mood swings in 8 yr old on strattera

I would definitely talk with the doctor about the mood swings. Even though the medication may be helping her attention it can also cause severe depression and/or aggression in some people. This can become serious if it goes on too long.

I am walking a thin line here between wanting to give this stuff time to work and listening to my gut, and your reply tells me to listen to my gut. The mood swings have been getting a little more noticeable every day; I’m declaring this experiment over.

My older daughter started out on Concerta, but it seemed to turn her into an ultra-serious zombie. Her spark was gone, and I called a halt to that, too. The second thing (combination of Lexapro and Focalin) worked well. So I guess we’re on to Plan B this time as well. I’d welcome hearing from you or anybody for whom Strattera seemed to have bad side effects, for at least some anecdotal evidence on what DID work.

Oooh My gut says your expert is an idiot. It is time to get a new one. Strattera has been linked to a number of child suicides and teen suicides and stuff.

There is code speak in the industry of LD doctors and anyone who says otherwise is a liar. “Try this it might be good…. If it isn’t after this length of time we can revisit the matter and try something else” This means,your expert the one you are entrusting the welfare of your child’s brain (for which there is as of yet no proven organic difference if she is diagnosed as ADHD) either in chemical makeup or any other aspect of brain or it’s functioning. This is a text book example in my opinion of medical abuse of a child. Not that the parent is at fault but the therapist IS. This means the therapist is doing the drug company’s testing for it. ON YOUR CHILD WITHOUT YOUR CONSENT OR FULL KNOWLEDGE OF WHAT THE HELL THEY ARE DOING. Which is largely the reason why it has to be tried for such and such a length of time. Otherwise doctor does NOT make anything off the drug company for testing it’s trial phase drug on your kid. Before you ask they have lobby groups YES this is COMMON and LEGAL! Which is why it is soooo terrifying to me.

If your gut says the medicine isn’t helping and the shrink says a specific time length time is up for that shrink time to switch to a shrink that will put not messing your kid up (FIRST DO NO HARM) before making money off the drug companies.

Can i advise you to go check out another online group, please be aware they are a pretty hard core anti med group, but they are up on all matters pertaining to the issue and what can it hurt to get an alternative perspective from people who keep very close track of medicines and their side effects? Which is why this group is anti med. And then ofcourse, do what your gut tells you is the best thing for your children medicaate or don’t. ablechild.org. Please check them out and see what they can tell you about strattera. I wouldn’t trust anything anyone says except a watchdog group when it comes to my kids, if i had any. Because the littlest negative side effect is 1 little 1 too many and as a parent it would be my duty to protect my child.

The cotton industry of LD has forgotten since the creation of ADHD in 1980 that those of us with LD are not guinea pigs for their science experiments in order to make themselves and the pharmaceutical companies wealthy. I am sick of having these people screwing up kid’s brains and their brain chemistrys making a profit with a cap on the amount the parents can sue for in cases of death by perscribed drug. There is 0 responsibility these people need to be held accountable and it is up to parents to protect their kids and to hold them accountable. If your gut says strattera isn’t helping, and the doctor wants to keep her on it 1 day longer you tell the son of a bitch he is fired and that you are telling his name to every other LD parent you meet that he is out for his own personal financial agenda and that his interests have nothing to do with helping the children he sees because they don’t.

Another thing, my doctor tried me on Lexepro, it didn’t work, BUT the reasoning was legit. Because it worked well for my sister. And we are biologically related and share a similar gene set so the logic it would work for us both was totally scientifically legit. However, today i am on something else, something quite closely related to you got it, Lexepro! If your doctor didn’t start there then your doctor has an agenda that doesn’t include the benefits of your child but only his own personal finances.

Good luck.

My 10-year old son tried Ritalin, Adderall, Vyvanse, and then Strattera. Unfortunately the side effects with the stimulant medications caused weight loss and sleeplessness. He also had crying spells and major mood swings on most of them. The Strattera didn’t seem to affect him as much with side effects but we didn’t see any improvement with focusing, so we just quit all ADD medications. He does take meds for depression and that seems to help some but doesn’t do anything for his focusing at school. My husband takes Strattera and although he doesn’t seem to think so, I believe he is a little more irritable when taking Strattera than when he is not. I think you should follow your instincts and keep researching all avenues. Good luck.

I don’t have as harsh a view as that, though I am plenty cautious when it comes to these drugs. In this case the doc who prescribed the Strattera is a pediatrician (and a trusted one); I consulted him instead of my older daughter’s shrink because the shrink had a two-month waiting period before he could fit my younger daughter in and things in school weren’t good. We still have the appt w/ the shrink and the pediatrician is aware of this; his POV was that we should try Strattera because it does often give good results; if it didn’t, then that was information we could take to the shrink when we saw him. I am under no illusions about Big Pharma but I do think most doctors out there are trying to do the best they can with what info they have…unfortunately, we are all cooking without a recipe book here—a fact I know well from my own 20-year experience with various antidepressants. But that also gives me the confidence to say that my own gut feeling is as good as the PDA when it comes to THIS med and MY child.

tracy, when my son was in JH we tried Strattera at the suggestion of our pediatrician. Even though the Adderall XR he was taking worked pretty good for him in school he had a lot of difficulty going to sleep at night. On Strattera we discovered that he had no impulse control and increasing the dosage didn’t help either. The teachers started complaining of him talking in class so we called it quits. He is currently on Focalin XR which seems to be working fairly well, with no sleep issues.
[Modified by: majorv on January 25, 2009 06:02 PM]

I think we all need to remember that medicating for any brain disorder - depression, ADHD, bipolar, anxiety, whatever - is NOT an exact science. Each person reacts differently to the various medications available and the doctors do the best they can to match the person and medication. In some cases that is harder than in others.

Listen to your gut, Tracy. It sounds like you are right on track.

