Okay, lander, those people who have worked with ADHD children (and adults) for all or most of their career, as well as people with ADHD (or claiming to have ADHD in order to gain access to some nifty drugs, anyway), have cited lots of studies and plenty of anecdotal evidence that would indicate that ADHD is a genuine condition. You have dismissed this based on a theory of yours. Can you offer studies and anecdotal evidence supporting your viewpoint, or is it just conjecture?
So ADHD is a lie invented to describe the result of poor education. This doesn’t explain why, out of my entire first-grade class, I was the one with the classic symptoms of ADHD. They’d all had the same mediocre kindergarten education as me, and several of them had gone to the same preschool as me.
I’ve met people who are poorly educated. They do often have a terrible problem: the inability to understand how learning can be a joy. But that’s not the same as ADHD. Have you actually read any resources on ADHD that weren’t written with the intent of proving that the disorder isn’t real? Or have you decided that they’re all written by people paid off to tell the public lies? Yes, those were real questions, by the way; I’m honestly curious.
The guy on the radio thing was a side comment, was completely incidental and provided no evidence of any sort—nor did I claim such. You might want to read what I wrote again. As for objectivity, for people who live with it, objectivity becomes null and void when the information provided by professionals is false. And, no, I don’t think that some company making money from the drug is objective. Do you contend that they are?
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If you can, obtain the figures of annual revenue from the sale of these drugs and then try and tell me they don’t have a vested interest in people believing that these drugs are necessary.
I’m really sorry that you have had such a difficult time with your daughter. I think you’ll agree that the Ritalin is not a solution as such, but rather a cover-up for the problem. A lot of adults drink liquor to cover up emotional problems; but as soon as they sober up the emotional problems return again. My point is that drugs can make you fell great for a time, but solve nothing.
I’ll offer a suggestion. You can laugh it off and disregard and continue to pay attention to your drug-dealer….I mean doctor, or you can take it on board and think with it for yourself. I strongly suggest reading and educating yourself and taking responsibility for finding a solution yourself. Your doctor thinks he already has a solution—the Ritalin—and since he has a nice bank account and doesn’t have to deal with the daily problems of your daughter, he’s okay with that; you are going to have to take responsibility for finding a real solution for your daughter’s condition.
Have you ever seen how cranky a child gets when they are tired? Their body is run-down and they get obnoxious. It is a nightmare. Well, their bodies get run-down when their diet is inadequate as well. If a child eats predominantly processed foods, then the growing body doesn’t get the nutrition it needs and becomes chronically run-down and hence chronically cranky. I’m making a shot-in-the-dark guess here, but it is worth your consideration. It is just a suggestion. I also suggest that you meet people with different views to your doctor’s with less spite. You may actually discover something that leads to a solution other than a life of drug-dependency for your child.
Hentor, you say you are a researcher. Have you actually done research on drugs that are used to treat ADD or ADHD?
Keep in mind that I do not contend that children diagnosed with ADHD etc. have no problems at all. I simply think that ADHD and such are labels that over-complicate a simple issue so as to facilitate selling drugs to be fed to kids.
Have you been reading this thread? I said in a previous post: “And, no, I don’t have any real problem with chemicals per se. They’re great for degreasing engines and unclogging drains. They’re even useful for treating human conditions at times.”
So, basically, you simply have an unthinking opposition to the anyone that questions your devotion to psychopharmacology.
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Who says those studies were “independent?” You? Did these studies also include a group of people who were temporarily emotionally distressed due to some incident to note if they had any difference in brain function while distressed? Did they study what effects that drinking bourbon had on these distressed people’s brain function? I don’t contest that these kids have physical differences in brain functions nor that Ritalin alters that function. What I am contesting is that these chemical imbalances in the brain are the cause of the condition and therefore need to be treated with further chemicals. Incidentally, did you ever wonder if artificially feeding more chemicals into the brain might exacerbate those chemical imbalances? Since these quacks that prescribe these drugs seem to play hit-and-miss with the drugs they prescribe, one can only deduce that they have very little clue as to the actual workings of the brain and the actual physiological effects that they are creating. It seems to me then that subjecting your child to drug treatment by a “doctor” that can’t honestly say that the drugs won’t create more problems than they are trying to solve is outright child neglect.
What do you base your analysis of your son’s teacher on?
As for my agenda, what do you propose that agenda is?
As for my ignorance, what is it that you propose I’m ignorant of?
As for my ad hominem attacks, have another read of your own post. A case of the pot calling the kettle black perhaps?
This “theory” is that drug companies make billions from pushing this crap on kids. Question: Is this theory or fact? Answer: This is fact. The “conjecture” is that drug companies will do and say whatever they need to in order to protect their industry. Question: Is this conjecture or common sense? Answer: Common sense.
