Do you medicate for life?

Some children outgrow ADHD symptoms, but recent studies demonstrate that most will have the symptoms for life. In kids you see more hyperactivity, in teens the hyperactivity tones down to a general restlessness and inattentive and impulsive symptoms predominate. Some kids are able to reduce or do away with the need for meds as they grow older but some are not. Most kids do not switch meds once they find one that works for them, but dosage adjustments may be necessary due to growth. Interestingly, adolescents often need a lower dose than littler children because as you grow your metabolism slows down. Some kids do seem to develop a tolerance to certain medications and do have to switch, but that is not common. As an adult, you may be able to take meds only when needed for work. My husband, who was diagnosed as an adult, does this. He says he wishes he’d started meds long ago. It would have saved him years and years of grief.

If your child is taking neuroleptics, SSRI’s or certain other medications you cannot just start and stop or even switch medications arbitrarily. There can be serious side effects to stopping suddenly, and any changes must be made over a period of time, tapering off of one and building up to dosage with another. Anytime you are working with medication you need to work closely with your dr. to ensure that the risk of unwanted adverse events is minimized.

[quote=”Dad”]If your child is taking neuroleptics, SSRI’s or certain other medications you cannot just start and stop or even switch medications arbitrarily. There can be serious side effects to stopping suddenly, and any changes must be made over a period of time, tapering off of one and building up to dosage with another. Anytime you are working with medication you need to work closely with your dr. to ensure that the risk of unwanted adverse events is minimized.[/quote]

Dad
Are you assuming the parents are arbitarily taking their children off meds and changing them without their physicians supervision? When it comes to ADHD meds, stims do not need tapering, so for most kids being treated with pharmaceuticals stopping meds is a non-issue. Stims have a short half life and therefore are well out of the body before the next days dose is given. There are no side effects to stopping stims. True, there are meds that require a therapeutic level to be reached and maintained in order to get the benefit of the med, those do need to be weaned off slowly, as in the case of SSRI’s as you mentioned. But serious side effects from tappering and discontinuing a med would be very unlikely.

As the other poster stated, meds can often be reduced and sometimes stopped all together when a child reaches puberty. Their brain changes at that age and for ADHD, it’s a positive change. Hyperactivity and impulsivity are the symptoms most often diminshed, but for some lucky ones, the inattentiveness and challenge to maintain focus can be improved. My daughter seems to have fallen in the second catagory, we are looking at decreasing or stopping her meds all together at this time. Her ADHD symptoms have not gone away, she is still very aware of them, but over time, and with treatment, the symptoms have reduced and she has also learned coping skills in order to work around them, and her symptoms were extremely significant when she was younger.

As a frequent flyer on many boards, I have read posts now and again from parents who would, yes, arbitrarily stop medicating their children. Different boards have different climates, and not all are moderated to prevent people from advocating dangerous practices.

Taking drug holidays from Ritalin or Adderall can actually be a good thing, assuming you understand and believe that even in therapeutic dosages stimulants can cause negative health effects alongside any benefitial behavioral intervention, but the same cannot be said about drugs like Risperdal (which is being used in an ever increasing number of very young children in off-label situations with zero research to back it up. Sudden changes in dosing with Riserdal can induce severe convulsions and depending upon the level prescribed that is interrupted can even cause death.

Let us recall too, that not all medical professionals really know what they are doing, despite their fancy titles and our desire to believe in them. Were they truly omnipotent they would never fear the pack of slavering attourneys nipping at their heels, yes? And even some drs. and psychiatrists who SHOULD know better make pharmaceutical errors (to put that into context, the DEA stats show approx 45,000 people die each year as a direct result of illegal drugs, but according to the Federal records on prescription medication nearly 450,000 die from pharmacological errors by drs. pharmacists and hospitals…)

While a great many parents of children with ADHD primarily use stimulants, some children who are on Ritalin will also be prescribed other medication to counter common side effects of stimulants. Any changes in mediation need to be done while working closely with knowlegable medical professionals, and not based upon something someone read somewhere on the net.

Bottom line, we parents are NOT for the most part drs. or medical researchers, we are very often under a great deal of pressure to mediacte out children into compliance (from the schools for instance) and at the same time we may be bombarded with information, some true and some false about the dangers of using medication. My interest is in cautioning people to be certain to look before they leap in this matter.

Dad
I can see that you have done a lot of reading. I am not going to get into a debate over some of your claims, which I feel, while true, have been taken out of context. I’m just a bit confused with the flow of this thread. You intially asked if ADHDer’s change meds, go off meds, or take them for life. It would seem that it has taken on a new life. Yes, parents should not decide to arbitarily take their children off meds, but I don’t understand how we jumped to that.

Actually Roxie, I was not the one who asked this question at all, “Guest” did. There was no mention in the original question or first reply (ironically also by “Guest”) about the specific type of medication in question. Since there are many children with ADHD who take medications besides stimulants, including anti-depressants, anti-convulsants and anti-psychotics to control behaviors not handled by stimulants (and in some cases brought on by the primary stimulant medication) I thought it would be appropriate to mention that medications of this kind need to be tapered off gradually. If you look at the original post, I think you will see that my roiginal reply was indeed in context.

Dad,
I appologize, I was wrong regarding the identity of the original poster.

No big deal ;)

Keep up the good work!

Do you medicate for life?

Unfortunately, in some cases, yes, you do.

http://www.ritalindeath.com

Many of our attention spans improve as we grow older. But what’s even more true is that school ends and that life is not school. In life we don’t have to sit in straight rows and all do the same thing at the same time. People with ADD/ADHD can find jobs that work for their shorter attention spans. I know I did.