Not an exact science? No it is pseudo science as the disorder atleast ADHD has not even been proven to exist and to be based on anything organic in nature. Infact evidence supports the adhd brain is no different than that of the normal brain. Therefore, on what basis on what planet does it make sense to try to alter the brain chemistry to treat a defect with no organic chemical or otherwise detectable root?

It makes as much sense to give an “adhd” child penicilin for the uhhh “disorder” as it does to give them a psychotropic drug, scientifically.

Actually, Mandi, you CAN see differences in an ADHD brain on a PET scan; exactly what those differences mean is a subject of continuing inquiry. Before the advent of modern brain imaging, however, there was a long list of psychiatric illnesses which most definitely did exist even though nobody had a mug shot of what they looked like. In any event I am not interested in winning a debate with you; I’m interested in helping my child.

Uhhuh, i am sure you believe that, however, i am quite certain that that is simply NOT in truth the case as we will eventually see.

The reason why, is because NIMH has stated, for the record, that no proof exists, and it is listed in the big book of happy psych problems as something known as a disorder rather than a disease. It’s status as such has NOT in fact changed. So though they MAY be doing tests with the pet scan and may be (as usual) claimin g success with them, the fact remains they are probably (as usual) doing a dirty test. Until ADHD is formally declared a disease, it will remain a fact that though such tests are being done and though people may believe these things are true about it that NOTHING WILL HAVE BEEN CONCLUSIVELY PROVEN. So until that day, no conclusive proof can possibly exist. Because if it did, as i have already stated, the status od LD would change from a disorder to a disease. And then, it would be scientifically findable and measurable as it actually is *not* today. If you do not believe me i advise you to look into the statements and writings of a Dr. Breggin among others.

I would like to help your child too. Because i know the road that your child will walk. I know it extremely well. And i have spent many many many years on it. And i am trying to offer some other perspectives, maybe not the easiest one to hear. Maybe one day they will prove it is real. When that day comes (if) it comes i will be happy to accept concrete hard proof that is scientifically vallid and measurable. Till then i will remain a skeptic.

Part of why i discuss this, is so parents understand what happens to those of us who are labeled. You all need to understand some very crucial things that the shrinks can not tell you about and that your own child may not as she is young yet have a vocabulary to express to you. Labels are not helpful. They change people from people into things…. Kind of like black people don’t like the N word with good reason or jewish people dislike being called certain things etc… There is a nasty negative connotation to the term ADHD in our society and by attaching that label to your child, no matter how good your intent may be, and i am sure your intent is nothing but the best and to help your child…. Sometimes (most of the time) labeling a child is a very poor idea. Finding out how their mind works good idea. Catering to that, good idea…. But diagnosing it based on a subjective analysis of alledged exhibited behaviors…. Yeh… bad idea…. Not scientific anyway. And the label you have put on your child *WILL* follow her for life. It will change how other people perceive her and probably how she perceives herself.

If i were a parent, i would also want far more concrete evidence before i put drugs into my kid’s system to treat something of this nature, but that is just me. You know your child i don’t. But as a victim of this as i lovingly refer to it, “cotton industry” i am here hoping to give parents some tough questions to ask themselves and some things to really stop and consider before making a decision that may or may not be (however well intended) the best thing for their child.

So much of one’s childhood and even human identity wind up forgotten and soon all that far too often remains of us is the label and no one looks for anything else with which to define us. We cease being people to society. Before you do something with the potential to do that and before you start experimenting on your *CHILD* with psychotropic drugs, please, take a moment to bear in mind and to consider, that the effects of these drugs are not well known or really known at all. Also please keep in mind the brain is developing into the mid 20s. Why should brain development not vary a bit person to person? Even less is known about what these drugs do to the developing brain. I am only trying to help your child too.

[quote=tracy] I’d welcome hearing from you or anybody for whom Strattera seemed to have bad side effects, for at least some anecdotal evidence on what DID work.[/quote]

scifinut, I agree with what you’re saying. I know the same med can affect each child differently. However, tracy asked specifically for others’ experiences with Strattera so I gave her mine. Lack of impulse control doesn’t sound all that bad, but he was suspended from school for 3 days as a direct result of this lack of impulse control, so for us it was bad.
[Modified by: majorv on January 26, 2009 06:52 PM]

There is something every parent needs to know about doctors and allopathic medicine. Both often end up doing more harm than good. Iatrogenesis or death by doctors is the third leading cause of preventable death in the US behind obesity and smoking. Doctor mistakes kill 130,000 people a year and medical errors over all kill 1/4 million Americans each year.

You are trusting the health of your kids to a medical doctor. I would take my chances with disease. There are many theories on what causes ADHD. It probably is caused by MBD as a result of mercury poisoning from vaccines. Other times other disorders mimic ADHD such as food allergies and bad parenting.

From an article:

[i]12-yearr-old son committed suicide while on Strattera

Adrian David Wade was born on November 09, 1991

My 12-year-old son committed suicide on October 23, 2004. He was on 60mgs of Strattera daily. He was on it less then 4 months. His dx’s were ADHD, ODD, and R/O Bi-Polar 1.

I only want to warn parents about what I have learned since then about this wonder drug Strattera. Strattera is a FAILED antidepressant.

It is an SNRI the same class of drugs as Effexor which to the best of my understanding is in the antidepressant category. However, Strattera is not classed as an antidepressant?

If your child is already on Strattera watch them CLOSELY! I even thought this drug was so wonderful I had put my youngest child also on it. Two days later my 12 yr old son was dead. My son’s suicide came out of the blue. He did not show any of typical signs of depression if any at all. Get informed![/i]

[i]It has been proven that antidepressants can cause children to have suicidal thoughts and some children will follow through with their thoughts.

