Medication - Good and Bad ??'s

I highly recommend Dr. Amen’s book Healing ADD: The Breakthrough Program that allows you to See and Heal the 6 Types of ADD. His groundbreaking work on ADD, using brain scans shows that there are sub types of ADD.

It is vitally important for you to know that medications that help one type of ADD can actually make other types worse. His temper outbursts sound like the temporal lobe ADD subtype, a stimulant alone may make him worse. However, a stimulant with other medications can help.

I believe that many doctors are not aware of the sub types of ADD. They just prescribe a stimulant. Then some kids don’t get better, and one dosage after another is tried. This is very difficult and upsetting to the child and parents. That is why it is so important to have an understanding of the type of ADD your child has.

Dr. H. Joseph Horacek also has a book called Brainstorms: Calming the emotional storms of ADD. He uses a somewhat different scheme to determine sub types, but the idea is the same.

There are checklists of symptoms in both books, that will help you to determine the different type of ADD your son has. Be aware that a person can have symptoms of two or three different types of ADD.

Dr. Amen also has some websites: www.amenclinic.com and www.brainplace.com. I hope and pray your doctor is open to this new information on ADD that is out there.

Greetings Laura,

To followup on lizb comments, you can also access much of the information contained in Dr. Amen’s book at his website. The checklist is also available at his website and upon completion, you will be provided with info about the results. Keep in mind this is only a checklist and not a diagnosis but it can help make sense of the symptoms.

That said, the type of ADD my dd exhibits the most symptoms of frequently responds best to Wellbutrin (according to Dr. Amen). When I shared this info with my dd’s counselor, he still insisted on prescribing Adderall. I also spoke with my dd’s pediatrician and he also prescribed Adderall because he had no experience with Wellbutrin. Reluctantly accepting their judgment, my daughter began Adderall. At first, it seemed helpful but the negative side effects have since offset any benefits. She has dropped a clothing size (and she’s itty bitty to start with) plus she cannot sleep (she had insomnia problems before but it is much worse). Her irritablity has increased along with her lack of sleep and appetite. She stopped taking her Adderall about 3wks ago. I do believe she needs medication but Adderall isn’t the one. For us, the biggest problem has been finding a medical professional who really knows anything about ADD! It’s been frustrating.

Blessings, momo

Thank you both Lizb and momoMO for the input on Dr. Amen. I am concerned about the medication and whether it will work for my son. Every morning we seem to have unpleasantness in the house, outbursts over unfairness, unhappiness. It is quite trying. So I am not sure if this is symptomatic of some other problem which Adderall or some other drug will just exacerbate. I am glad to have a heads up on this.
Laura

For my son, who has a diagnosis of ADHD, predominately inattentive subtype, but who also has symptoms of impulsivity and subtle, fidget and squirm type hyperactivity, adderall has truly been a magic bullet. We tried behavioral modification and dietary changes for two years without seeing any real effect. My son, who is profoundly gifted and has dysgraphia, rarely completed school work, and found school a completely frustrating place to be. He was not a behavior problem at home or at school, but he was becoming more and more unhappy and his extraordinary gifts were going to waste. Within a month of beginning adderall he began to be able to exert the mental effort necessary to stick with hard or boring tasks. He completed more and more work and experienced increasing school success. He is now an A student and a leader in his class and, most importantly, is a much happier boy. We do not medicate on weekends or vacations, unless there is school work to be done. I hope this helps.

Andrea

Just thought I’d throw in some positive feedback for medication. Our son started taking Ritalin at age 10. The difference it has made for him is amazing. He is ADHD-inattentive. This child who just couldn’t get it together at all at school before medication has made straight A’s for a year now. We are no longer miserable when we work together at homework time (as long as the medication is in effect!). His self-esteem is really improving. It also seems to level out some of his moodiness. We switched to Concerta (another form of Ritalin) at the beginning of the school year, and things are still on track. It’s really not a cure-all—he’s still plenty distractible but the medication brought him back into the range where he can get his work done.

Drawbacks—when the medication wears off he sometimes goes into this odd tired/weird/depressed kind of mode for about a half hour. From what I understand, this is rebound. I thought rebound was a hyper/wired kind of thing, but apparently it affects each child differently. I don’t like it at all, but it only happens a once or twice a week and all the other positives outweigh this drawback for us.

