgy, up all night, etc. Speed also makes me want to drink or find something else to take the edge off.

It just really blows my mind that kids are having their dopamine reward system activated at 3 years old. They are being taught to get high from a pill, then crash.. the whole cycle. I really don't see how this kind of conditioning can't be certain to lead to compulsive drug seeking behavior later in life. There are many studies showing the increased risk of drug abuse in adhd kids, and I have to think that the conventional medicine approach is an underlying cause.

 

I agree. To be honest, I think that the medical profession's apparent over-reliance on drugs for the treatment of supposed personality disorders is disconcerting to say the least, but the older generation's overuse of physical discipline was equally so.

Now, as I said before, I would seek every possible alternative to giving my children drugs, let them be any age. My heart goes out to the OP and I hope that everything works out for her and her family, whatever road she takes.

 

ya same. I guess im biased towards ritalin because my cousin was put on it at like 7-8, and he had a rough childhood, and we're pretty sure ritalin was part of it.

but ya, there is people who live a better life because of it.

 

Deviate, that's fascinating, and I agree... I'd much rather give my child a small dose of the god ol' cannabis than speed.

I just find it very hard to believe that ADHD and such are real conditions to begin with. Kids are fucken hyper as it is... they have a wild imagination and are active. I would much rather have a crazy kid than a sedated one who can now "function in society".

Making children confirm to society's standards of behaviour through such extreme drugs is terrible.

Sure, but it is not as simple as merely "chemicals in the brain". There are a lot of emotional and neuroloical responses which contribute to the effects. I got sick from Ritalin because the side-effects are terrible, I don't think that one pill could have altered the chemical balance in my brain. You have to take most drugs for at least a month for them to take a true effect.

 

I think your undermining what shes saying just to make a point. I'm sure discipline occurred to her.

And while I believe I was the first person here to say that a 3 year old was too young to be taking amphetamines, because you didn't need ADD medication isn't much of an example to draw upon for your opinion.

You got sick from sensitivity to too large of a dose. And it did alter the chemical balance in your brain. It prevented the reuptake of dopamine.

Amphetamines effects are instant upon digestion.

 

Yes, I was indeed making a point. That it is not only chemicals in the brain that play in the process, a good point at that.

I could go to the doctor, tell him that I think that I have ADD, name a symptom or two, and get diagnosed with it right now. He'll even give me a month free trial of ritalin, just to make sure I get properly addicted. I'll be comming back to him for scripts, after all.

I should have clarified, but I was talking about long-term chemical effects. Playing basketball, having sex, or taking an anti-depressant, per example, can momentarily alter the chemical balance in your brain. A whole lot of things can. I think that it's the long term, or constant effects, of the drug that we should worry about. I know that it takes many such drugs a good month to take full effect. I don't know exactly how much it takes for ritalin though.

 

yes, you should defintiely be backhanded when they may have a mental illness/brain disorder that strongly affects their behaviour...

 

Lode, I've taken your advice and halfed the dose.

We've considered the posibility of autism, too. But he makes excellent eye contact. (I'm pretty sure autistic children don't) But he does have a couple of the red flags.

I've went ahead and made an appointement with a specialist, just in case. Whoever made the comment about the family doctor only seeing him for a few minutes was right.

Thanks to everyone with a <constructive> comment.

I'll let you know how it goes.

 

just want to ask again if you've tried an elimination diet (i.e. eliminating dairy, gluten, food dyes, etc.) to see if any of those are causing some of his outbursts... it is seriously something to consider....

 

Okay, I couldn't find that excellent article I read which is a shame. But there are some important things you should know.

There can be damage to essential peptides your child has called Tachykinins.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tachykinin_peptides

To protect these pathways it is important you augment your childs diet with magnesium and calcium.

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/WO2008008380.html

http://www.algaecal.com/magnesium-foods.html

http://www.thehealthierlife.co.uk/article/3097/calcium-rich-foods.html

​

And L-Tyrosine to protect dopaminergenic receptors

These can be supplemented with vitamins..
​

http://www.incrediblehorizons.com/balance-ingred.htm

​

 

Vitamin C will be very important.

And heres a really intricate article about how and why oxidants work, and I believe it breifly mentions the causes of oxidative stress.

http://ep.physoc.org/cgi/reprint/82/2/291

And again, Blueberries, Pomegranates , beans and artichokes will provide all those antioxidants.

I'm sure you love your boy very much and are doing all you can for him. I'm glad you're taking him to a specialist.

All the best.

 

ive heard bad things about a red dye in particular (forget the colour number) and it making kids ridiculously hyper

 

There was an urban legend a when I was in Jr. High about yellow dye number 6 killing sperm.

Food dyes are very chemically neutral, and I that gives me very strong inferences that the food dys is another urban myth.

When complicated relatively new phenomenons like the recent surge of diagnosis of ADD or autism come about, it's natural for people to look for causations. There eating more processed food so there getting more ADD. There getting more shots so their getting more Autism.

The truth is likely much more complicated then peoples natural reasoning.

 

http://www.floridadalton.com/RedDyeAwareness.htm has a nifty story thing about it, with more books and links and crap. more of an allergy than anything else, by the sounds of it. but waht do i know, i dont have kids, i just remembere dreading a thread about the evils of red dye in the parenting forum a while ago for some reason

 

OK, while reading the other thread about prescribed drugs, I came across a link to a site talking about drugs in our water supply. This site also has a number of articles about possible drug-free treatment of ADHD. While I cannot vouch for the validity of the site nor it's sources, it may be worth looking into, especially the article about treatment with omega-3 fish oils. The success rate is not extremely high but if you are looking for other alternatives than drugs, it may be worth a shot.

Perhaps you could mention your findings to the specialist and see what he has to say about it.

Good luck.


about a natural pine bark treatment
www.naturalnews.com/019433.html

natural omega-3 fish oils treatment
www.naturalnews.com/019432.html

about a medication free program and some of the dangers of ritalin
http://www.naturalnews.com/022670.html

 

My son has Autism, it's a high-functioning form called Asperger's Syndrome...he makes eye contact. The point is that Autism is different for every kid, they have different levels, different abilities and such...
Kids with severe Autism don't make eye contact and a lot of times they don't talk.

A question...with real attention deficit, kids can't even focus on the things they enjoy, does your son focus on anything at all? That was something I always looked for, my kids are wild, but if they are doing something they enjoy, they are way into it.

 

Jeez...we always brushed the possibility of autism aside because of the eye contact thing. I can see we've been serverly misinformed. After this post I think a trip to autismspeaks.org is in order.

As for the focusing on things that he enjoys...he does to an extent. He really likes Elmo, but can only handle about 15 minutes of it before he's up and running around. We just leave the TV off for the most part. And he's been known to spend a good 2 hours on the swings before. Anything with rythmic rocking will occupy him for a long time.

 

ADHD is on the far end of the autism spectrum according to one of my professors in college..

 

I have never heard that one, nor read it in any books on the subject, I think that was your professor's opinion...