Adrian will always be in our hearts. He will be greatly missed and loved by both his family and all his friends.[/i]
http://www.ritalindeath.com/Strattera-Suicide.htm

Doctors are very reckless in the way the hand out these potentially lethal drugs like candy. REAL testing needs to be done before kids are put on these very very dangerous concoctions. Have them tested for heavy metal poisons and other environmental toxins. I would trust a crack dealer with AIDS more than an MD but that’s just me and I know the score. Primum non nocere translation First do no harm is not in the Hippocratic oath but it should be. Your little angel is being harmed. My best friend’s son had an alphabet soup of dx. They were advised to put the boy on drugs. They refused. This kid was combative and aggressive but as he got older he quickly learned that bad behavior had consequences. He got his fair share of ass kickings. Today he owns a very successful advertising agency and is worth well over a million dollars.

Here is the point to all this. The curse this kid was born with became a blessing when he was an adult. His father was not afraid to discipline him when he got out of line. As a result he can focus like a laser beam and stay on task. He has a tireless work ethic and a successful marriage. If he had been drugged he would be a druggie today. These meds turn kids into druggies. I know what the drug company propaganda says but truth be these meds are creating a nation of junkies.

Parenting is damn tough but you have to do it. Kids can be a pain in the ass. Special needs kids can be even more demanding. This is not about you. It is about them and their future. The will be adults much longer than they are kids. Parent them right. You owe it to them.
[Modified by: Testaclese on January 27, 2009 04:00 PM]

tracy, you will find more supportive advice and members at http://millermom.proboards107.com/index.cgi

As a victim of over medicating…. I want to thank you testaclese.

Ritalin almost caused me to kill othersw. Anti depresants nearly caused me to harm myself. I am not a threatening person by nature. I am a kind and caring person out for the betterment of the world for all people.

People don’t realize the dangers of these drugs… They turn to these experts…. As if they were gurus…. In the early 80s i was first diagnosed before it was technically even a diagnosis. By a the most renowned neurologist perhaps int he world at Boston’s Children’s Hospital. He stated, for the record on paper in my file i would be one of 5% of children who reacted extremely badly to medication. My mother fought like hell to keep me off that garbage. And when i was 14, she finally broke down. She had a moment of weakness. I had started a school specifically for kids with LD in Sudbury MA. A Willow Hill. The doctor there, now probably one of the most leading voices on ADHD, read my file where the earlier doctor stated for the record “Due to other neurological issues including essential tremor, and due to the type of ADD (this was before ADD had been dissolved in favor of us all being declared hyper active even if we weren’t) It is medically both irrational and illegitimate to put this child on ritalin at any time in the course of her childhood. The response will be bad due to the chemical makeup of her brain as well as the irritation it will cause to her essential tremor. I would warn any future doctors to never prescribe such a drug or one of a similar nature.” So quoth my medical records from 1984 given to my shrink in 1994. He read them. My mother and i highlighted that portion for him. He didn’t give a damn. And what do you know? It took less than 30 minutes into my first visit to get a prescription for a drug he was WELL AWARE i was NOT to be prescribed for a number of different reasons.

These drugs have side effects. Ritalin, causes me severe anxiety. I was 110 pounds when they put me on it. 2 weeks later when they took me off it because i broke down and i said i was having very violent thoughts, (which i never had before) I weighed less than 95 pounds. I was 5 feet 2 inches tall. Body weight index says about 120 would have been my proper weight.

These experts, they are NOT gods. They are just human beings and many of them, are making a HUGE amount of money off the drug companies and speaking engagements etc and those of us who were studied, who had our humanity taken away by these…. monsters in white coats, who have payed for the information they are gathering in blood sweat and tears for 20 years are still being denied answers unless we pay $200 a seat to hear them speak. While they hype the drugs they tested on me to other doctors and terrorize other parents exactly the way they did mine when no further information that is conclusive in anyway has come from 20 years of my pain and suffering. Then they stand there, and they call themselves experts?! Experts of what?! Medeival torture on defenseless children??? Experts on what??? I really wanna know. Because all i see are a bunch of frauds and liars making a fortune off of lulling societies paranoia to the detriment of thousands of children. I am not the only casuality. And i will not stop fighting for those in the future who will be victimized by the expertise of these current witch hunters in white robes.

I am not alone on this suspicion of the drug companies. I would like to mention a group that provides awareness such as Wildcolts or ablechild. I recommend that to be fair and to be accurate in how one allows one’s child to be treated one must have a clear view of both sides of the issue especially the one on medication. We hear the version spouted by Chadd the PC bs everywhere Ritalin is the holy stinking grail bla bla bla… But isn’t it only fair to our children to also listen to the other side of the argument? Isn’t it only good parenting and careful parenting to keep our eyes and ears open? I am sure neither side of the debate has the full and complete accurate perspective. Both sides are agenda driven. This is a fact. The truth, probably falls somewhere in the middle, but where? Unless you keep up with both sides, how can you know?

I am not a conspiracy theorist. That is not part of my nature. I don’t believe in alien abductions my name is not Fox Mulder. But, if the shoe fits…. And if the evidence quietly coming to light indicates something, i am not going to turn and look in the other direction either. I am going to call it as i see it. And I am not allone. Even members of congress are having issues and are tracing the money that is going from the drug companies to the doctors. How much is actually being reported verses how much is being actually payed out….. The differences and the ammounts are…. Staggering… So when it comes to calling fowl! I am not ashamed. I am proud.