I can really relate to your concerns about bipolar disease and the temper tantrums. We have bipolar on both sides of our families, and as I watch our son’s moods, I worry about what that might mean about his future. But the psychiatrist that diagnosed his ADHD indicated that even though he has mood swings during the day and plenty of temper tantrums (less of them now at age 12), he didn’t see any evidence of the symptoms of bipolar. Having a professional tell me that was a real relief, although I still worry about how it will play out over time. As for outbursts of explosive anger, we have several relatives on my husband’s side that have it as adults and I swear there must be a genetic component to this because it’s evident in three generations.

For now, I am inclined to think our child’s temper tantrums are a combination of a high-strung personality, combined with LDs that make it difficult to express himself and easy to misunderstand what we are saying. I also think that there is a component to ADHD that makes it difficult for them to “put on the brakes” once the anger/frustration train gets rolling. Can’t seem to let go of the issue. Rational thoughts seems to be blocked out in favor of obsessive, unreasonable thoughts. Our son’s meltdowns used to last about two hours and then he would return to his normal self almost oblivious to the chaos he just put us through.

I hope you find an approach that works for you. I agree with LizB that a pediatrician that is highly knowledgeable about ADHD is worth their weight in gold, and working with one that isn’t can hinder or even misdirect your efforts to find the best solution. The psychiatrist I mentioned was a great resource and directed us to a pediatrician who really knew his stuff.

The good thing about trying a med such as Ritalin is that it’s in and out of your system in about 4 hours. Wellbutrin takes about 3 weeks to build up in the system before it reaches its full effect. It’s also not approved for anyone under 18 although there are some drs. trying it for kids with ADHD. Your pediatrician might just not want to take the risk since it isn’t approved for kids.

It would make sense that Wellbutrin would work for some kids with ADHD because it’s an antidepressant that’s used for people with bipolar disorder. So (keep in mind I haven’t read Dr. Amen’s book), maybe those kids actually have bipolar or are at a crossover point.

In any case, it’s a very complex thing to diagnose someone with ADHD and/or bipolar disorder and I’d certainly not want to do it by using one Dr.’s checklists from a book. If my kid were dx’d with ADHD and medication’s recommended, I’d want to first try the kind (Ritalin) that’s out of the system the fastest.

In addition to what Joan just said, my son’s doctor told us he sometimes prescribes an anti-depressant (can’t remember the name but seems like it was something like Effexor?) if the Ritalin doesn’t quite work by itself. This is just a family practice dr., but he is up on ADD. I think my son just may be getting close to appropriate medication. It can take a long time, but it is worth it.

Janis

Effexor is one of the medications I have read about in Dr. Amen’s book. I would not suggest just trying Ritalin or other stimulants just because they are out of the system quickly. If used for some ADD types, it can cause hallucinations and other terrible side effects. That is RARE, of course, I don’t want anybody to think the medications are bad. My daughter is on Adderall, a stimulant like Ritalin, and it helps her tremendously.

It is just that I don’t think a doctor needs to be poking around in the dark, blindly trying one medication then another, when there is information out there that helps doctors to understand which medications help which symptoms.

And I will make a controversial statement: some parents are more informed about ADD than their doctors. Some doctors are willing to understand and take into account the parent’s point of view, some aren’t.

Liz, I generally agree with everything you said, but I will say that even a knowlegable doctor must sometimes try several medications to find the best one for a particular person. Also, a medication can work well for awhile, and later lose effectiveness or cause an unpleasant side effect. My neighbor’s daughter developed symptoms almost like petit mal seizures after taking Adderall for several months. They took her off Adderall and changed her to Ritalin and the symptoms disappeared….and this was from a neurologist who specializes in ADD.

I do think it is important to let people know that Dr. Amen’s work is still considered to be somewhat outside of the mainstream medical community. Depending on your point of view, this could be a good or a bad thing, but it is the sort of thing we as parents should weigh when we evaluate the information that is out there. Personally, I think Dr. Amen’s theories seem sound, but more study is needed to really confirm them. In fact, more study of the causes of and treatments for ADHD in general is desperately needed. A good source for the current state of ADHD knowledge and treatment is the website for the National Institutes of Mental Health, http://www.nimh.nih.gov

Andrea

Lizb,

The truth is that ALL meds, in rare instances, can have terrible, terrible side effects. Wellbutrin has a history for some pretty awful ones, and was taken off the market for awhile when they first came to light. But for every medication out there, there’s always someone who’s had a severe reaction to it. Do a search online about Wellbutrin and you’ll see its history. You’ll come up with various forums where the common bond is the harm, through seizures and other side effects, that people have experienced from Wellbutrin. I’m not saying it’s a dangerous drug, just that it’s no less dangerous than one such as Ritalin or Adderall. Nothing’s perfect.

