Yeah, but ADD is second only to weight loss in the number of fad diet books it’s inspired. There are so many different doctors with their own bizarre theories regarding what you need to eat more of or less of that I can’t imagine how a person could have time or desire to try them all. Anyone who offers something too good to be true is lying, and in my opinion, supplements as a treatment for ADD fall squarely into that category - especially if they come without advice on managing the disease. It’s not as though any pill is going to cure ADD, and your kid’s physician, if he goes on drugs, should make you aware that Ritalin (or any of its cohorts) is no magic bullet either.
Nah, you’re misreading me if you think I am saying that Efalex or any fish oil is a total stand-alone cure/treatment for ADHD. IME it can be a useful supplement and it is worth investigating if your kid is dx’ed with ADHD.
One of my kids is on SR dexamphetamine in addition to risperidone and a tricyclic. The other one is on a microdose of prozac after he did badly on dex. I’m certainly not saying that efalex is a substitute for meds where meds are warranted.
Eh, I feel like I’m getting really verbose here and all I ever wanted to say was that it can be a useful addition to more conventional treatments in my experience.
Alright, sorry that I sounded pissy - I’ve got a particular issue with the way people respond to ADD. Having it myself, and not being diagnosed for a lot of years, I’ve seen what untreated ADD can do. In my case, it’s not very severe, and I was able to compensate through primary school by being smart and by genuinely working hard. But even so I have a lot of years behind me of being unable to get anything done, of low self-esteem brought on by it, of mutual anger at my family that stems, it part, from it. (I still hate them, as a matter of fact.)
There’s a strong strain of thought today, I think, in which the disease is regarded with an undue amount of skepticism, and it’s incredibly popular to blame the institutions - the schools, specifically - for “not tolerating different learning styles” or whatever the term du jour may be. And as a reaction, parents do things like homeschool their kids, or rely exclusively on therapy, or put them on ridiculous diets that are promoted in books. (Not to imply that dietary problems can’t cause ADD-like symptoms; it’s just that not letting Junior have refined sugar, or gluten, or whatever might be the bugbear of the week, is not useful as a first-line treatment for ADD.)
These things all seem to overlook the kid’s internal state. Sure, you can fuss until you fit your kid into a school situation that accomodates him, but afterwards, he’s still left with the internal frustration of not being able to “think right”, he’s still got social issues (in many cases), and it hasn’t helped him prepare for a future that will likely involve some degree of sitting down and shutting up. ADD has immense impact on a person’s psyche, and when people bitch that it’s a result of the way schools are set up, it really upsets me - kids are still left frustrated, depressed, and working way below their potential because their parents are sucked up into this fadlike skepticism of ADD.
I tend to overreact, then, to alternative treatments for it, even though there’s no reason not to consider those approaches. I just hope they’re used in a complementary approach to regular treatment - therapy and perhaps drugs.