ADHD.... Real disorder, or clever way to get us all on pills for life?
POSTED BY: 6ixStringJack
UPDATED: Saturday, February 24, 2007 12:03
VIEWED: 8797
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King of the Mythical Land that is Iowa
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Let me start out by saying that my daughter was neurocompromised at birth by a brain bleed so severe she should have died. Because of her, I've met a lot of kids who're neurocompromied in one way or another, and I'm very aware of how many "brain" things can go wrong... go wrong... go wrong... DD was at one time dx with severe ADHD. She couldn't help it - all the signals were getting scrambled from seizure acitivity. SHE was miserable. WE were miserable. But it was not volitional on her part, it was compromising her ability to pay attention for more than about ten seconds at a time, and it was WAAAAY beyond what "punishment" or "reward" could handle. We did NOT give her drugs for ADHD- we were too busy trying to control her seizures- but we can certainly understand why someone would.
I think ADHD is real, and not only that it goes back to before drug treatment. Have you ever read "The Ransom of Red Chief"? Written in 1910, it describes what happens when kidnappers take a boy who is just so full of mischevious activity that they're willing to PAY the dad to take him back.
www.online-literature.com/o_henry/1041/
And then there's Dennis the Menace. a classic description of ADHD if I ever saw one! Calvin and Hobbes is another.
In fact, the brains of children with untreated ADHD are smaller on the average than the brains of treated ADHD and neurotypical controls. Something physical is going on. It think it's easy for people who're essentially "normal" to look at someone with a brain problem and think "Why don't they just....?" The answer is Because they can't
There is a successful treatment for many cases of ADHD that is all-natural: fish and fish oil. Our brains need a far larger amount of omega-3 and iodine than most primates (and that says something about the environment in which we evolved... but that's another story). I sometimes wonder if the reason why autism and other brain problems are increasing is the gradual generational depletion of omega-3 oils since the Catholic church did away with "meatless Fridays". I remember eating fishsticks every Friday.
But you know, come to think of it, even when I was a kid they used to refer to fish as "brain food". Huh. Well, anyway...
But for other kids (and other syndromes) there is some evidence that brain disorders ARE increasing and that it is NOT due to mercury in vaccines. (According to a Dutch study, the rates of autism were stable until mercury was REMOVED from vaccines and THEN it went up)
That being said, I think doctors reach for the pill bottle too often. Take obesity as an example- it's a societal problem, caused by urban planning that requires automobile travel and makes walking impossible, games that are produced that entice children to sit for hours at a time, the breakup up the family and/or the requirement that both parents work which encourages use of fast food and the electronic babaysitter, and even safety concerns that keep kids off the streets. But it's far easier (and more profitable) to develop a weight-loss pill than to fix the underlying problems, because THEN we might actually have to change society.
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Reality sucks. Especially when it contradicts our cherished ideas.
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Unfortunately my life is pretty hectic these last few weeks and so I can only give you a short answer.
Quote:I don't refute it because you have a very valid point. Absolutely it's a problem the way soft drugs are being forced on people, I completely agree with you about that part. It's a serious issue and I'm glad you brought it up.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
You seem to realize that there may be a problem here as far as indoctrination and forcing people to do things that they don't want or need to do... or at the very least, you never refuted this possibility.
My only objection was about blaming science itself.
Quote:Well, yeah, I feel that science is blameless by nature, in the way that, as you said, guns don't kill people, people do. Similarly, it's not science that abuses results and findings, it's people who do it (this includes many scientists).
Unfortunately you're trying to twist around the truth here a bit by saying some rhetoric I've heard in other threads and say that Science is a victim of my abuse here and is virtually faultless and blameless by nature.
Quote:
But when it comes to defending Science from horrible and misunderstanding people like me who just revel in abusing it, you seem to conveniently forget all about how powerful Science truly is, and how you tout its undeniable power and truth when it serves your needs.
I don't think I ever forget how powerful science is, in fact it's its power that I think makes it worth defending in the first place. I also don't think you (specifically) revel in abusing it, I think any "abuse" on your part is the result of being misinformed, and not because you have an agenda.
To cut a long story short, I understand your concern regarding the misuse of science and I share it, I just think one should make a distinction between science and the people who use its results for sinister purposes, because otherwise one is just giving science a bad name. The way you phrased the original post sounded a bit like an attempt at making this into a science vs the rest of the world debate, but the issue here isn't science.
We already have a couple of threads discussing the rift between science and non-science and I think it'd be a shame if this became another such thread. The topic you want to discuss is important and our disagreement on the accountability of science shouldn't detract from it.
The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter.
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*hesitantly decides to post*
I believe ADHD is a real disorder. I believe that there are children and adults that suffer greatly from it. What I don't believe is that drugs are the only answer, or that because it wasn't seen in older times, it's not real. ADHD is widely overdiagnosed, and often used as an excuse to deal with unruly kids. But ADHD does exist, and furthermore, it needs to be studied further in order to treat the disorder appropriately.
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"If you want to win a war, you must serve no master but your ambition."
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Quote:I’m not sure that I would go as far as to say that there are no proper use of drugs in Western medicine, in fact, I would say that scientific use of drugs to cure and treat illness is a hallmark of Western medicine and one of the things that makes it superior in many ways to other less scientifically founded practices. Most drugs when properly prescribed and administered by a physician have benefits that far outweigh their adverse effects. But drugs can have powerful and often unpredictable effects; they aren’t and should never be viewed necessarily as a perfect solution nor should they be treated without caution.