Ritalin is considered to have the least serious side effects and since it’s what would likely be recommended for ADHD, my point is that if I were given a choice of a trial with meds using one with the least side effects and one with greater side effects, I’d want to go with the lesser one first. Especially if that one is out of your bloodstream the fastest so that if there WERE a side effect, it would be gone quicker. As I stated, Wellbutrin takes 3 weeks to build up in your bloodstream. Anything that takes that much time to build up also takes time to wean off from. If there were a risk of side effects, I’d have some concern about that length of time.

I happen to think that it makes sense that Wellbutrin could work well for ADD/ADHD because of all the current studies about the relationship between ADD/ADHD and mood disorders. But I’d like to see Dr. Amen’s data verified independently by several other sources before blindly following it. Wellbutrin is a powerful anti-depressant along the lines of Zoloft, Prozac and Celexa. Where my child is concerned, I’d feel more caution trying it till it’s been verified by enough other sources to give me more confidence. Since it hasn’t been yet approved for use with anyone under 18, who’s coming up with the dosage levels?

I’m not saying it would be wrong to try Wellbutrin for a child, but I want to err on the side of caution with meds and Wellbutrin is strong enough that I’d rather see if something else much milder works before resorting to it. I understand what you say about Dr. Amen’s assigning different categories of behavior that respond better to certain drugs. The bottom line is probably that I don’t have the fear of Ritalin that you have. To me, it’s been on the market long enough, has been used for ADHD long enough, and has enough documentation for me to feel comfortable if it were recommended as a trial. And we have to go with our comfort zone, don’t we?

Until someone can come up with a truly objective method of diagnosing ADD/ADHD, we’re stuck with these very subjective methods of interpreting behavior and then assigning a drug and/or therapy to counteract that behavior. It’s terribly inefficient and depends greatly on the subjective ability of the persons doing the observations.

I agree with what everyone has said. I am not trying to slam Ritalin, Wellbutrin or others. But I did not state that Dr. Amen recommends Wellbutrin, only that each ADD medication can have bad side effects. And that those side effects may be related to they type of ADD a person has. That is: Temporal Lobe ADD types may have a bad reaction to Ritalin alone, but not with other meds and Ritalin. Of course a doctor will have the best idea of how to proceed, but may not want to proceed with Ritalin alone if he feels there are “bipolar” or “temperal lobe” issues. I also realize that even well informed doctors still often have to try several medications and dosages before they find the right one.

But it certainly helps to have at least a general idea in what direction to go in, and often doctors don’t. What I am afraid of is that parents will trust a doctor who really knows little about ADD and try meds, have either terrible results and no results and then give up in despair.

I just want parents not to give up. There is help out there, it may take some time to find it, but it is there. And one of the questions parents should ask is: does this doctor really understand ADD and medications?

Also, parents should understand that medications can help greatly, but they do not cure ADD. So a well rounded approach is needed, including teaching study and organization habits, goal setting and how to acheive goals, anger management issues and so on. I would look for that as well, therapy, counseling, coaching, whatever you want to call it.

Once again, I am in favor of whatever medication works only I caution that it takes an informed professional and dedicated parents who try to understand how ADD affects the brain and personality to really find answers.

Very good points, lizb :)

My 11 year old NLD/ADD daughter has benefitted greatly from adderall and prozac, just adderall for a couple years, and then added prozac for some related anxiety/depression issues. I hate it everyday that I am putting these drugs into her, but they make a big difference.

All the other responses have great advice: find a knowledgeable pediatrician or child psychiatrist who understands ADD AND related disorders. See if there is a developmental pediatrician in your area. Ask any new doc lots of questions before you take your kid there: about their experience with kids and meds, their attitude etc. I agree that some parents know more than docs about these issues. Ask the regular pediatrician if they know of any developmental pediatricians in the area, or if they can recommend a good child psychiatrist. The research (including networking with other parents) to find good specialists is really worth it. Call some child psychologists and ask them for recommendations of psychiatrists to work with you on meds.

Like any other doc, you, the parent, need to have rapport, trust, and be able to work with the professional who is treating your kid. This doc can be a tremendous source of support for you, and an integral part of the team that supports your kid.