These experts, are experts in one thing, taking blood money from drug companies. I hope a few of you out there who are experts read this post and i hope you can’t sleep tonight. What’s more, i hope you are giving alot of that blood money to some good charities because that is my blood. When i was a little girl about 8, i went in for the testing yet again. It was never enough every year atleast once i went through the whole damn song and dance so some other idiots could write papers on me like i was a trained monkey instead of a human child. I asked that time, a dark haired woman ina white coat…. “why do i have to do this?” And she said to me, “So we will understand you and other children like you in the future and so we can help them and not put them through all this suffering.” All these years later…. They are still doing it shamelessly to other children just like me and nothing has changed. But i am here and i am watching. I have seen people destroyed by these medications. I have seen previously healthy children wind up with tourretts syndrome for the vast most part that never went away even after the drugs were stopped. Ritalin. I have seen kids color fade from their faces. I have watched them hit the ground because their hearts have stopped working and later the medical examiner ruled it was a result of… ritalin. I have watched them lie there taking their last breaths trying to call for their mothers. I have seen them go into…. states of deep delusion believing they saw things that werent there with no history of that sort of a pronblem…. I have watched them lose so much weight they had to be hospitalized for weightloss. I have watched them gain so much weight they have developed heart conditions. Little kids…. Many of them not even into their teens. And i have stood there and i have cried for every single one of them who sufffered, victims of the experts and their medicine happy ideology. Chadd is as much to blame as the rest because Chadd actually takes large sums of money from the manufacturers of ritalin. This is killing people. it is destroying lives. Ronbbing children of their childhood. Destroying their very humanity in the eyes of society… causing death and wreaking havoc, and yes, in some cases it is doing some good too. But the easiness with which drugs are prescibed the trails presently left in blood and money are so disturbing and disgusting that itt is time for some new method that is significantly more…. Hmmm less drug oriented in it’s aproach to be used and created. I don’t want another 13 year old girl to stand there helpless, just like me, and watch one of her closest friends drop dead courtesy of ritalin. I don’t want that 13 year old girl to be any of your children i don’t want her to be anyone’s child. I don’t want her to exist. But it is bad enough because she already exists, and she will exist as long as i do. And i don’t think the world needs another me. One is bad enough. But at the rate the experts are going… soon there will be hundreds…. Where are the checks and balances int his system? These aren’t experts these are organized legally sanctioned drug pushers and they are killing children. I have watched them die.

Hi,

The purpose of my posting isn’t to start a flame war or to get into a debate with anyone. It is simply to offer the experience of an adult with LD who initially swore by psych meds but who now feels they destroyed my life which includes worsening of LD issues and a hearing loss. I was on 3 antidepressants and a stimulant which I am slowly tapering off of. I am down to 1 med.

I do understand the desperation and the compulsion to do something immediately. But it just seems that no one is thinking down the road as to what these meds can do over time. Don’t think the side effects are rare as it is estimated that only 1 to 10% of all adverse side effects are ever reported to the FDA,

People who are complaining about these meds are not anti psych med zealots or scientologists. The owner of the Furious Seasons blog, finally connected his back pain to the Seroquel he took in 2005. He didn’t want to make that claim until he was absolutely sure there was a connection.

Unfortunately, trying to find alternatives that work is like finding a needle in a haystack even though I am convinced that the right supplements do work. The problem is when you go to alternative doctors, they do the same thing as mainstream folks by sticking to boilerplate theories instead of trying to really think about what will help an individual.

But your child’s life and future depend on you not giving up.

Finally, I want to address the people who say that my kid would be dead without psych meds. Well, it is only through the daily use of CBT that I don’t go down the path that leads to suicidal ideation. If I let myself think about what these meds have done to my life, it would not be a pretty so I don’t go there. I am actually starting to tear up as I write this paragraph.

By the way, I am fine and not in danger so no one get alarmed. I am just trying to point out that it is only because of my excellent coping mechanisms that I have prevented getting seriously depressed over what these meds have done to me.

I just don’t want anyone to suffer like I have and plead with parents to reconsider what they are doing. I realize in some cases, you might not have any choice.

But please don’t allow what should have been a 6 month to a year on meds to turn into a lifetime. That is happening way too often and it breaks my heart.

PT1

Thank you for telling your experience. I wasn’t trying to say in every case drugging is wrong. It isn’t always wrong. But when the mains tream popular solution is drugging for a mental defect they can’t even prove with organic evidence exists while some corporation is getting fat on profits, something is really a mess with the methodology and the amounts being doled out and the amount of people it is being doled out to.

I have also taken drugs which i would have died without. When i have strep throat, i take penicilin. But there is an organically based test for that. It isn’t just some doctor watching my behavior do i act like i have strep? well who decides and what if they are not parents??? So much of this stuff is based on the opinion of where children should be by their age but if noo one has stopped and looked lately, kids are being robbed of their childhoods. On one hand we fight to keep them young and innocent and on the other hand we medicate them to behave properly and maturely in their torture classes in school…. Maybe some kids are just more confused by societies mixed messages than others? I dont know.

And i agree, when we stop looking for the solution we are failures. We must find the solution for every child. I think though that where we start our search for those answers would be safer elsewhere and perhaps a last resort might be in many more cases to reach for the pills instead of starting there. There are 2 sides to the issue of drugs and of kids taking these drugs. But far too often the drugs are hyped and sold and the parents and children terrorized into taking them. Some of these drugs even kill a percentage of patients taking them. This decision to medicate it isn’t a light decision you are messing with someone’s brain in every conceivable way and there is so much still unkown abnout the brain. I have no objection to adults taking drugs. I takke something myself on days when i need it to be more functional. But as an adult with a fully developed brain, atleast my brain is done developing…. Atleast what i put in there now has a reaction that actually makes seense because my brain is fully developed and the chemistry is working as it should accept for the things for which i am medicating. But in children, their brain chemistry and their brains and how it functions is still in a state of flux. You can’t medicate a child into being an adult, only into being a zombie. Or worse like a friend of mine when i was 13, dead.

