Is this really the link to ADHD?

reply to post by bluemirage5




Tell us, what is your area of expertise dr./parent/neither?

A change of diet DOES help some, and it DID help my child. Stop making assumptions. Removing as many food dyes/colorings from my child's diet as possible made a difference.

I suspect that those who do not believe in ADD/ADHD have never had a child with it. If they had, they would open their eyes and understand.

I believe that eventually, being the numbers for autism/add/adhd/etc have become what could be labeled pandemic levels, that eventually we will find that an immune system dysfunction is taking place. But I am not a scientist, that is just my opinion as a parent who has done a lot of reading about these things.

Harm None
Peace

reply to post by amazed


I think you need to read carefully all my posts here and on the other thread BEFORE you speculate what you assume I said.

This may well be the case,
@@@ amazed @@@q
. Putting all the aspects together that rightfully are under suspicion to cause these modern pathologies, are'nt they all immun supressing....?

I know there may be kids who do need medication but I do believe teachers and doctors are a little too quick to push this discription on our kids these days. I think mostly due to teachers and parents that either dont want to take the necessary effort to help these special needs kids or simply dont have the time to devote to them. I myself was diagnosed in this manner when I was seven or eight ( i think mostly because of teachers who felt my attention level was lacking although my grades and grasp on subject matter was normal to above average in truth) and was medicated for about 2 weeks with ritalin. My mother took me off of it because it actually made me worse (bouncing off the walls I believe she would phrase it). I did have a long period of behavioral problems (including law, school and social) that lasted into my late teens. To this day I still seem to always have about five different irons in the fire but WITHOUT medication I have been able to teach myself to slow down and focus on just the one or too most pressing things at hand. My mother had tried every conventional thing possible to make me grow straight and tall and in the end the only thing that worked was to let me just march to the beat of my own drum.
I am now a family man with two children that are scarily similar to my young self but because of my experiences I have been quite successful in helping to make their school activities something that they want to be interested in. Really when you approach this correctly it seems these kids may even be just a little bit board and unchallenged by the school setting (for me the teachers would always try to bust me while daydreaming out the window with some surprise question from their lecture, nine times out of ten I would give them the correct answer and go quickly back to daydreaming). With more of the right support at home it may not have taken me so long to adjust to the world as everyone else sees it. I guess i feel the best medication is to nurture your child and support who they are. Some of these kids may end up being able to juggle all five of the irons that so distract them now with ease with the proper reinforcement.
Lastly I would like to theorize that maybe ADHD is a natural instinctual throwback from a more primal survival urge. The human that was more interested in every little movement, color or disturbance may be more likely to spot that mountain lion racing over the hill to overtake his prey. Truely not so usefull in todays society but do we really want to erase that skill from our genepool? In the end I have become a fully functioning responsible member of society and believe the same is possible for most if not all.

I'm Sorry but the Whole debate here must be MY fault,for it appears I was the first person diagnosed with ADHD it seems. it was 1969-1970 when I was first put on Ritalin. I also have poor eye site and before this in school I would be put in the back of the class room as to not distract others.

Did Ritalin help, yes, some what, I slept more then 5 hours a day on Ritalin. I could "slow" down and be equal with my peers, I didn't "jiggle" as much. I honestly think, (now) that Ritalin is a Horrific horrible drug. however it was all they had back then.

the Side effects,I felt I was brain dead most of the time, it stunted my growth and development, I'm currently 2 months from my 50th B-day and STILL growing new body hair, I was 30 when my chest hair started growing)

I was on Ritalin for 4-5 years as a child then I was "cured" ( I still to this day only sleep 5 hours a day)

as a child my parents did not have lots of money, we grew a very large portion of our food at home.

I was a strict vegetarian for 35 years during and after a stint in the USMC, so food dyes and processed sugars were somewhat lacking in my diet most of my life. (I joined the Marines to learn self discipline, never thinking it was part of a life long ADHD issue)

I still have focus issues ( can you tell? ) but cannot afford insurance or the medications, hell the longest I've been able to hold a Job in my life is 4 years.

I am the hardest working person at every job I've ever worked at. I just get so damn bored, I quit. I can

Fix and build PC's from scratch, Build vacuum cleaners, sell anything, drive everything (from cars to helicopters) can hang drywall and float and tape it, and paint (powder coat too) I have held 4 to 5 hundred jobs in the last 35 years. I never have trouble getting the jobs, just keeping them, I don't miss work,I work twice as hard as anyone else. I just get BORED
I read books like folks smoke cigarettes. I hyper focus on books and ignore things like work,food, sleep or trips to the bathroom.


I went thru 5 months of testing at the age of 10, it was not a "yup he has adhd give him drugs" kinda thing.

I really wish I was "normal" like most of you, but I just can't think that slow.

I use herbal medications to relive most of it, but unfortunately I cannot reveal the herb I use. if I don't use it I don't sleep enough and get unfocused ( ya know like now ) I have to suffer for the next 4 months, just to keep my income.