I’m genuinely sorry if you have been victimized by the pharmaceutical industry, but convincing yourself that the drug companies are only trying to help by selling you drugs will only compound the problem.
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All of the kids in your first grade class had the same up-bringing, diet, exercise, genes and basic personality as you too, did they? The variables are endless and, no, educational methodology is not the only factor; but I think it is a major one.
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Yes, I have.
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Not all. Many will just follow the authorities because they believe that “authorities must know what they’re talking about.” The system has a knack of filtering out those that will think and research according to their own integrity. If a man works for a research company that is contracted by Eli Lilly or some such corporation and he reveals that some new drug is harmful, then he will be laid off and there will be some other reason found for him being laid off. See, if the research company gets results that Eli Lilly can’t use in press releases, do you think they will be contracted to do research again? On the other hand, the man that consistently comes up with results that Eli Lilly and hence the research contractor like, then he will enjoy a life-long career in the field. That man may come up with the right results because he realizes consciously that he had better if he wishes to keep his job, or he may just be a sheep that goes along with the flock without having much clue as to what he’s doing. Either way these are the researchers that come up with the “right” results. Keep in mind also the substantial grants that universities get to keep their shows running.
Ritalin is often prescribed for people with Multiple Sclerosis for fatigue.
Why do you put science in quotes when referring to psychopharmacology? Do you have compelling data that proves that psychotropic medication is not well tested and has no use?
Ritalin, Adderall, and a host of other medications used for ADD and ADHD are not solely for that purpose.
If you were as well informed as you seem to claim, you would know that.
Yes, and drug companies make billions from pushing drugs for physical conditions on people who need them as well. I don’t doubt that they’d act unscrupulously, but that is not evidence that the condition being treated with their drugs does not exist. You offer an interesting theoretical argument–if ADHD weren’t real, something like this might very well happen. What you haven’t offered is evidence of the thing you should be trying to prove in the first place: that ADHD isn’t real. You’ve simply proceeded from the assumption. What I ask is that you provide evidence for the original assumption. Until you do so, everything you’ve said is simply speculation.
Why don’t you tell me who “contracted” the research out? You seem to think that all research is funded by pharmaceutical companies. You asked if I had done research on pharmacotherapy for ADHD. No, I do no pharmaceutical research. Are you suggesting that only pharmacotherapy research can be done regarding ADHD? This is simply ill-informed. Let me explain some differences between psychiatry and psychology for you. A psychiatrist is medically trained as a physician. Generally late in their training, they begin to specialize in psychiatry. Their training is very often in the form of psychodynamic theory, and many simply aren’t well trained nor experienced in individual psychotherapies. They are fairly well trained in pharmacotherapy, and tend to work with their strengths. Psychologists are not medically trained. Their training and education focuses very much on achieving behavioral change and reduction of undesirable emotional dysfunction through psychotherapy, with, depending on the psychologist, a focus on changing the way you think and do things, or less frequently on the relationships among internal mental constructs (psychodynamics). While there is a movement afoot to have psychologists trained and able to prescribe medications, this is in its infancy, and the vast majority of psychologists do not prescribe any medications. Psychologists also have a richer tradition in conducting research, and are generally better trained to do this. Some psychologists do conduct research funded by pharmaceutical companies, many do not. Much of the research is funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, part of the National Institutes of Health. To discount all of the work that has been done via mechanisms such as these, which have very much concluded that ADHD exists as a distinct condition apart from other mental health and medical conditions, you will have to find some other ratoinale than being in the pocket of some pharmaceutical corporation.
Again, see the above. I also quoted you a summary statement that accords very much with my own practice, that other therapies should be tried first.
You really need to do some research of your own. Your own bias is worse than that you accuse the mental health profession of. Go to the NIMH website and check out grants for research in ADHD. Go to MedLine, OVID, PsychLit, or some other database of mental health research and look up existing research on ADHD.
Here’s an aspect of mental health you should look up: idee fixee.
I’m saying that you can’t rely on radio “experts” for facts. Talk radio is full of conspiracy theorist crackpots.
Oh my, there is so much wrong in your (snipped) analysis that it’s hard to know where to start. No, my girlfriend is not so drugged up on coffee and ritalin by the end of the night that she passes out. That’s absurd. The ritalin (and coffee) stimulates her brain so that she is able to concentrate on sleep. Without it she is flooded with so many thoughts that she obsesses on everything all night.
May I also add that she is not only a patient, but a doctor? She is a shrink that has put quite a bit of study into this. Or is she just another member of the vast psychopharmacological conspiracy?
Sheesh. ADD is the next Great Evil of the world. Once you stop concentrating on D&D and Harry Potter, I guess another scapegoat is necessary.
