ADHD a fake disorder, neurologist-turned-author says

reply to post by Sly1one


It's obvious you had some awesome parents that recognized your uniqueness, and nurtured it.

Thank you for being a voice against the 'normal' pill!

reply to post by bigbiy666


First off, what is a yp?

Second, ritalin safe? I was prescribed that junk once. Took it once and never again. That stuff is awful. Oh and I know this article is talking about ritalin abuse, it can effect anyone. Here:

The Truth About Ritalin Abuse

SHORT-TERM EFFECTS
Loss of appetite
Increased heart rate, blood pressure, body temperature
Dilation of pupils
Disturbed sleep patterns
Nausea
Bizarre, erratic, sometimes violent behavior
Hallucinations, hyperexcitability, irritability
Panic and psychosis
Convulsions, seizures and death from high doses

LONG-TERM EFFECTS
Permanent damage to blood vessels of heart and brain, high blood pressure leading to heart attacks, strokes and death
Liver, kidney and lung damage
Destruction of tissues in nose if sniffed
Respiratory (breathing) problems if smoked
Infectious diseases and abscesses if injected
Malnutrition, weight loss
Disorientation, apathy, confused exhaustion
Strong psychological dependence
Psychosis
Depression
Damage to the brain including strokes and possibly epilepsy

reply to post by Krazysh0t


Yp stands for young persons.

Those substances need to be managed together and properly for any chance of the yp .

Adhd is difficult especially when a yp is as big or bigger than the carer/parent as they have a lot of energy to burn and you don't want to enforce anything untill those substances are working well. Your likely to get hurt if you don't understand these things.

I guess if I wrote you all a book of my experiences, you would enjoy that more than mateys book...

reply to post by Krazysh0t


Looks identical to the arm length lists of side effects every FDA approved antidepressant causes. Then again, the FDA once considered Thalidomide safe to use in treatment of morning sickness.

I have ADHD. I have trouble concentrating at times, my mind juggles several tasks at once, I often have difficulty finishing what I start, I come across as very intense half the time and I can't sit still for too long unless I'm tired.

I've described it as being an explosion or a laser beam. If you don't control it, you're pure chaos to be around. If you do control it, you have an intensity that sometimes repels people because you become so absorbed and relentless that they feel uncomfortable observing it. If you're not the focus, you don't exist. If you are the focus, you're all that exists. It's manic and arbitrary and just plain inconvenient. I've learned to control it...to a point. Because there's no containing it. The more you bottle it up, the worse it gets. It breaks out and you have to forcibly sit yourself down and wrap yourself up in order to stabilize, otherwise you're just a tornado with no focus and no direction. Mindless energy.

That's what it's always felt like to me. There's a difference between being energetic and being hyperactive. It's not so bad now that I've had years to work on it and learn about it. I used to take medication, but that stopped when I hit college. Haven't been on medication since. And honestly, I feel much better about it. I've only ever taken medicine for the people who wanted me to be something other than what I am. And that medicine has only ever served as a daily reminder that someone was unhappy with me, someone who mattered to me, and that in itself made me upset with myself, which made me worse and just exacerbated the whole reason I was medicated to begin with.

Funny how these things work. So yeah, I can't say I agree with the author. I have firsthand experience with ADHD. I've seen it and felt it. If I ever had any doubts, this thread just vaporized them. It's like reading about myself, only it's other people dealing with the exact same stuff I did.

All it takes for us lowly humans to make an idea a reality is a load of fellow humans subscribing to the same idea.
Make enough people think about a certain topic in a certain way,and you have your way to sell your product.

Marketing 101 friends.

SlapMonkey
My son has ADHD--diagnosed by a psychologist (the one that can NOT prescribe medication)--and it is truly a severe case. Those of us who live with it (I have ADD...not professionally diagnosed, but believe me, I don't need a psychologist for this one) know full well that it is not made up. Yes, it is a collection of symptoms, as all disorders are, but that does not negate the severity of the issue.

You seem to blame parent who can not deal with hyper kids or the random thought patterns of their children, but in saying that, you truly show your ignorance as to what honest, severe cases are like.

Luckily, I have a wife who took the initiative, did the research, and realized that one of the main causes of his symptoms is an allergy to artificial food coloring. We have painstakingly removed all said food coloring from his diet (which isn't easy or cheap), and this has helped quite a bit, but it still has not cured the symptoms, especially the hyperactivity.

See, his hyperactivity is very difficult to deal with, and it got to the point in public schools that his teachers didn't know what to do to properly deal with his uncontrollable fidgeting, standing up, speaking out, and overall restlessness. With all of that comes an almost OCD need to constantly be touching things, and I mean almost everything he walks past he has to touch. It is a sub-symptom of the ADHD, and it is very hard to control.