When I was a kid, back in 1st grade, the school I was going to made me see a doctor who diagnosed me with ADHD. They wanted me to start taking Ritalin immediately. Their whole reasoning behind it was that I pretty much refused to pay attention to any teacher because all they did was teach things that I already knew. According to them, always being a few steps ahead of the rest of the class meant something was wrong with me. Instead of actually trying to do what they could to challenge me, they thought "medication" was the better choice.

Perhaps that school, which was a private christian school, is the reason I have a somewhat tainted view of Christianity today. I switched to public school the next year where they actually did do the extra work to help the kids like me. Kind of ironic, most people think the public schools are so bad while in reality they helped me so much more than a private school.

I guess the moral of the story is they may try to tell you your child has ADHD and tell you to put them on Ritalin or something similar. Just because they tell you that doesn't mean they're right, however. I don't even want to think about what may have become of me if my family had blindly listened to the school and the doctors.

Intelligence is frequently mis-diagnosed as an illness.

P.S. Sorry if this comes across as narcissistic, just offering my own personal experience.

Sorry about the book all kinda long for a first post. I joined ats just for this thread all. Hope it is usefull to someone.

reply to post by regor77



Dont be sorry for having a long post that has alot of usefull information in it. Thanks for your post. All information is accepted here.

Originally posted by bluemirage5
Those who don't believe ADHD exists, I hope, have a medical degree plus specializes in biological disorders and paediatricts and know exactly what they're talking about......

and I believe NONE of you know what you're talking about!

You see, this is true of ALL people. Our scientists dont know anything that isn't relevant to us, and they only have a theory or law on how it is relevant. Relevance is not absolute truth, and we are potentially doing things to our society in which we do not know, or worse that some do know and profit off of it.

This "condition" is very much escalated with drugs. I come from a family of autism and even some ADHD, so i have seen first hand the negative and positive effects of the drugs. Positive is that it seems to better integrate the child into society. Negative is that sometimes suicidal thoughts and a host of uncomfortable ailments occur. And thats not even considering the potential for long term brain/nerve damage.

reply to post by illuminateme


I agree %100...i was hyper & tried to bounce off the walls any chance I got, my parents would keep me in line w/ a spanking. I can guarantee that by todays standards I'd have been classified as needing meds or having ADD. Scary! Thank god i got my butt slapped instead of medicated!
* i've seen first hand diet (food dyes (red&orange), sugar, Gluten) removed from a diet help a child act right & calm down. I have a 2.5 year old & a 1 year old. Also adding healthy oils to your child diet (we use Flax seed) we just add it to sippy cup has helped my toddler calm down. Ppl comment that I have very well behaved kids. & It's sure not genetic

reply to post by Dreamwatcher


Thank you dreamwatcher!!!! That is what i was saying....that's like someone who doesn't need glasses saying that no one does...

Originally posted by jaycen420
So im sure all of you have herd over the last couple days that certain food dyes may be th cause of ADHD. I was wondering what you all thought of that. yes here is some reading on the subject

www.wfaa.com...

And another:

www.medicinenet.com...

And one more:

www.medindia.net...

me honestly i dont believe in ADHD, when i was a kid their was no such thing as ADHD. We were just hyper active kids playing. Just another way to calm the people with more medication i think

I was born in 1972... by the time I was 5 my mother was restricting my diet from red dye... She said it made me hyper... and she was right... I noticed that as well into young adulthood... I didn't stop having negative reactions to red dye until I was around 28 or 29.

I had serious ADHD growing up. I honestly wanted to do school work and be one of the "good" kids but I would get so distracted by the slightest thing; my academic career was in shambles until I took medication. It's highly reminiscent of trying to run in a dream but not being able to. I honestly struggled with ADHD until I started smoking marijuana regularly. Though it helped to slow me down, it wasn't the right solution.

Not saying medication is the solution for everything, especially since there are definitely foods that trigger the disorder (many children have their ADHD heightened by dairy products), but it does work for some people.


and to naysayers out there: how can you post on a forum that very much relies on proof to be relevant while also proclaiming that something doesn't exist because you don't see it?

respectfully,

-p.

reply to post by CarlitosAmsel


Because I remembered that a lot of medicines are either plant extracts, or are derived from them and I thought I may as well try. It obviously hasn't worked

Yes, there is a lot of reseach being done on active substances coming from plsnts, mainly to alter the activ molecule into something freaky because the natural substance as it is would not be patentable and would not bring any profit.

When I said before about aspirin being extracted from Willow bark, it's the exact same molecule as the pill you (well probably not you personally) take when you have a headache. People used to chew on willow bark to relieve pain

Actually, I could think of only one in the moment, and that is morphin, and even the morphin molecule has been synthezised and twisted into a full synthetic molecule like in Methadon or Fentanyl etc..., all of them Morphin alikes made totally out of chemicals you wont find in nature.

You see the thing is, all of these pharmacists and researchers have spent a lot of time and effort into studying to get where they are now. Yet here we have a people who have little to no qualifications screaming about them poisoning them (yet again, I'm not talking about you personally, just an observation from peoples responses over the years).

