New article on child ADHD treatment in Bethesda magazine

[Anonymous]

You are such an ass, really. I don't have any problem going to the website, although frankly if you believe a company's website is an authoritative source, you are pretty naive.

Nevertheless, my complaint to you was not that you didn't post the info -- in fact I thanked you. It was helpful to get the name of a company to start with.

But why bring up chicken nuggets etc.? Why are you so hostile and odd?

Oh, I know, you're an ass. Or a nut job. Or possibly both.

[Anonymous]

OK...I am not the chicken nugget poster, but I am one of the posters into exploring nutrition. The poster likely mentioned chicken nuggets because of the recent news that there is more crap in nuggets in the US than in the nuggets sold in other countries. This gets at the whole theme that in a lot of ways we have fewer regulations on foods. Certain artificial dyes thrown into foods here are supposedly BANNED in europe.

You mentioned regulation of fish oil so the person made what I think is an important point...were tylenol and all the other drugs pulled in the massive recall regulated. There are drugs that have killed children. I have yet to read an article about a supplement or fish oil killing anyone, though I know there are concerns are mercury in fish oil.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You are such an ass, really. I don't have any problem going to the website, although frankly if you believe a company's website is an authoritative source, you are pretty naive.

Nevertheless, my complaint to you was not that you didn't post the info -- in fact I thanked you. It was helpful to get the name of a company to start with.

But why bring up chicken nuggets etc.? Why are you so hostile and odd?

Oh, I know, you're an ass. Or a nut job. Or possibly both.

I'm confused....scientific reports republished on websites on not valid. So nothing on a website or a corporate website is valid for that matter? So, where can you read scientific reports that are valid? Please do tell!

[Anonymous]

L-Tryptophan killed people, a fair number of people, and left others with severe disabilities. This was because of a filler one company used. It matters that there is government regulation of pharmaceuticals, including an ongoing responsibility to report adverse events. Of course pharmaceuticals aren't perfect but there is far, far more scrutiny of them than the unregulated supplements.

[Anonymous]

Here's a link:

http://www.livestrong.com/article/147247-l-tryptophan-side-effects/

I remember L-tryptophan because I took it. It was widely hailed as a natural, gentle way to aid sleep and fortunately I didn't suffer any adverse effects. It was sold in health food stores everywhere and when the tragedies started appearing it was a big lesson for me in equating "natural" with "safe."

[Anonymous]

In some ways, this discussion shows why our country is in decline. ADHD medications do have a lot of difficult side effects but there is ample scientific proof out there that they can be very beneficial. This criticism of medication as a conspiracy by the pharmaceutical industry could be directed against cancer therapies or any other medication. I often wonder whether the parents who rant about the evils of ADHD medication would refuse medical treatment such as chemo for, say, God forbid, cancer. So many educated parents refuse to accept science, it seems. Recently, I attended a forum on ADHD through the Arlington Public Schools -- one parent got up and demanded to know whether the school system was evaluating whether the food served in Arlington school cafeterias was causing the rise in ADHD among Arlington public school students.

Our DS, in second grade, has ADHD - along with a couple of other conditions. Medication has not been a solution by itself -- in fact, we are having a lot of issues right now. Nevertheless, medication has been helpful.

And, we're even giving him Li'l Critters Omega-3 chewables on the off chance that they might provide some benefit. We know people who suffer from gluten allergies and none of them report that gluten has caused ADHD-like problems -- the issues are all physical/digestive. As for nutrition, of course good nutrition is beneficial, in the same way that good nutrition is beneficial to overall health. But diet alone is not going to spare you from disease or a condition such as ADHD. I know that sweets and some foods can indeed make some kids hyper but DS is not among them - because they're readily present in our home, DS actually eats/craves far fewer sweets than most of his friends.

Food for thought...

[Anonymous]

For those who are concerned about the safety of supplements, a useful thing to look for is the USP symbol on the label. USP is a standards-setting organization that verifies the quality and purity of supplements and supplement ingredients, among other things.
See http://www.usp.org/USPVerified/dietarySupplements/supplements.html

[Anonymous]

Here is a starting point for those interesting in looking at the relationship between gluten sensitivity and ADHD for some children.

I would like to see somebody do a study of the percentage of kids per grade level on ADHD medication in the private schools and public schools. While there are kids who truly need the meds, anyone can benefit from them and it may indeed raise the expectation for performance so high other kids need meds to keep up. Oh and many girls love it because it helps them lose weight.

http://www.suite101.com/content/gluten-sensitivity-and-adhd-a118375

[Anonymous]

Thank you 13:58 -- I would never refuse medical treatment for my children. What convinced me were the many studies showing that teenagers with unmedicated ADHD have higher levels of drug and alcohol abuse -- they self-medicate. I knew kids like this when I was growing up and you probably did as well. That won't be my children. They both have ADHD and are doing extremely well, with medication.