And don’t hesitate to move on when one doc isn’t right for you or your kid any more. My daughter has seen different therapists, and when she began to sour on one we got a referral for another. I still see the prior one however, which is great, because she knows my kid and the issues I’m dealing with.

Good luck!

Dr. Amen provides a very large look at ADHD listing seven types of ADHD which in his opinion respond to different types of medicines. That approach has good educational value it seems to me.

The medicines available from Amen, M.D. are also available to other licensed physicians in the United States so whether Dr. Amen’s success rate is higher or lower than other physicians - don’t know.

One of the benefits Amen, M.D. gives is providing a very large look at ADHD.
Amen, M.D., may at times be a little overly optimistic as to how easy it really is to treat ADHD - attention deficit - long term; over the years I’ve noticed a large discrepancy between success rates as reported by clients/patients themselves and some of the extremely high medicinal success rates which are published in the general news media. An extremely high treatment success rate is great public relations/pr: it makes the pharmaceutical industry as well as doctors feel good about what they do - however - in my view it is not matched in the real world by reported success rates where those on ADHD medication say an ADHD medicine has worked well for them over the decades - decade after decade. Today I tend to believe that it is only a minority of clients/patients who really benefit long term from the ADHD medicines (short term is a different story: short term the ADHD meds can be seen as valuable diagnostic tools/aids in many cases). Perhaps the pharmaceutical industy could consider describing the ADHD meds as being only partially effective vs how they are often tend to look at all the meds as simply being safe and effective. By describing the ADHD meds as being partially effective, the disappointment which comes from seeing that the ADHD meds do not work well or in all cases would be far less that it is today where such high expectations are associated with the public relations/pr surrounding the ADHD meds. That’s my opinion.

Describing meds as being partially effective would certainly impact drug sales so it’s unlikely (my view) that there will be any major changes in how medicines are advertised in the near future.

The ADHD meds work quite well for an extremely small group of persons.

The ADHD meds do not work for everyone (unfortunately).

The right ADHD med can be a great (often temporary) blessing for the right person; the wrong medicine for the wrong person can be a horrible, expensive, time wasting, ungodly, bad experience.

That’s my observation.

And also don’t forget: the meds do not cure ADD. They help allevieate some of the symptoms. It is up to the parents and child to work on dealing with ADD in their lives and to be able to have a measure of success in school and life. This, I think is why meds work “in the short term” but not “in the long term.” People may be relying too much on medication to overcome ADD. Medication can be a great help, and I would never steer anybody away from it, but it must be taken with counseling or coaching to see long term good effects.

The numbers I’ve seen almost everywhere are that a majority of those diagnosed with ADHD will respond well to one of the available stimulants. I believe the medical literature reports approximately a 70% positive response rate. Of course, that does leave 30% who do not do well with stimulants and of course getting the right stimulant at the right dose can be extremely difficult.

Andrea

My 13 year old ADHD inattentive type is one of the none responders. He has been tried on various stimulant medications but they all just put him to sleep. They did not cause any horrible side effects just put him to sleep. The doctor was surprised by his reaction to the medications. Adderall actually put him out so bad he was difficult to arouse. After that we were unwilling to try any further medications even a different class. We have noted significant improvement in his symptoms since his LD issues have been addressed. He never had any behavior issues along with his ADHD. He is a very slow moving quiet child - I guess that is why they thought stimulants would be a good match for him. His reaction to them was the oppositte of what they thought would happen.

My 13 yr old also did not respond well to medication. Well, I should rephrase that, the teachers thought it worked wonderful. It turned him into a shy withdrawn child. It did nothing to improve his grades and made his mood worse once the medication wore off. He has outgrown his “temper tantrums”. Although, I’m not really sure, he outgrew them or he had life changes that made them improve. He is still short of attention, loses things easily and is very disorganized, but we’ll learn to deal with that. The bad side of medication wasn’t worth the benefits. He was only about 8 when I stopped the medicine, and he said, please don’t put me back on that, it makes me to shy to talk to people, and it did.
He still has lots of learning difficulties, put a pill won’t solve those, only the right teaching interventions will correct that problem. Hmmm, now how to get the school to do it is another problem. LOL

Greetings Lisa,

Our pediatrician told us that some kiddos DO sleep better on a stimulant. From what I understood, the stimulant helps to focus the ‘runaway train’ thoughts so the child calms enough to sleep. This wasn’t the case for my dd but maybe it affected your son that way. How does he normally sleep?