Drugs have side effects. many of them and especially in children because of the brains developing these side effects are much harder to pin point and control and predict etc…. Aduults making a choice to medicate themselves is 1 thing. Adults choosing based on fear and some societal standard for where their kid should be with no organic proof of anything and with the terrifying voices of the experts whispering in their ears medicating their child is another thing. Getting an A in math, and dieing of a fatal disease is not the same. Taking a drug for both seems rediculous. Especially when no incontrovertible proof exists that says anyone not getting an A has a terminal illness or is brain dead. Which is why this fad of medicating and testing 1 drug after another after another on the brains of young children seems like…. Such a Hitler experiment on jews to me. Make no mistake it is cruelty in many many cases. And in many many cases mark my words now, stuff will come out in the future. Truths will come to the surface and people will learn they destroyed their own children so the drug companies could make a proffit. Some of these truths are already coming to light in some cases and in some places. But most here don’t know that. Most here choose to believe and to trust in the terrorists making a fortune off of this scam. Well some day each and every one of you will have to answer to your children. I send my mother and my father the stories i find from journals and online journalists etc on the bad effects of every drug they ever tested me on. I also mail each one to every “expert” that i have ever been to so that they can not say they didn’t receive the information. I do this on behalf of every child in this world who might someday walk through their door. And one day, it will be the child of a friend. And i will hear about it. And i will have the great pleasurre of destroying some expert or other when something bad happens to that friend’s child due to the drugs the expert pumped into their system after receiving the articles from me. Because i keep records. I have watched drugs destroy too many children, and nearly me, i can not sit by and do nothing. So please please please don’t just listen to the experts when you medicate. Listen to the oppposite side of the argument a good deal and learn from that side also and then, maybe try other things first and when all else has failed and has been tried for quite a length of time, *then* start testing with the drugs.

The only over looked bad parent in the world is the parent who allows themselves to be governed by fear and made someone’s bitch to the detriment of their child.

Hi Mandi,

I think I am pretty hard core antidrugging generally although I understand there are exceptions such as yours.

I have relatives who died in her nineties in spite of smoking for years. Obviously, I can’t prove it but I think one reason she lived so long was that she took more drugs in her last few years of life than she did the whole time she was alive.

I am so sorry about your friend. Heck, a relative died last year routinely and I am having a hard time dealing with that. I can’t imagine what your pain must be like.

PT1

[quote=Mandi]Thank you for telling your experience. I wasn’t trying to say in every case drugging is wrong. It isn’t always wrong. But when the mains tream popular solution is drugging for a mental defect they can’t even prove with organic evidence exists while some corporation is getting fat on profits, something is really a mess with the methodology and the amounts being doled out and the amount of people it is being doled out to.

I have also taken drugs which i would have died without. When i have strep throat, i take penicilin. But there is an organically based test for that. It isn’t just some doctor watching my behavior do i act like i have strep? well who decides and what if they are not parents??? So much of this stuff is based on the opinion of where children should be by their age but if noo one has stopped and looked lately, kids are being robbed of their childhoods. On one hand we fight to keep them young and innocent and on the other hand we medicate them to behave properly and maturely in their torture classes in school…. Maybe some kids are just more confused by societies mixed messages than others? I dont know.

And i agree, when we stop looking for the solution we are failures. We must find the solution for every child. I think though that where we start our search for those answers would be safer elsewhere and perhaps a last resort might be in many more cases to reach for the pills instead of starting there. There are 2 sides to the issue of drugs and of kids taking these drugs. But far too often the drugs are hyped and sold and the parents and children terrorized into taking them. Some of these drugs even kill a percentage of patients taking them. This decision to medicate it isn’t a light decision you are messing with someone’s brain in every conceivable way and there is so much still unkown abnout the brain. I have no objection to adults taking drugs. I takke something myself on days when i need it to be more functional. But as an adult with a fully developed brain, atleast my brain is done developing…. Atleast what i put in there now has a reaction that actually makes seense because my brain is fully developed and the chemistry is working as it should accept for the things for which i am medicating. But in children, their brain chemistry and their brains and how it functions is still in a state of flux. You can’t medicate a child into being an adult, only into being a zombie. Or worse like a friend of mine when i was 13, dead.

Drugs have side effects. many of them and especially in children because of the brains developing these side effects are much harder to pin point and control and predict etc…. Aduults making a choice to medicate themselves is 1 thing. Adults choosing based on fear and some societal standard for where their kid should be with no organic proof of anything and with the terrifying voices of the experts whispering in their ears medicating their child is another thing. Getting an A in math, and dieing of a fatal disease is not the same. Taking a drug for both seems rediculous. Especially when no incontrovertible proof exists that says anyone not getting an A has a terminal illness or is brain dead. Which is why this fad of medicating and testing 1 drug after another after another on the brains of young children seems like…. Such a Hitler experiment on jews to me. Make no mistake it is cruelty in many many cases. And in many many cases mark my words now, stuff will come out in the future. Truths will come to the surface and people will learn they destroyed their own children so the drug companies could make a proffit. Some of these truths are already coming to light in some cases and in some places. But most here don’t know that. Most here choose to believe and to trust in the terrorists making a fortune off of this scam. Well some day each and every one of you will have to answer to your children. I send my mother and my father the stories i find from journals and online journalists etc on the bad effects of every drug they ever tested me on. I also mail each one to every “expert” that i have ever been to so that they can not say they didn’t receive the information. I do this on behalf of every child in this world who might someday walk through their door. And one day, it will be the child of a friend. And i will hear about it. And i will have the great pleasurre of destroying some expert or other when something bad happens to that friend’s child due to the drugs the expert pumped into their system after receiving the articles from me. Because i keep records. I have watched drugs destroy too many children, and nearly me, i can not sit by and do nothing. So please please please don’t just listen to the experts when you medicate. Listen to the oppposite side of the argument a good deal and learn from that side also and then, maybe try other things first and when all else has failed and has been tried for quite a length of time, *then* start testing with the drugs.

