ADHD question

[Anonymous]

For anyone who has a child with ADHD, what type of treatment options are there and have you found them to be effective? Have you noticed much improvement in your child's behavior?

[Anonymous]

My four year old has been seeing a therapist. She has been teaching him some impulse control, and giving him a safe (yet expensive) place to express himself freely. He has been in terapy since the beginning of October, and started meds this month. Therapy and meds have really seemed to work well and we are having fewer issues. There isn't any more biting and lots less hitting, and I am able to get my son to calm down and get control of himself.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My four year old has been seeing a therapist. She has been teaching him some impulse control, and giving him a safe (yet expensive) place to express himself freely. He has been in terapy since the beginning of October, and started meds this month. Therapy and meds have really seemed to work well and we are having fewer issues. There isn't any more biting and lots less hitting, and I am able to get my son to calm down and get control of himself.

Thanks so much for your response. We're just beginning on this journey, and I'm feeling overwhelmed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My four year old has been seeing a therapist. She has been teaching him some impulse control, and giving him a safe (yet expensive) place to express himself freely. He has been in terapy since the beginning of October, and started meds this month. Therapy and meds have really seemed to work well and we are having fewer issues. There isn't any more biting and lots less hitting, and I am able to get my son to calm down and get control of himself.

Can you say what type of therapist? Where you found her? Thanks.

[Anonymous]

We see a Lcsw. She was referred to us by our pediatrician. We first wanted to get DS to see a behavioural pediatrician at UMBC, but the waiting list was more than nine months long. I didn't think we should wait that long, and neither did our pediatrician.

DS does really well with talk therapy, and once he was medicated he could verbally express himself. He had so many things going on in his head that he had a great difficulty getting them out. Between the drug and talk therapy he is really beginning to learn to express himself properly.

[Anonymous]

I highly recommend looking into the Feingold Program.

http://www.feingold.org

Although my child was never formally diagnosed with ADHD he was headed in that direction IMO and at age 3 we started the feingold program. The results were immediate, and we continue to use it now. There is a significant number of children who have an AHDH diagnosis who improve while on this diet. And, as DS's pediatrician says, "No one really needs artificial dyes".

Good article from the AAP:

http://www.feingold.org/aap.html

Also discussed here earlier on dcurbanmoms forum:

http://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/35326.page#230845

Good luck!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I highly recommend looking into the Feingold Program.

http://www.feingold.org

Although my child was never formally diagnosed with ADHD he was headed in that direction IMO and at age 3 we started the feingold program. The results were immediate, and we continue to use it now. There is a significant number of children who have an AHDH diagnosis who improve while on this diet. And, as DS's pediatrician says, "No one really needs artificial dyes".

Good article from the AAP:

http://www.feingold.org/aap.html

Also discussed here earlier on dcurbanmoms forum:

http://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/35326.page#230845

Good luck!

This is so very interesting. If his theory is correct, I feel for anyone who is medicated on top of the artificial additives they all consume in their food. It's like we have to medicate ourselves to be able to eat the junk we eat.

[Anonymous]

This is very interesting information the PP posted. I have heard this before, and have a sister who swears her son is 100x worse if he consumes red dyes. I personally cut out all artificial foods to see what effects, the food ds was eating, had on him. After several months I found it didn't matter, and that is when we went the route of therapy, then medication. I have to say that I like the medication he is on, mostly because he doesn't have to take it every day. I can usually tell by 9am if it is going to be a good day, or a bad one, and medicate him on the bad days.

One thing I also do is make sure he gets plenty of exercise, and give him a sense of purpose. He has structure to his day, the only real flexibility is when he wakes up, but he is in bed every night at 7:30.

It isn't easy having a child who can't always articulate himself, as his thoughts go by too quickly for him to catch. He gets angry too quickly because the words do so often escape him. However, when on meds, his thoughts are clear and concise.

[Anonymous]

Unfortunately, there is absolutely no research that supports this. You should see a behavioral therapist, preferably a Ph.D. or Psy.D. -my son went to one of these professionals in Boston for 6-8 sessions and they gave us the skills to help manage his behavior better. Once we got the skills we saw a world of difference!

Good luck, OP

Anonymous wrote:I highly recommend looking into the Feingold Program.

http://www.feingold.org

Although my child was never formally diagnosed with ADHD he was headed in that direction IMO and at age 3 we started the feingold program. The results were immediate, and we continue to use it now. There is a significant number of children who have an AHDH diagnosis who improve while on this diet. And, as DS's pediatrician says, "No one really needs artificial dyes".