Answer: This is a crackpot conspiracy theory, no different from the “Moon Hoax” or “AIDS was created by the government” or Satanic Panic. It comes complete with evil doctors, neglectful parents, and profiteering. It has to due with a brain disorder, which makes it mysterious and strange, and open to stories of horror and manipulation by those that should know better. It involves psychiatrists, which to the ignorant are little better than voodoo practitioners. It’s the evil du jour.
Whatever happened to making Teletubbies into the next Big Evil? Hey, wait, I know what it is. Teletubbies are a tool of the pharmaceutical industry, and they send out electromagnetic waves (from those things over their heads, you know?) that cause ADHD in their young viewers. It’s a fiendish plot!
I have watched my son’s teacher in the act of teaching and noted the way in which she was able to keep the class focused on their tasks while actually enjoying the material that they were learning. Coupled to that is the information that the students in her class continually test in the upper perecentiles (for that school) in standardized tests. (And that there is no way for those students to have been cherry-picked as the best, since they are all transfers from another school, although there is a tendency to put suspected troublemakers in her class.)
Your agenda is simply to begin with a predisposition to oppose something to which you have an emotional antagonism and to turn any discussion of the subject into a vast conspiracy theory regarding the administration of Ritalin.
Your ignorance is the self-imposed ignorance of the actual information regarding ADHD, Ritalin, and related matters, in which you throw up cries of “Conspiracy!” against any actual information that contradicts your preconceived notion.
And while I have not made any ad hominems, your attack on my son’s teacher and on every one of your opponents as either conspiracists or dupes is such an attack.
Do you, by the way, have any actual evidence that teaching children to read at the age of three will prevent the onset of ADHD?
Your initial association of boredom and ADHD indicates pretty clearly that you have no idea what you’re describing. The behavior of a bored child and the behavior of am ADHD child are fundamentally different in many ways. And, of course, the fact that ADD was actually diagnosed many years before anyone found a chemical with which to treat it must be ignored in order to promote the “disease created by the drug companies” conspiracy. In addition to which, by pretending that it is simply a matter of “give the kid a drug,” you are ignoring that no professional will simply administer the drug and declare the issue closed. In my experience, along with the medicine are a number of behavioral and environmental issues that are always included in the treatment, including (but not limited to) the imposition of external stucture to help the child focus, constant re-inforcement of desired behavior, maintenance of diet, and other controls.
tdn, you should keep up: teletubbies turns children into poorly color-coordinated homosexuals (unless you feel that this quality is captured under, or identical with, “America-hating Democrats.”
The good thing is that this condition is very treatable with new Homolin XR, which stimulates the portions of the gay liberal America bashing person’s limbic system, which have gone soft and limp. The side effects are minimal - most common would be an increased joint reflex response, largely localized to the knee, as well as an increased amount of red blood cells, while conversely plugging small holes that have caused seepage of blood from the hearts of these poor unfortunates. Get your prescription today!
Oh dear!!! I will never catch up. I thought Teletubbies turned people gay. I am so behind
quote]* originaly posted by lander2k2*
I’ll offer a suggestion. You can laugh it off and disregard and continue to pay attention to your drug-dealer….I mean doctor, or you can take it on board and think with it for yourself. I strongly suggest reading and educating yourself and taking responsibility for finding a solution yourself. Your doctor thinks he already has a solution—the Ritalin—and since he has a nice bank account and doesn’t have to deal with the daily problems of your daughter, he’s okay with that; you are going to have to take responsibility for finding a real solution for your daughter’s condition.
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UM ok. I am part of a managed care plan. So diagnosing ADHD which is not a solvable in one quick easy visit is not something she gets better money for. There is also a financial disensentive to use name brand drugs so instead of 10$ per month for the ritalin we pay 100 for the time released version. Maybe you could say that her insentive is getting the kid out of the office, but it would be far easier for her to say we are immagining it or to change parenting practices and get us out, rather than to have us come back regularly, talk to us and her teacher regularly and all of that.
I am aware of things like the Fiengold diet. My sister did very well on the Fiengold diet and that was what we first tried with my daughter as I began to realise that we were dealing with more than simply high energy. It didn’t work. We do still pretty much follow it because it was part of the household I grew up in and so I got in the habbit of cooking that way. The drugs are not the answer for every kid, and they won’t work without effective parenting as well. They also aren’t an attempt to turn our children into stepford children. My kid still zones out when doing stuff that doesn’t interest her and will still act up if she is overtired and or hungry, or if she needs more mommy time. Thats being a kid.
The drugs are not a cure. They are like insolin. they wont make the problem go away, they manage it. I sometimes wonder if the answer lies in enviromental toxins or something like maternal exposure to something else. I think whatever it is, the answer probably will lie in prevention rather than cure.
Sometimes i think the drugs are a little like using a sledgehammer where microsurgery is required. I think there are cases that they are overprescribed. Probably a lot of them. People try the drugs but they dont work so they up the dose. The drugs are not perfect, or even very good, but they are what have, and in our household they are a miracle.
