question of misdiagnosis

Nooooooooo, I’ve never been misdiagnoised but that might be because I have never been dianoised at all!

Anyway, this thread might be helpful. Its 50 conditions that present like ADHD.

http://millermom.proboards23.com/index.cgi?board=comorbids&action=display&thread=1108914949

You are wise to check this out.

I work as a private tutor, and many students come to me after being called “dyslexic” and/or ADD and/or ADHD. These are not proper diagnoses, just undereducated and overstressed school personnel trying to find a pigeonhole to shove a difficult student into; almost always these terms are wrongly applied.
Then on the other hand I meet a LOT of others, especially the young men that I rent rooms to, who have every possible symptom of ADD but have never been diagnosed. Undiagnosed ADD is likely to be over-represented among transient young men, or else I attract them like flies because of my anti-stress lifestyle, or both.

And yes, an awful lot of other things can look like ADD, varying from hearing problems to sleep deprivation to thyroid conditions to allergies to overweight and pre-diabetes to post-traumatic stress disorder, so you are right to investigate.

So I do agree that ADD is often misdiagnosed, both false positives and false negatives. I also always recommend extreme caution in second-guessing diagnoses; go and see a real specialist who has no axe to grind; and just because someone doesn’t like a particular diagnosis that doesn;t mean it’s wrong — try to be realistic, inform yourself, and see what really matches and what doesn’t.

[quote:27ce9d20de=”victoria”]I work as a private tutor, and many students come to me after being called “dyslexic” and/or ADD and/or ADHD. These are not proper diagnoses, just undereducated and overstressed school personnel trying to find a pigeonhole to shove a difficult student into; almost always these terms are wrongly applied.
Then on the other hand I meet a LOT of others, especially the young men that I rent rooms to, who have every possible symptom of ADD but have never been diagnosed. Undiagnosed ADD is likely to be over-represented among transient young men, or else I attract them like flies because of my anti-stress lifestyle, or both.

And yes, an awful lot of other things can look like ADD, varying from hearing problems to sleep deprivation to thyroid conditions to allergies to overweight and pre-diabetes to post-traumatic stress disorder, so you are right to investigate.

So I do agree that ADD is often misdiagnosed, both false positives and false negatives. I also always recommend extreme caution in second-guessing diagnoses; go and see a real specialist who has no axe to grind; and just because someone doesn’t like a particular diagnosis that doesn;t mean it’s wrong — try to be realistic, inform yourself, and see what really matches and what doesn’t.[/quote]

Victoria, you have 2 abilities that are so lacking in the so called professionals.

1. You can see the forest for the trees.

2. You tell it like it is.

It’s refreshing!