Its not true that "anyone can benefit". First of all, both my children had negative reactions to the ritalin class of ADHD meds. They didn't benefit and they are both on drugs that do not cause weight loss or act as uppers in any way. And my DC at a Big 3 school is absolutely not surrounded by kids on these drugs -- he doesn't know of a single other child taking them (he is very open about it) although Im sure they're there. Not in huge numbers.

[Anonymous]

13:58 -- I am the angry poster from before. Thank you for saying so eloquently what I could only rant and rave to myself about. And thank you 15:03, too.

People just don't think critically anymore. They are afraid of things that aren't a threat, or persist in believing things for which there's no credible proof, while they ignore science in favor of unsupported internet posts and rumors.

I look at my husband, who suffered his entire life but particularly as a child due to undiagnosed ADHD, depression, and other learning disabilities. In addition to many other sad aspects of his life, he has an extremely high IQ but it took him 8 years to get his undergraduate degree, interrupted by impulsive and self-destructive behavior. Now, on Zoloft and ritalin, he is a very competent and respected professional with a happy family life.

I do NOT want my DC to suffer like he did. Yes, I will give my child a fish oil supplement because I feel that, as long as I pick one approved in Europe where the laws are more stringent, it can't hurt. And of course we've done therapy and other non-pharmaceutical interventions. But I won't shy away from meds if they are indicated.

[Anonymous]

I am glad to hear how much the medication and other things have helped people close to the posters on here. I don't think anyone here is against medicating children. I think the issue is many feel we need to take a more systematic approach. Why don't more doctors first look for nutritional deficiencies and supplement accordingly, look for food sensitivities and allergies and remove offenders and then after giving proper time to evaluate move on. Some parents do this, but not enough professionals recommend it.

This whole discussion began because someone advertised an article and a clinician and make it sound like this article was a must read. The article did not have anything new and seemed to recommend the same old approach.


As I have said before, I do think medication is the solution for some kids, but it should not be that such a large percentage of kids are prescribed them without ruling out other issues such as nutrition deficiencies, gluten sensitivity, food allergies, etc.

Also, drugs lkike adderall and ritalin can help many people not just those with ADHD. That is why they are abused on college campuses. There are a number of articles about this. These drugs can become seriously addictive. This is not a clear cut issue nutrition vs drugs. I think the concern is that too many people do not see the gray, even if the meds make a huge difference, there arte costs. I would rather know every safe option had been explored first.

[Anonymous]

13:58 here. I think the reason we have not looked at nutrition/allergies/deficiencies first is because there seems to be little scientific/medical evidence to support the theory that these are the real culprits (others disagree, I recognize). Second, DS, although only in second grade, has suffered from ADHD for a long time before we realized it and the impact on his school performance, going all the way back to preschool, was huge. We didn't feel that we had weeks or months more to spend trying other things whose effectiveness is not clear when he's already suffered a great deal. Third, he has some learning challenges and medication has made him much more able to "attend." Fourth, I think about other conditions/diseases and I can't imagine not resorting to medicine/medication to deal with those, so why are we going to act differently with respect to DS' ADHD? Lastly, at least in his case, diet (cutting out or minimizing sugar) doesn't seem to make a difference in his behavior.

We don't think medication is a magic wand. We're trying to create more organization and schedules for DS to help him learn management skills, as does school. He does therapy. But neither of these other two things would work nearly as well (albeit still imperfectly) without medication.

Medication has not been a cure-all -- like another poster, our son did not do well on ritalin-based medications. He currently takes Dexedrine, which overall has worked well -- we're still finding our way with proper dosage and still may need to consider another medication.

[Anonymous]

Nicely written, 13:58. Thanks. You've described our situation to a T.

[Anonymous]

I know plenty of people in the autism biomedical community who have used supplements to detoxify and recover their children from autism. Drugs are a bandaid for people who cannot think or research for themselves to find the real answers.

The funny thing is that doctors go through rigorous years of training all to take directive from pharmaceutical reps who are trained for 6 weeks. Our health is brought down to the lowest level of stupidity here. Pharama reps have absolutely NO medical training, yet our doctors are bombarded with information from them and kickbacks for perscriptions written.

This system is a sick-care system.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I know plenty of people in the autism biomedical community who have used supplements to detoxify and recover their children from autism. Drugs are a bandaid for people who cannot think or research for themselves to find the real answers.

The funny thing is that doctors go through rigorous years of training all to take directive from pharmaceutical reps who are trained for 6 weeks. Our health is brought down to the lowest level of stupidity here. Pharama reps have absolutely NO medical training, yet our doctors are bombarded with information from them and kickbacks for perscriptions written.

This system is a sick-care system.

Your post is insulting. We tried everything for our DS for nearly two years - OT, floortime, nutritional supplements, working with a psychologist, and diet changes. After watching him struggle for so long and watching his self esteem crumble, we started medication for ADHD. The change was incredible. He does well in school and finally has good friends. You need to open your eyes to other possibilities and options as well. I don't feel good about giving my DS medication, but it's helped him tremendously. I went from having a 7 year old who told me that he wished he was dead, to having a 7 year old who's flourishing in every way.