Blessings, momo

Yes, that number of 70% is commonly reported - however - over the years I’ve looked for persons using FDA medicines for ADHD long term - that is decade after decade after decade (same person) and I could find only one well-documented report of such a case for ADHD - inattentive type - documented by Anita Uhl Brothers, M.D., of Berkeley, California/C. Thomas Wild. There is also a case involving Dilantin as used by Jack Dreyfus which confirms the usefulness of Dilantin over decades of use by an individual. These reports of the long term usage (over decades) of FDA approved medicines are quite rare and do not match the 70% success rate which is so often mentioned. Statistically 51% of children on Ritalin gradually discontinue Ritalin within about a four year period which says something about how the ADHD meds work for many people - suggesting that the long term usage of ADHD meds by individuals (decade after decade after decade) is perhaps: ~ 35% or less (= 70% x 51%)/whatever.

That’s my understanding.

Hmm, interesting and important for parents to know. Do you have any information on why the meds are eventually discontinued? In other words, is it because of side effects, because they no longer are effective or because the person is able function successfully without them?

Andrea

Don’t forget that the understanding that ADD can continue into childhood is a relatively (last 10 - 15 years) new understanding. Many children were automatically taken of meds at puberty because it was thought they weren’t needed anymore. Also, there is such an anti-medication opinion out there that many are reluctant to take them, and use any excuse to get off them.

Look at it this way: one mother said she “hated putting these drugs into her child.” But would she hate giving her child insulin if the child was diabetic? Would she hate giving prescription migraine medications if the child suffered from migraines? I would think not. We should all be glad that there are medications to treat these illnesses. Sure, we should “hate” the fact that our children have problems. But I wouldn’t hate the medications, even if they aren’t a total cure, or perfect.

Also, for the child whom Adderall put to sleep, I remember reading about a type of ADD in which stimulants, like caffiene have no effect and meds that normally make a person drowsy such as Benadryl can actually wake them up. How does your child respond if he takes an anti-hisitime for a cold or allergy? This is an important clue. A good doctor would follow it up.

This is what bothers me. So many doctors simply shrug their shoulders rather than look more deeply into the situation. They brush off the parents attempts to discuss things or bring up problems.

I am looking for a doctor who fulfills three requirements:

1. He or she should have plenty of clinical experience treating ADD, mood disorders, anxiety disorders, depression and other related illnesses. I am looking for a doctor who has seen hundreds if not thousands of patients. I would rather have that than one who has seen maybe a dozen or so ADD patients.

There is no underestimating a doctor with clinical experience. He will be more likely to have seen patients with less common side effects to drugs and less common symptoms. That means he will not be caught off gaurd and will have a better idea of how to proceed.

2. The doctor should have professional interest in ADD. This would be a doctor who speaks informally and formally to his colleagues about the issue. A doctor who reads medical journal articles on ADD and related disorders. A doctor who attends seminars and conferences and learns all he can about ADD. Once again, this will help when the doctor is confronted with a patient who doesn’t seem to respond to meds or who has other related issues in addition to ADD.

3. Here is the hardest doctor attribute to find: He should view his patient as a human being. He should care about how the child is doing. He should take an interest. He should respect what the parents are saying and view the parents as members of the same team, trying to help a child overcome his or her problems.

I have been around too many doctors who simply brush off what I as a parent, or patient say. Some symptom or other won’t quite “fit” and instead of focussing on that, the doctor will simply ignore it, perhaps hoping it will go away. A good doctor is always in learning mode, never in “I have learned all I need to know and don’t have to listen to you” mode.

I am going to go to the local CHADD group meeting on the third Monday of this month, mainly because I want to get references for doctors who are knowledgable and specialize in ADD. I want to be able to get help for myself as I have many ADD symptoms, and so does my hubby. Two of my children are diagnosed as ADD/inattentive. I want a knowledgable person to help our family. Someone who takes the time to think things through, studies the issue. After all these are our very minds we are allowing the doctors to diagnose and prescribe!

Liz,

I agree with you about medication! Thanks God it exists and can help many kids! We didn’t get my son’s ADD diagnosed until late in high school and he had already developed depression. Unmedicated ADD or ADHD children are prime candidates for alcohol and drug abuse. I consider that getting the ADD diagnosis and medication saved my child’s life, literally. It gave him hope and the depression went away after a time.

Janis

Janis, I am so glad you got hope. Interesting, I meant to write help, and hope came out all by itself! But having an understanding of why one’s mind works in the way it does can give a person hope.