Needless to say, my wife now homeschools him because the public school system could not handle him properly--I mean, really, taking away his recess is the best idea to them to get rid of his hyperactivity? The school systems are so far behind on understanding this that it forces many families to start homeschooling. My son, only in the third grade at this point, would almost throw up at the thought of going to school because he was always getting in trouble (due to many things that he truly can not control).

We deal with this on a daily basis, all without medicating our son. We don't trust the medications (or the doctors to prescribe the right ones if we did trust the meds) and we don't want our son's personality to change, because we love him the way that he is.

My point is that anyone who says that ADD/ADHD are not real disorders has no idea what they're talking about. It is an absolute truth that these disorders are over-diagnosed and used as a crutch by many, many inept parents, but for those of us who truly to deal with this day in and day out and opt not to use medication, but instead to treat it naturally, I have zero respect for anyone who tells me that it is not real.

Maybe my experience can help; maybe not.

My youngest child was very, very sharp.....but would not even TRY in school .

Her older sibling taught her how to do fractions before she even started school, yet her first grade teacher said she just wasn't catching on to anything being taught!

I thought she was seeking extra attention, and spoke to a friend who was a veteran teacher ( over 40 years), and he told me what the problem was.

Most children learn by rote, so that is what the curriculum is based on. In his opinion, knowing my child, he stated that she was an abstract thinker. Unfortunately, it is not possible for a teacher to cater to an abstract thinker in our school system.

They do not have the ability to learn the way other kids do, even though their IQ is usually a great deal higher. Most of them never finish school; they find it too boring.

Since they are still so much in the minority, things aren't likely to change.

Home schooling will give your child a big advantage, as long as you are sure to have him in social clubs, sports, etc. so he can also learn to socialize.

Please watch the movie I suggested:" Knives Over Forks". I promise you, you won't regret it.

reply to post by nugget1


It may work with some. But would you say the same if the yp was very tall and well built. Is it fair for them that they cannot control their own behaviors. At least with meds they have a choice of self medication...

reply to post by nugget1


I thought it was worth mentioning in response to Nugget that I was homeschooled and was like the way he described.

I wasn't "bad" at learning but got bored really easily.

My mother taught my brother and I was little and was listening in background and was around 3-4 and had apparently been picking up their lessons and wound up learning to read before she even started teaching me.

We had about two hours a day of learning time and the rest was playing with Legos and in the mud.

Needless to say I taught myself after fourth grade and when I finally did go to college my first college algebra exam I scored 100 but since I didn't know how to use a parscore I thought I scored 0/100. LOL

I think home school is a great place for those kids as they are usually quite intelligent but just need to learn on their own terms.

Panic2k11
reply to post by Toadmund

 

Did you try alternative medicine first ? I would advise you to take up Yoga or Meditation before popping any pills, heck even body massages or a daily sauna session could work marvels...

Are you kidding? I couldn't maintain focus long enough for it to work.
Do you know what it is like to jump from one thing to the next before you've mastered the last thing and/or completely forgot about that thing you were doing just a few days ago?

Or even have the lack of executive function to even get started?

I hate when non ADD people say, do this, do that, make a to do list so you don't forget and to get organised. The thing is, I am not even organised enough to have a checklist to check of things to do.

I have been fired from jobs because I could not pay attention or have been lost in the clouds, or I am so disorganised a job takes me longer to do.

Holy crap, time to medicate!

I don't think there is anything wrong with defining the human condition. ADHD sure, call it whatever you want. The problem is thinking you can cure it with drugs. When contributing factors can be (but not limited to): genetics, diet, social interaction, family unit, abuse, learned behaviours, mental capacity, etc.

There is the real problem. Because you give someone a drug and they suddenly show no signs of one thing, doesn't mean they are developing properly or addressing any of the issues they have.

Source:

"Diagnosed" with ADD as a kid, but mother refused drugs. Found them on my own, zing!

reply to post by OrphanApology


This is how my education went. I learned everything so easily and ended up getting bored waiting for the rest of the class to catch up. Then in elementary school I didn't even make the honors or gt class because I wasn't getting the grades to warrant it (even though I clearly understood the material, I just didn't care about the busywork trying to get me to learn something I learned when it was first mentioned to me).

To be honest, I think this is another area where the problem lies. Public school is so homogenized for EVERY student that when a unique one shows up, the class, teacher, and school don't have the means or ability to handle them. So AGAIN we turn to medication.

Panic2k11
reply to post by Toadmund

 

Did you try alternative medicine first ? I would advise you to take up Yoga or Meditation before popping any pills, heck even body massages or a daily sauna session could work marvels...

A comedian works well too. I found a lot of my symptoms were simply a result of every adult I interacted with talked out of their ass, talked down to me as a kid, and made life miserable.