I teach. I teach middle school and my attention span gets the breaks it needs. I don’t sit at a desk all day every day - I couldn’t do that. I can and do get up and walk around the room - I teach several periods in a row and then I have a period off where I can restore my attention span with that break. If I had had a good attention span - or maybe if I took medication to help me with my bad one - maybe I’d be a filing clerk or a bank manager or a stock broker or whatever but as it is my work suits my attention span issues perfectly well. Don’t call on me for highly detailed sit still diamond polishing but do call on me if you need high energy short attention span middle schoolers taught. I plan lessons and classes which are inviting of my attention and theirs.

As a parent of an ADD child, I took that child off medication in his elementary school years. While he clearly still had a shorter attention than most others his age, after some years on medication, he was doing well in school and was comfortable in his life. If he had ‘crashed’ off medication, likely we would have put him back on it but by that point he was able to recognize that he was easily distracted and to call himself back to task. He had gained a tremendous amount of self-confidence in his abilities while being helped by his medication and was able to manage life - and school - without it.

In other words, I don’t think being on medication necessarily to a lifetime of it.

[quote=”Brian”]Do you medicate for life?

Unfortunately, in some cases, yes, you do.

http://www.ritalindeath.com[/quote]

Brian

“ADHD Eds and Meds” at http://millermom.proboards23.com/index.cgi
is one of the best new sites for information on these two topics. You and the math program you are peddling obviously stand something to lose by good info sharing. You and the hostility you consistantly display used to be very amusing to most of us, too big and confident to reply to your rubbish. But Now its old and annoying.

FYI ; The very tactics you use to try and hurt knowledgable parents wanting to help others is actually driving people to them and away from you and your agenda. So keep it up. Millermom, Mayleng, Edumom and all the members that gather there to share information and help one another, they all appreciate the free publicity you give them here. You have helped many people who need thier help find them. You have kept the many people who are living happily ever after (educationally and symptom wise) not waste their time by going there. These are people blessed with children who do not need medication. I’m sure thats fine by the girls over there. They have thier hands full over there and do all of this in their spare time. It used to be nice that we (medders and nonmedders) could exist together on a board, helping each other, tapping into each others resources, but that has changed, thanks you. All the same, when a nonmedder decides there is a time to try meds, they now know where to go, thanks to you.

Anyone feeling they way you do, isn’t going to frequent that site. Another thing we have to thank you for. It is clear that the Site is for parents who have already chosen to medicate. The parents there already heard all the BALLony. And have decided that their kids are better on meds than off. They just want the dirt now to pull it all together.

Onto your embarresingly ignorant accusations;
1. The members at that site are not doing anything illegal (though I wonder if you are, copying and pasting their communications here).
2. They are helping parents learn about ADHD,
3. Helping them use the internet by refering them to resources and websites they may never have found on their own.
4. They are helping parents who are intimidated by their doctors learn to deal with them.
5. They are helping them pull thier questions together and figure out what they should aks the professionals.
6. Giving them directions to go in
7. Giving them things to consider they didn’t know where things they should be considering, thanks to people like you who hide and twist and ruin good information.
8. Giving them options people like you keep them from knowing they had.
9. Giving them the intellegence to know, a website about math doesn’t fix ADHD
10. Offering them commonality in the trials and tribulations of finding the right treatment. All the while, protecting them from people like you.
11. Helping them believe that parents are the best doctors for thier kids.
12. Through all of the above, they are helping parents take charge and stay in control of thier childs treatment. There is no arguing over the existance of ADHD, there is no false info and studies about meds allowed on the board. Your agenda is not welcome there. I’m sure that hurts, but thats their perogative, and you have done that to yourself with your closedminded extremism.

I have read a lot from Millermom, Mayleng and Edumom. They know the scoop on the poop. When they don’t know it, they ask a lot of questions and do some darn good deducing. Or they send you somewhere you can get the scoop on the poop.

Never once have I heard or read of them trying to persuade parents to make the decision to use medication. Unlike you, they recognize the personalness of this decision and respect a parents right to draw their own conclusions. They encourage others to tell their story of how meds helped and in those stories are plenty of tales of how meds hurt. You get the truth. There is no censorship going on. You get the good and the bad and the encouragement to keep on going, to keep searching for the answer for your childs particular case. Only the truth about medication. You clearly have a problem with truth. The only censorship I have ever seen at that board is YOU! I applaude the site for keeping its boards free of lies and twisted studies and posts cleverly designed to make parents feel bad. The women running that site do the best job of this I have ever seen on any forum. They do it with style and class and it makes me proud to know them and be part of their network. One more thing to bring them the fame and recognition they deserve.

So, I personally thank you, Ball. If it weren’t for you, http://millermom.proboards23.com/index.cgi might never have come to be the great supportibve site it is today.

Hugs!

MommySalami!

MommySalami,

Please, when you get back to your educational message board, please point your concerned parents to ALL sources of information on “ADHD”, and not just those sponspored by or supporting the myths of, Novartis and other drug companies.

http://www.ritalindeath.com

If you have nothing to hide, why shy away from debate and/or alternative-to-medication views using the flimsy excuse of “Having already made the decision”. The “decision” should be made having informed consent not just frayed nerves and a selfish attitude.

Your decision means nothing unless it is based on all available facts. Since there exist NO scientific facts to back up your “decision”, it is obviously NOT a “decision” but a “choice”. I grant that it’s your choice to make but I believe that the consequences of choices made should rest at the door of the ones who made them. I am confident that some of your board’s posters now have doubts. Whether those doubts will give birth to a less selfish and more responsible attitude towards dpoing a child to keep it quiet, remains to be seen.

After reading this, please vist MommySalami and the other “feelgood” moms at:

http://millermom.proboards23.com

“A ‘safe haven’ for those who have made the decision to medicate.”