The only over looked bad parent in the world is the parent who allows themselves to be governed by fear and made someone’s bitch to the detriment of their child. [/quote]

I think unless someone is seriously a danger to themselves or others drugging should not be done. And by danger i mean if your kid is consistently getting straight Fs and D and is obviously not right mentally or as far as learning goes, and then on top of that like int he case of ADHD if there is *some* proven organic problem that they can pin point and have some clear success at treating safely without causing say shrinkage of the brain. And if something stronger than an herbal compound is necesary when a bunch have been tested with little to no effect or insufficient effect and when tests can be done on the brain to know what the best course of treatment might be so that it is not all just trial and error find the right medicine by testing it on the guinea pig till they react well to it or in a way that if we just mess with the dosage and the brain as a result for a year or 2 we may finally find the right one which will inevitably change as a result etc…. This is a HUGE can of worms. There is a time and a place for everything including drugs. Maybe even in cases of ADHD. I just think that we use over 90% of the worlds ritalin supply every year over 80% of that is used on children under 18 the UN has issued statements against the drugging of american children it is such over kill. And i am not even touching the amount of other drugs we use on children. 66% of children in MA foster care are on a drug. That must be costing the state a fortune and all of it going straight to the hands of the drug companies who are lobbying the government for the ability to test mothers for different issues when they get pregnant to medicate them through pregnancy or just after or to declare the baby genetically tainted 2 new patients for the price of 1. (The Mother’s Act.) Or they will possibly take your child away from you. This isn’t being practiced yet really i don’t think exxcept maybe in 1 or 2 states but this law is back up for consideraten again. They have lobby groups lobbying so that familys like my friend’s family (the friend who died at 13 due to ritalin in the proper prescribed dosage) can not make claims above a certain amount when sueing the drug company over the death of their loved one. This law is already enacted in most states though i am not wholey certain of that i do believe i read it somewhere. If something happens as a result and your child needs medical coverage for the rest of their lives…. They are not going to pay for it. Even if it was their trial drug. In texas i believe it is 50 or 55% of children in fostercare who are on substances. Beefore they found the right dosage and medication for me. They tested over 6 different drugs on me. The standard is 3 to 4. The thing is my doctor says that was malpractrice because, they had the drug i needed and there would have been no way they couldn’t know what was the best thing for me on day 1 at age 14 to give me. They chose multiple experts chose NOT to give me that drug,in favor of kick backs from the drug companies to test a bunch of other drugs on me starting at age 14 on and off upto age 18 when i pulled the plug and they couldn’t dp a damn thing about it. They had NO idea what those drugs would do. or in some cases they did and were just doing further research. Some of these drugs could have killed me. Some of these drughs more than quaddrupleed my thoughts of suicide. They would know that. I would tell them. They would tell me to keep taking the drug for the next 2 months to make sure. I think…. Such “medicine” is insane not the people who are forced to live through it and endure it. I also think that even the new england medical journals has been writing about the inability to trust these terrorists lately. Also, there are ghost writers for different doctors payed for *by* the drug companies writing ghost articles for journals misinforming experts etc amon g other things. I am not saying every usage of drugs should not happen. I am saying, that i don’t want some ghost writer writing a spoof on a half published study that only provides the posisitve info on the drugs and not the negative info to it’s full extent. Then i don’t want to hear that there is a cap on the amount i can sue for when my kid dies on the prescribed dosage of the drug said to be so more or less safe. Especially when these companies have these tests and hide them under “trade secrets” NOT publishing them for fear of turning people off their new drug due to *all* it’s effects. I am for honesty. For and from all. Especially if you want to put that stuff into the developing brain of a child. ANYONE’S child. Weather in the possession of the state or a responsible parent doesn’t matter a child is a child. Weather they have civil rights or not. And a guinea pig is a guinea pig. And the truth is the truth. If with full and complete and totally disclosed information a child is so messed up a parent thinks it is worthwhile after testing every other option for some time to medicate their child, then i am going to stand by them and whole heartedly support that as good parenting. Unless everything else has been tested and unless they are fully and completed informed (which at this time they can’t be as studies with bad results are NOT published, etc…) Then i gotta say, it is piss poor parenting done with the best of intentions.

I want to see proof. I want to hear the truth. I want the answers i was used as a test victim to find. And i want the science backing those answers up not theories conjecturized and spoken as answers i want answers that my husband would deem scientifically gathered that meet scientific standards of methodolgy I have suffered so they could get these answers all my life. And every answer i have ever gotten i have in addition to spilling my blood for or going through hell for or risking my life and brain chemistry and brain for i still have to pay the standard going rate to hear. This is not just. This is not fair and i consider it robbery. They stole my childhood and my life. They made a child into a lab experiment and then they charge that child as an adult money for their findings while they build multi million dollar carreers on the information that they gained fromt heir enslaved specialty labor forfce of children like me who had no legal right to say no. Who had no power to say no. Who were not listened to and were raped with drugs when they said no. Who were physically over powered while they worked a part time job raised a kid sister brought home a low B average studied music 4 days a week after school on top of all that and was considered one of the most gifted child musicians in the state of MA when she said “Don’t put your, ritalin paxil, zoloft, depacote, some other ‘downer’ and a couple of other uppers which i can’t even remember the name for now, when she said “No, i will not take that crap i don’t like how it makies me feel.” “Or no, on the paxil, i want to kill myself.” Or, “No on the ritalin i am losing too much weight, please i don’t want to take it.” My doctors (out patient) and my father, would physically attack me and force the pills into my body against my will. I was a teenager. They might has well been forcing their penises into my vagina. The effect on my psychological state was the same. Rape is rape weather it is oral with foreign objects or weather it is vaginal with or without foreign object. Its not different. Every drug i took till now was an experimental drug at the time i took it and i was refused when i requested to go off it because of the side effects. I was a teenager an advanced musician primary care giver to my kid sister and a low B average student with a part time job. Yet i was considered an under acheiver and labled ADHD because i wasn’t getting straight As and i was cutting classes that bored me to sit in the school library all day reading about ancient societies. I was fluent in ahalf dozen languages. How does that make me an under acheiver??? I still don’t get it. But, i was ruined by the depression caused by rape after rape with 1 medication after another and though i have a good life now… I still have nightmares and terrible depressions and i am not the same as if i had never been violently pumped full of drugs. And all i have ever asked for is PROVE IT TO ME that there is something wrong with me. I am willing to accept proof. I am very willing./ I work with science every day as an archaeologist. I understand science though it is a humanity the degree of science it incorporates is mandatory for learning as much as we can about ancient people. We can theorize about them all we want just like we can thweorize about ADHD. But we can’t know anyything till we run various forms of tests. We can’t even know when something is from till we run tests based in science under scientific environmental standards and using scientific methodologies. That is why they say much of what we used to know before the 1970s is really totally fictitious in Archaeology. Because we didn’t know about strata back then…. There is also a branch called experimental archaeology where they test ancient tools and even make them. and live ancient life styles with everything the ancients had and nothing else to try to figure out how they developed. And thaqt is fine when tryi9ng to recreate a long dead ancient people. But it is not fine when dealing with a living child’s brain development and life.