Once I purged the seriousness of the world everything came into focus.

Life: Serious business. (Apparently)

reply to post by boncho


One of my favorite quotes from a movie would have to be from Van Wilder: "Never take life too seriously, you'll never get out alive." Good stuff, and while sounding nonsensical and silly at first really has some good wisdom behind it.

reply to post by boncho


Like I said, this entire thread is me. To a T. Not even kidding.

What if any tests are performed to diagnose these "mental disorders"? Or is it made simply on testimony of teachers and parents that the kid is a total spazz? I think these kids have always been around. Its just lately that they've figured out they can make a "disease" out of it and cash-in. Also like the article states, it gives both the parents and physicians an easy out.

ETA is it some kind of coincidence that ADD/ADHD are on the sharp rise just as its become unfashionable to discipline children in any meaningful way at home or in school? With the invention of the "time-out", a new mental illness is born.

Even if it isnt a "thing" people still suffer from symptoms


Its like dyslexia

boncho
I don't think there is anything wrong with defining the human condition. ADHD sure, call it whatever you want. The problem is thinking you can cure it with drugs.

The thing is these days they are invested in those labels FOR drugs. Here is how it works. Psychology/Psychiatry has had to put on a coat of hard science in order to maintain credibility. But it isn't a hard science. Any mental health issue is diagnosed by a direct and/or indirect observation of behavior that is subjective, and interpretational. Any data in studies, is the same thing. There are very, very few direct criteria, and hard and fast rules. There are some issues that are far more cut and dried such as a paranoid schizophrenic, but as soon as you start to get closer to the "normal" center on even the schizoid spectrum things get a lot squishier.

Unfortunately in order to prescribe a medication there needs to be a label; that checkbox the General Practitioner, or the Psychiatrist can fill in to "treat" the patient. This is where the whole BigPharma is Evil idea comes to play. One of the biggest (and growing exponentially) money makers for these pharmaceutical companies are drugs that address the "mental health" sphere. They push these drugs hard on GP's, Psychiatrists, mental health facilities, etc. There is a LOT of money involved. It goes across the board, and I feel the pharmaceutical companies have found a cash-cow in the mental health sphere precisely because it is so ill-defined. This has contributed to the continual societal narrowing of the definition of "normal". Almost anything that deviates from that is suspect of some sort of "mental health" issue, and therefor gets a pill.

The other thing is insurance companies usually won't pay for a behavioral approach. Many will pay for two visits to a mental health professional and that is it. This is enough to get a diagnosis/label, but not enough for a behavioral approach to treat a patient. Because of this the behavioral aspect of the mental health profession is dying a slow, anemic death.

So, what you are left with are these huge umbrella labels that includes a growing bevy of relatively normal behavior that may be a slight disadvantage or disruptive, but could be possibly overcome by a behavioral approach. Yet, those labels get a pill. The pharmaceutical companies make their money, and the insurance companies won't cover anything else.

Now, for anyone reading this, there are certainly people that will see a huge advantage from a pharmacological approach in many different categories. I'm also not saying that anyone is a bad parent, or anyone is weak for taking Strattera, or Adderall, or Ritalin, or whatever frankly. However, I will say that there is a leviathan push by powerful corporate entities to treat any mental deviation or anomaly by medicating it. I don't necessarily see willful, cognizant societal programming here, but I do see greed.

For the record, I am a psychology major (see how well that free-lance artist thing is working out...?) so I have a horse in this race, and I would like to think at least a little insight (for what the insight of a measly psych student is worth).

An author with a book to sell says something that is widely accepted doesn't exist.....and that's considered good evidence by someone??

...well this is a conspiracy site after all - perhaps there is an actual conspiracy here - but it seems more likely to be the author conspiring to sell his book than anything else!

reply to post by Toadmund


I was serious about it. Most of of ADD is psychosomatic in nature (it is all in your head), or learned behavior (lack of control over the mental processes due to many factors, see other posts on the thread) beyond that it can only be due to biological reasons, brain damage or chemical unbalance to the first there is not much one can do except encouraging brain plasticity to fix the issue (stem cells research show promises in fixing those issues) and as for the chemical unbalance there is what medication can help but first one should seek the help of a nutritionist and examine one's lifestyle.

In any case all mental disordered can most of the time be cured or alleviated without taking pills that can cause other side effects, this is even valid to other types of decreases (learn to listen to your own body, learn to accept and endure some discomfort at times and avoid thinking yourself into a health problem). Read a bit about the placebo effect and the power of your mind over your body, it is not a fix all but it can due amazing things... In fact you should use it to avoid exposing yourself to the issue in the first place, most of the time your own actions and behavior are the cause of the issues...