Originally posted by PhoenixRose:
I have nothing against science, I don't even have anything against proper use of the proper drugs, I just don't see proper use or proper drugs anywhere in Western medicine, just the highest bidder treating people as lab rats. It bothers me more than a little. Eastern medicine seems more on the ball to me, and a lot of that can barely be called 'drugs'...
Anyway, I stand where I stand and I'm never gonna let them drug me.
I think one attitude that has been lost by many is the concept of reverence for nature or god in the face of medicine. The more apt we become at manipulating the world around us the more certain we are that we are the masters of it, but that is a misguided notion. Drugs should be viewed with a degree of reverence that I don’t always see. The attitude seems to be that a pill will cure anything. I have a good friend who was seriously injured while doing some construction work; doctors were able to save his life and his mobility, but he suffered a great deal of pain afterwards, and as a result is now addicted to narcotic pain medication. An addiction that ended up costing him his job, his house and his family, and if you asked him now, he would tell you that a few months of pain would have been far superior.
When it comes to things like ADHD and ADD, I think we are often too quick to search for a simple solution, trusting in the power of medication to be a simple fix for our problems. In reality, I think most ADHD and ADD can be better treated with behavioral training (a little bit of discipline and some encouragement), not medication. I was diagnosed with ADHD (or whatever they called it back in my day) and dyslexia when I was young; today I have no perceptible symptoms of either, and I’m not sure that either of those diagnoses were accurate description of any kind of medical condition, but simply symptoms of being a kid. When they wanted to put me on medication, I was frantic. I viewed that, correctly, as if I was being told that I was inadequate, retarded, and abnormal. Even as a child it was horribly insulting to me and frightening, because I wasn’t sure if I would be able to convince anyone that it wasn’t true. Eventually I was able to convince my mother that she didn’t need the advice of this schools therapist’s psychobabble. But from then on out, the school viewed me as a sub-standard student. I was never challenged; I was automatically placed in “special” classes, which I had to protest every year. We’ve gotten to a point now where we want to cure people of being kids. Being a child is not a disease.
Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.
Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.
-- Cicero
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6string- It occurred to me that you're asking the question improperly. ADHD is a real disorder. AND it's a way to get us hooked on pills for life. Not an either/ or situation.
Many times the answer is fish oil...
www.unisa.edu.au/researcher/issue/2006January/story4.asp
www.fabresearch.org/view_item.aspx?item_id=805
Controlling sleep apnea in children (and adults) ... www.healthcare.uiowa.edu/cdd/multiple/centerlines/CL_fall_2003.pdf
And behavioral modifications and/or changes in assigned tasks.
For the FEW kids who don't respond to these benign interventions, drugs may be necessary.
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did you see this: http://www.dotcomedy.com/laugh/
we put it up today
Joss Whedon talking about directing The Office
feel free to link to it or whatever... I'm trying to let as many people know as possible.
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As someone who is ADHD, I think it is real. It is not behaviorial. It is chemical. My brain scan looks very different from a non-ADHD brain. I am not a discipline problem. I do not have a respect problem. When I am medicated, I feel normal. Still my zany self, but normal, like I can actaully succeed. When I am not on medication, I am hit and miss...more often miss. It's frustrating. It's depressing. Don't say it's all in my head (it is, but you know what I mean)...I've tried various treatments. Very specific drugs work and many drugs/treatments did not work. A modified diet does help somewhat but not as well as meds. I can't afford meds. Woot.
Do I think it's overdiagnosed? Maybe. I think it's more that it is misdiagnosed. Often the children diagnosed have behaviorial problems not ADHD. People who have it don't get diagnosed because they've created coping strategies that hide their problem. This just makes it worse. As a child, I was very good at hiding my problem. It's easy to hide in school; I was just the weird misfit. However, as an adult, the environment does not lend itself to hiding. It became impossible to get by. I had to seek medical help.
I've tried to do it on my own. I used to hate myself because I had to take medicine. It seems so strange. Why can't I just do it! I want to be able to...believe me, I wish I could live without them. It doesn't work. It's just like glasses. You need the lens to focus. The drugs help my mind focus. People that know me can tell if I'm medicated. They know. It's that obvious.
I wish I could afford the medicine I need.
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Sometimes I lie awake at night, and I ask, "Where have I gone wrong?" Then a voice says to me, "This is going to take more than one night."
-- Charlie Brown
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Quote:Yep. My dad is diagnosed as ADHD and jumps from drug to drug to 'combat' it. He says I have it too.
Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:
We’ve gotten to a point now where we want to cure people of being kids. Being a child is not a disease.
I forget what's not in front of me...that's why I write notes, and hold my keys in front of me before I lock the house or car door.
Everything's in degrees. Wanna give a full spectrum anti-biotic to someone with a small cold...or should we save it for the serious cases? Better for the pharmasuitical industry to give it to both.
EVERYONE has this attention def thing, EVERYONE has moments where the get distracted, or can't rightly remember stuff.
Save the meds for the serious cases.
Just my two--hey! look at that bird! Chrisisall
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I wanted to re-iterate from my previous post:
In fact, the brains of children with untreated ADHD are smaller on the average than the brains of treated ADHD and neurotypical controls. Something physical is going on. I think it's easy for people who're essentially "normal" to look at someone with a brain problem and think "Why don't they just....?" The answer is Because they can't
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Reality sucks. Especially when it contradicts our cherished ideas.
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