My husband and myself are undiagnosed ADD, and his brother was just diagnosed. He had been unable to hold a job. The experience to his family was awful. Now he is on meds and doing better.

I can just say this: not knowing you have ADD doesn’t make it go away. I wondered why I quit, always quit. why I was so irritable and forgetful. Now I have a better understanding, after reading about ADD. I don’t have to be like this. I feel I can get help and overcome my problems. I know many other ADD adults and they just drift through life. It is not a recipe for happiness. (Understatement of the year).

I have been both an over acheiver and (usually) an underacheiver. I can tell you that over acheiving is much better psychologically, than slacking off, quitting, or doing sloppy half baked work. I mean it: everyone has an interest, a skill or a talent. They should try to excel at that even if it isn’t academic schoolwork. They will feel much better about themselves. But ADD people often have this road block to excellence. Getting treatment for ADD can help a child or an adult overcome it and excell: they can live up to their abilities and keep their promises.

Liz, that is all so true. There are countless adults wandering around with undiagnosed ADD, depression, and/or other mental illnesses. I do think I have mild ADD-inattentive, too, but not to the point of needing meds. And people do need to understand that some of the symptoms of depression overlap with ADD. That made getting my son’s diagnosis a little tricky. Teachers just considered him lazy or not meeting his potential. I think the ADD undiagnosed contributed to him becoming depressed. But it was complicated getting the meds right when we were dealing with both ADD and the short-term problem of depression. It was hard to see if meds would work for the ADD until we got the depression straightened out. That’s why I think SO many people give up on the meds. They just dont’ have the patience and perseverance to stick with it until the right medication(s) and dosage is found. We still do not have it 100% right for our son, but he is a lot better than he was.

Janis

My doctor is adamant that you MUST get the correct diagnosis, identify the precise areas in the brain that are imbalanced, in order to get the positive effects. Sadly some parents try ritalin, for example, have a bad experience and then stop, never again to even be willing to discuss medication. Once again, my MD tells me that this is because the wrong medication was prescribed in the first place.

For a very interesting read, visit:

www.amenclinic.com

This site is maintained by a doctor and he has a link to another site. He has an online behavior rating form that you can use that will help to identify ADHD subtypes (he maintains there are 6, not just 2). With the correct diagnosis and prescription, you should not have a horror story of an experience.

MoMo, you can contact the Amen Clinic, tell them where you are and they might be able to refer you to a doctor in your area who agrees with Dr. Amen’s work and who will work with you. It is a long shot. It worked for me, however.

Dr. Amen does a pretty good job in his book of suggesting alternative supplement based therapies for the different types of ADHD, for those who prefer to travel this route.

Hi Anitya,

Thanks for the suggestion to contact the Amen Clinic for a referral but I’ve already done that. Unfortunately, the nearest doctor who has trained in Amen’s theory is about a 5hr drive from our home and to have SPECT imaging done would require a 9hr drive. That just isn’t feasible for us at this time. I have started my dd on supplementals based on Amen’s recommendations so hopefully we’ll see some benefits going this route.

Blessings, teresa

who is Dr. Amen. I am new to all this and have a son who was just diagnosed at 15. Can you send me the web site link.

thanks!

Greetings kim,

Dr. Amen is a nationally recognized expert in the treatment of ADD/ADHD. He is board-certified in child, adolescent, and adult psychiatry and licensed in nuclear brain imaging. Through the use of years-long study of brain imaging, Dr. Amen has identified six types of ADD and the appropriate treatment for each type (ritalin alone makes 4 of the 6 types worse). As previously mentioned in this thread, he is the author of Healing ADD: The Breakthrough Program that Allows You to See and Heal the 6 Types of ADD. Quite frankly, the word “healing” is a misnomer - it really is more of a treatment plan. That aside, this book contains recommendations for prescription drugs, nutraceutical therapy, cognitive reprogramming, parenting and educational strategies, and more. His website at http://www.brainplace.com contains much, but not all, of what is in this book. I would recommend reviewing his website. Also, complete the Dr. Amen checklist which will help you better understand the type(s) of ADD your son may have. This questionnaire is not meant to provide a diagnosis but it serves as a guide to get appropriate help for your son. Share this information with the person who diagnosed your son. S/he may not be familiar with Amen’s theory. Should you have additional questions, please feel free to contact me direct.

Blessings, momoMO