I have stood by and watched a guinea pig die. She stopped being a child the day the experts dug into her. I have seen many things due to my experiences courtesy of everyone trying to “help” me and to “quarrantine” the epidemic that they couldn’t prove even existed. Lump us all together in 1 classroom or 1 school segregatye us from the rest of society because we are lesser human beings and because you are scared of us. Some ppl even fear their children will catch whatever is wrong with us. How do you all think that makes us feel? We are not really developmentally challgenged and though we have a different view and a different method of learning and our brains work perhaps a bit differently, we still think and we still feel even as children we do. And we still suffer. And we DO understand. We understand everhything. We are not, as i said developmentally delayed most of us atleasgt not particularly so, we have a higher thought and reasoning process. We knoow we may be a little different everyone just loves to remind us and every time we are reminded we become that much more different. But the simple fact remains and will always remain no matter how many you kill with your drugs and drug tests no matter how many you discredit with labling, we are human beings. Human beings. Just like all of you in every way that matters.

I am so sorry you lost someone recently. I have lost alot of people and alot of things in my liufe time either to death or to a hippy commune. Or due to my choices of study and work or my husbands. I study epigraphy i am an archaeologist. My husband is a phd in theoretical physics so we tend to move alot loooong distances. it can be hard. And i grew up in a buddhist commune raised by an international croowd of hippies from all over the world and my folks and the monks and nuns there from the day i was born till my teens. I never really interacted with people my own age till my teens. Alot of those people had degrees and phds or were eqxquisite people. I have lived in a room next to a nobel prize winner. Slept on the lap of the 78th patriarch of the chogey order met the dalai lama, assisted my mother in sewing the seems of his meditation cushion. And was not raised on lovely books about bunnies in gardens and good night moons. i was brought up on papers by doctoral students as bedtime stories and grad students and on text books from everything from comparative religions to science to psychology to physics to mathematics etc as a child as my bedtime stories instead. I lived most of my life with harvard bu and mit professors. These were the people who raised me. These are the people who educated me. My home was so full of academics no wonder i was bored to go to school to learn about stuff i had learned at 2 (i started talking fluently in polish and english at 9 months old) So then it was easy to start explaining the basics. The onlyy thing i had trouble with myseelf was learning to read. But in myy home, i had no need to read. Because i was surrounded by pretty much 40 acadmeics in 2 dozen discip-lines who read to me all day anyway. They just read to me the materials they needed to read since they didn’t have time to be parents and didn’t know how. Most had no kids of their own. My parents were actually some of the least well educated people surrounding me when i grew up. And i was brought up to seek knowledge where ever it lives. I was taught so much so young and then i was told to go out and suddenly make friends with a bunch of stuck up white kids in suburbia whowere just your average every day kids. And some were relaly nice…. And many had parents putting so much pressure oon them if they werent medicaqted by doctors they were self medicating with illegal substances. And i really was not turned on by the way the system of education was so authoritarian. I really hated school. I once had a teacher tell me to write a paper on the catcher in the rye that i read myself for the first time when i was 11. And that i had had read to me 5 times by the time was 8. (we also had a couple teachers pass through my home people were constantly moving in and moving out soon as you get attached they were gona again!) Soooo the teacher in my highschool sat there and said we had to talk about Holden Caulfield. Great i thought, the psychotic teenage version of the writer.. fun…. I have always hated that book. My teacher spent 2 months telling us what to write in our papers word for word every day. It was stinking boring as helvete. Then she write on the booard that we are to write a paper discussing the book and make an argument about something relaqted to the book.ll We need a certain number of quotes from the book and from other sources on the book. Well, I wrote a paper that a college professor from the commune i grew up in at harvard gave an A+ to. For grammar spelling and content and research properly supported etc… She was gushing and invited me to come to her lectures at Harvard because of that paper. She had just moved in 48 hours earlier and didn’t even relaly know me yet. The paper was about JD. Salinger the author. The paper pretty much said the guy was a lunatic freak of nature (which he was) and that using examples by mentally defective writers was a bad idea for the mental stability of highschool students. My argument though was that Holden and Salinger were 1 and the same and that the whole book had happeneed solely in the heads of both of them making it complete insanity and not worth the time and effort to read. I supported it with more than tiipple quotes from many sources and from the book than was required. The paper was more than twice the length it should have been. It was an amazing paper. Well, my highschool teacher with a degree in english lit and a master in education (unlike the harvard professor who had a phd in lit) called me aside after class gave me an F and told me point blank that i had no written down what she said in class and therefore my paper was wrong when she also said we could argue anything related to the book and it was related to the book. And to the author it was totally a relevant issue. And i said to her, “I see so when you want my opinion you will give it to me? If that is the case, next time, write don’t ask me to write you a paper then if you want to read your opinion write the damn paper yourself and don’t waste my time.” And i walked out;. Later she got a call froma very upset college professor at Harvard. One that gushed about my paper. Suddenly it went from an F paper to an A paper. But it was the last paper i ever wrote for her. Because as you can guess after that, i refused to write another one and went on strike. She gave a grammatically perfect paper an F because it wasn’t word for word what she said in class. That isn’t education that is brain washing. And if i fail at b eing brainwashed and that makes me ADHD then i am proud to be ADHD. And if that is education it is miracle any children at all are willing to subject themselves to it. Did i mention my highschool ranked in the top 5 that year? In the country… beating out alledgely many private schools. Disgusting.