Dont fool yourselfs, and dont call other people "paranoid", just because they understand something you dont.

Not really fooling myself. I'm the one who's actually studying this subject. Thinking everyone is out to get them is a classic case of paranoia

If cannabinoid molecules wouldin any way be patentable, believe me, marihuana would'nt be a "Illegal Drug", it would be a patented, profit bringing "Medicin".

It's legal in Portugal and The Netherlands.

Originally posted by robertashby
reply to post by illuminateme

 

to simply state that adhd dont exist is the normal uneducated view point of someone who has never met or interacted with children with this very nasty and troubling mental illness. my step son has adhd and a typical autism.(high functioning). i realise everyone is entitled to their opinion , would you also say then that deppresion isnt real? and they should simply pull themselves together!

I know for a fact that ADHD exists, my son was dignosed with it when he was 4 years old. There is a substantial difference when he is off of his medication. I do not like giving my son these meds, but I have seen first hand what he is like without them.

Ya know whats wrong with kids today?..ill tell ya, parents are not allowed to give there kids a good slap in the ass, or good lick in the mouth. When i was bad a as a child i got what was coming to me which in turn caused me to think twice before acting up. Now doctors have all this B.S. diagnosis and medications. These new generations are out of control and they blame dyes..give me a break. Do believe i have three kids and when they get out of line they get whats coming to them. Im not saying you should beat your kids, but a good slap to catch them off guard is a great tool.

reply to post by dizzie_lizzie79


Just a thought, as a parent of, and as one who suffers the day to day challenges faced by someone with severe ADHD, if your kid hates taking his/her meds, maybe you have them on the wrong one. From personal experience, I went through a bunch of different kinds before I found the one that was right for me. Some made me feel ugh...some made me feel sick...some made me feel extremely angry...and some did nothing at all.

Two of my children are on meds for it, and they love it. We lost our insurance and they had to stop taking it for a few weeks and both of them were very upset because they could feel the difference in their thinking. My oldest who is now in high school says he does not function very well without it. My younger one (who is in third grade) loves being in control of himself, his meds allow him to do that. When he is not on them he is constantly in time-out. Both of my kids also suffered from tics before medicating, which stopped upon finding the right one.

Think of it like this....If your kid needed glasses, would you get them for him/her? Of course you would. ADHD is a problem with the message center in the brain....I consider it more of a blessing because I have much more vivid memories than most people because of it....ADHD kids are able to take in so much information, but get confused what to do with the information once its taken in. If your kid is truly ADHD he/she is living in a internal world that is moving at a much faster pace than the one you live in. This is why they get impatient very quickly. You would get annoyed at people who move like turtles too. This is why they have problems waiting their turn...get bored easily...can't sit still...and often interrupt...

I am speaking from experience because I feel people who do not have it have a hard time understanding what it is that those of us who do have it go through. As a parent it is important to remain patient and understand that you cannot punish it out of them. I am not saying that they should not be punished for any wrong-doing, but my advice is this:

1- Keep to a routine...bed time, dinner time, homework time, video game time, etc.

2- Establish a set of SIMPLE rules. Be clear with them on what the rules are and when a rule is broken, make sure they understand what they did wrong. (Have them repeat the rule...i.e. NO THROWING THINGS IN THE HOUSE)

3- Remember that their attention span is short, so make the first few words count.

YOU SAID: "Bobby, whenever we are driving in the car it is important that you don't take off your seat belt until I tell you that it is okay to do it."

HE HEARD: "Bobby, whenever we are driving in the car......." and now he is picturing driving in the car...and then his favorite toy car...and then he imagines himself driving a car...and then the movie cars. He had no idea what you said after that.

YOU SAY: "KEEP YOUR SEAT BELT ON!!!" he hears and understands.

4- Choose your battles....especially into the teenage years.

I hope I have maybe helped you understand a little bit better how someone with ADHD thinks....It's hard to deal with sometimes.

reply to post by thedigirati


You explained it very well, thank you! This is the story of my life as well, military as well, and then throw four kids on top of it. I hope our posts can help some of these parents who do not understand what it is like for a kid with ADHD.

reply to post by tomten


Because it has the opposite reaction in those of us who have it....If you don't have it and you take an amphetamine, that is the reaction that you get....see, without it those symptoms are what I get. So to say that ADHD is caused by the meds, then you are taking it when you don't have it and should strongly consider a different option!

reply to post by SenstivelyMe


I like your post...you are correct. Let me tell you as an adult, I take my meds. My life falls apart without them because i don't pay the bills, forget what day it is and miss work, forget to make my kids do their homework, forget my own homework, burn dinner, and hopefully not set the house on fire somehow. Things just kind of go back to the way they were before starting the medication. I have had to stop taking my meds a couple of times over insurance issues, and I don't take them on weekends unless I know that I have something that needs to be done...my kids take weekends off too. None of us have any type of withdrawal symptoms...except non-focus but we had that before we started!!!