PS. I know you don’t listen to Dr.s or anything, but putting things in your ears that far can do damage.
Well then, I humbly stand corrected. Thanks for correcting me.
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I put science in quotes because the entire “science” does not use logical premises. Drugs chemically effect the brain and alter the mind’s perception. To take someone who is having mental difficulty—who is essentially having difficulty dealing with reality—and feed them drugs which mess with the mind is fundamentally flawed. Do you think a man who is resorting to alcoholism to escape his problems is improving his life; or do you think it would be more beneficial for him to confront and handle the root of the problems that are causing him difficulty? Just because you are using the psychiatric drugs in medication doses doesn’t alter the essential nature of the substances being used. Is it better to sweep the dirt under the rug or to go to go that extra little bit and handle the problem altogether by picking the dirt up and putting it in the trash?
A subject that ignores basic logic is not science in my book. And when such a subject that is fundamentally ridiculous goes so far, one can only assume that some folks are making a LOT of money off it and making damn sure that the subject gathers a bunch of pretend credibility.
Doesn’t it seem odd that certain drugs like pot that can be easily produced by Joe Average are illegal while the drugs that can only be made by pharmaceutical corporations are legal? That doesn’t ring any bells for anyone?
I’ve made no claim at all to being well informed. I’m just your average Joe commenting on what seems pretty simple and obvious to me. Any information that you give me is welcome, but none of it has made the case that it is good to feed kids drugs. Yes, kids on drugs may be more manageable, but are they better off as human beings for it?
You make a good point. So, the question is, “is ADHD real?” To quote a line from a movie: “What is real? How do you define real?” To the extent that a bunch of people agree that there is this condition that exists called ADHD, it is real. No question. What I am saying is that ADHD is a label that was invented so that there was something to treat. When there was something to treat, money could be made. I say that ADHD is based on a falsehood in that it is based on the idea that the cause of a child’s problems (when suffering from symptoms that have been attributed to ADHD) is a chemical imbalance in the brain. I would contest that the chemical imbalance and the brain anomalies observed are just a symptom—a result—of the causes which are not biological or genetic, but which are environmental. I notice that amongst all of the spiteful remarks and ridicule, no-one has addressed that specific question that I raised. So ADHD is real; it is just built on a foundation of bullshit that has a lot of people sucked in and is making a lot of money for some folks. You want evidence: consult rational common sense. Drugs cover up yet, in the long run, exacerbate mental problems. Anyone want to debate that particular issue?
If the symptoms of ADHD could be shown to be completely eradicated by simple methods, would you be willing to admit that treating ADHD-type symptoms with drugs like Ritalin was erroneous?
Sorry to hijack away from the topic of Ritalin, but may I have a link to this program?
lander2k2, this sounds interesting. I’d encourage you to post a seperate GD thread re how early children should be started on the traditional elementary curriculum.
I’ve stayed out of the fray for a while, but I have to respond to this.
ADHD is a disease. Drugs, such as Ritalin, can be used to treat this disease. No, they don’t always work. Yes, they can be prescribed erroneously. And, yes, horror of horrors, the people who sell them do make money, and, as such, it follows that they would have an incentive to sell more of them (forget for the moment that Ritalin is now available generically).
So, speaking as a person with ADHD, who has been both on and off various drugs to treat it, I resent the implication that somehow my humanity is in question. Forgive me if this was not your intent, but a phrase such as “… are they better off as human beings for it?” sounds that way to me.
I mean, great sweet flatulating Og man, would you have the same objections if we were discussing the use of Zyprexa to treat schizophrenia? That stuff can do some funny things with your brain chemistry (and is REALLY expensive, so it probably makes pharmaceutical companies a boatload of money), but noooo… certainly wouldn’t want all those schizophrenics taking it, because, hey, the disease might impede their ability to interact in a productive manner at home, work, school, etc, but we certainly wouldn’t want to compromise their integrity as human beings.
How, exactly, would the use of prescription drugs in a controlled fashion to treat the symptoms of one or more specific diseases have any effect on how we, as human beings turn out in the end? Would you care to cite any real, or even hypothetical examples of how this would be the case?
Are you going to come at us with the typical “Because you need to learn to deal with problems on your own…” line of reasoning? Because I find that people who do that typically have not the slightest freakin’ idea what the hell they’re talking about. Drugs can be an effective tool in treating diseases such as ADHD. Sometimes they’re enough, sometimes not, and it’s usually good to learn some coping strategies on the side in any case. But when you’re dealing with your brain’s internal chemistry, parental discipline, “dealing with it”, and similar strategies are of little effectiveness in the grand scheme of things.
That’s enough for now, I’ll let you respond before I get worked up again.
Let’s pretend something for a moment. You are an evil pharmacist out to make a quick buck. You want to induce ADD-like symptoms in a group of children. How will you go about this?