So if this is the standard upon which we decide somneone is defective maybe it isn’t the person that is defective? maybe it is our non science based standard? Maybe we should medicate the system or the parents into being happier about being parents? And the system into being more sane. Perhaps then, these drugs would suddenly be considered what they are… too dangeorus for the average consumption.

Sometimes drugs do help though, there truly is a time and a place. Childhood i just don’t feel is generally the time. And n0ot getting an A in every subject is hardly a terminal illness. If it were constant F’s and D’s…. That would be different, that would be very destructive. But when C average is the average grade medicating due to lack of an A seems, like over hyper parents who need a chill pill not kids who need ritalin.

I am sorry you lost someone due to something general. Bad things happen sometimes. General and completely safe are not the same thing. There is always risk though and sometimes if all goes right the degree of risk is worth taking for the potential outcome. And if that outcome never happens and there is a tragedy that really really sux… But, sometimes to get somewhere we must take some risks. The issue is how educated are we in the risks we are taking? Why are we terrorized into taking them instead of unbiastly educated and educating ourselves with full and complete data? So9 that we can decide for ourselves if getting an A in science is worth risking your 13 year old child’s life to put her on ritalin.

The system is crackers it is incompetent not the children labled unless there is evidence of some organic problem in which case ya can’t argue with full published clinically proven scientifally valid measurable evidence. I am owed proof and i want to see it. 20 year of my life so experts could get rich and drug companies could make fortunes and nothing has changed. Only theories and conjectures and half published dirty studies in which all the effects can also be linked to the effects of the drugws that the group with the ld they are studying are on rather than solely to the ld they are doing research on. So one group of medicated ADHD patients shows shrinkage of the frontal lobe EUREKA! WE HAVE ANSWERS IT’S THE FRONTAL LOBE! after all that shrinkage isn’t present in the brains of so called ‘normal’ people. But then the drugs most of the study’s LD group is on, has already been proven to shrink the brain with long time use. Most LD people in said study have been on the drug for more than 5 years. This is an example of dirty study. And it is one of the leading reasosn there is no conclusive evidence on ADHD and why no one can pinpoint wtf it actually is. Beecause they are too afraid to do a real stuudy on it because all of those when the studies have not been dirty like the sort above with medications involved, that the ADHD brain shows itself on every level and in every way to be no different from that of a notrmal brain. And there goes the drug companies massive proffits! And there are many doctors making more than 30 k off of drug hyping a year…. How will they pay the mortgage on their 8 summer houses?! They might god forbid have to sell 2 of them….

Please consider finding a specialty medical practice that ONLY deals with ADD and co-occuring conditions like anxiety. In my state, there are four such practices.
There are plenty of “natural” substance that are totally unresearched, VERY risky (eg: the MMR vacine was “proven” by such reputable scientists as Jenny McCarthy and Jim Carey and on and on…TO CAUSE Autism). WOW, who you gonna trust, a pediatrician that you chose and trust + the American Academy of Pediatrics OR…movie stars and the Hollwood folks….

ADD is dangerous if not treated and treated well…with medication as a key foundation for lots of other supports.

Doug,

You might want to read this story in the BBC about how stimulants lose their effectiveness after 3 years.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7090011.stm

As far a ADD being dangerous if not treated with meds, can you provide a study that shows that in which the authors aren’t connected with drug companies?

By the way, I do feel that ADHD is legitimate but I think stimulants are way over prescribed.

Anyway, a doctor on the health skepticism has provided studies that don’t support your position. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to access them so I apologize for that but I still think the information is important so that maybe someone reading this might be able to find the studies.

http://www.healthyskepticism.org/news/2008/Oct08.php

for ADHD (Pediatrics 122(2):451-3)
But your policy statement misleadingly claims that ‘stimulant medications have been shown for decades to be effective for the treatment of [ADHD]’. Systemic reviews have repeatedly shown that the evidence for the effectiveness of stimulants in ADHD is mostly based on short-term studies of poor methodological quality,[1] and the recent review by the UK National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence recommends against the use of stimulants for mild to moderate ADHD.[2] Of more concern are claims in your policy about ‘the substantial risks of not treating ADHD’. Dangerous outcomes associated with ADHD are listed, without acknowledgement that there is no evidence that treating ADHD (with stimulants or otherwise) changes these dangerous outcomes. In fact, there is evidence to the contrary, showing that treatment has no positive effect on academic outcomes or delinquency.[3-5] Even weak evidence of potential harm must be taken seriously when a drug without demonstrated long-term benefit is being prescribed so broadly.

As far as trusting physician organizations, many of them are heavily influenced by drug companies. Marcia Angel has spoken out against that.

I agree that many natural substances are not well searched and not guaranteed to be side effect free. But at least, when I stopped taking Inositol, the ear blockage went away. I still have a hearing loss from one of the antidepressants I took. And yes, I definitely was able to directly establish a cause and effect.

I agree with you about Jenny McCarthy. Claiming that autism can be cured is BS.

PT1

Can i ask, PT1, because you sound quite rational, and logical, if you believe int he existence of ADHD, what do you think it might be? Do you think they have established what it is conclusively? Do you think it could be chemical or a structural flow or a problem with the electricity bla bla bla in the brain? Or might it just be something more…. based on nurture rather than nature?

I am not certain what i believe. I believe there are people (though not as many as they claim) that do have the symptoms to rather severe excess for most of their lives or what not…. I just have had trouble finding studies that are not in any way dirty that establish any real organic differences in those ADHD. So i am curious what your take on it is…

And i agree there hasn’t been enough research done on natural alternatives which begs the questions, why the hell not and isn’t is about time for that research to be taking place? After all, something more effective could potentially be found. And there are some thing already in nature that do tend to calm people down that can be found some of them as simple as a cup of chamomile tea.

And i am sorry you have been so badly affected by medications. I know hoe sucky they *can* be.