Good article from the AAP:

http://www.feingold.org/aap.html

Also discussed here earlier on dcurbanmoms forum:

http://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/35326.page#230845

Good luck!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I highly recommend looking into the Feingold Program.

http://www.feingold.org

Although my child was never formally diagnosed with ADHD he was headed in that direction IMO and at age 3 we started the feingold program. The results were immediate, and we continue to use it now. There is a significant number of children who have an AHDH diagnosis who improve while on this diet. And, as DS's pediatrician says, "No one really needs artificial dyes".

Good article from the AAP:

http://www.feingold.org/aap.html

Also discussed here earlier on dcurbanmoms forum:

http://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/35326.page#230845

Good luck!

Actually, the number of children helped is NOT significant, meaning that no reasearch studies have found that the diet makes enough of a difference to show up. That said, there are likely some children who are helped, but they are relatively few. So try it, but don't assume you're going to get great results. Keep careful data - if you really want to do a fair test, keep a food diary and a behavior diary to see if it helps your child.

[Anonymous]

Our DS started on a very low dose of dexadrine at the start of first grade after the teachers tried everything in kindergarten to help him focus and attend to his school work. He also had speech therapy to help with pragmatics and practicing the use of words rather than just getting angry or crying when frustrated/upset. The medicine makes a HUGE difference for him ... it has helped him socially and academically. We still work hard on keeping a stable routine, good nutrition, good sleep habits, and learning conflict resolution skills. But the medicine has truly helped improve every aspect of his day.

The Feingold diet always struck me as complete hocum. Kids, with or without ADHD should of course be eating healthy food, but expecting a nutritional cure seems unlikely.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Actually, the number of children helped is NOT significant, meaning that no reasearch studies have found that the diet makes enough of a difference to show up. That said, there are likely some children who are helped, but they are relatively few. So try it, but don't assume you're going to get great results. Keep careful data - if you really want to do a fair test, keep a food diary and a behavior diary to see if it helps your child.

Sorry -- I did't mean "significant" in a scientific sense, just in a general conversational sense .

Research studies: this is the one I'm talking about:

http://aapgrandrounds.aappublications.org/cgi/reprint/19/2/17

(requires a subscription)

Also located for free here:

http://www.feingold.org/Research/PDFstudies/AAP08.pdf

A few excerpts:

Compared to when they were consuming the placebo drinks,
three-year-olds had significantly higher hyperactivity scores
when consuming a daily drink containing 20 mg artificial food
coloring and sodium benzoate preservative (comparable to
the amount of food coloring in two 56-gram bags of sweets),
and eight- and nine-year-olds were more hyperactive when
consuming drinks containing food coloring and preservative
comparable to four bags of sweets. However, there was no effect
on three-year-olds when exposed to the larger amount of
food coloring (attributed to greater variability in response to
active challenges than placebo). No distinction could be made
between the effects of food coloring versus preservative on
child behavior, and the reason for the age-related difference
in effects of the two mixtures used remains unclear. However,
the authors conclude that the results of the study suggest that
food additives and/or sodium benzoate increase hyperactive
behavior in children.

Editor's Note:

Although quite complicated, this was a carefully conducted
study in which the investigators went to great lengths to eliminate
bias and to rigorously measure outcomes. The results are
hard to follow and somewhat inconsistent. For many of the
assessments there were small but statistically significant differences
of measured behaviors in children who consumed the
food additives compared with those who did not. In each case
increased hyperactive behaviors were associated with consuming
the additives. For those comparisons in which no statistically
significant differences were found, there was a trend for more
hyperactive behaviors associated with the food additive drink
in virtually every assessment. Thus, the overall findings of the
study are clear and require that even we skeptics, who have long
doubted parental claims of the effects of various foods on the
behavior of their children, admit we might have been wrong.

Now -- clearly -- having "high hyperactivity scores" is not the same as being diagnosed with ADHD.

I don't say that the Feingold Program is going to "cure" every kid of ADHD, either.

But given that the "diet" is just plain natural food, that everyohne is supposed to be eating anyhow, I would urge people to give it a try. If you see noticable results quickly, you will be very motivated to continue, if not, no serious harm done. Keep in mind that according to the Feingold folks, some children see good results just with the elimination of some food dyes and preservatives. Others also have reactions to salicylites, found in certain fruits and other foods; also artifical dyes and perfumes in soaps and detergents can be a probloem for some children.

The above study did not test for those kinds of reactions, but there are certainly plent of anecdotals observations of children improving greatly with a reduction of these artficial ingredients in their lives. I do hope that this theory will be rigorously tested, soon. But in the meantime, if I had a child on expensive drugs and requiring expensive therapy, that was ONGOING and would pretty much never end -- I'd be pretty motivate to try this diet. My child really doesn't NEED coal tar dye and preservatives. And if I had him on these foods full time, he WOULD be on drugs. He was pretty wild before I learned of the connection between his food and his attention and behavior. We were headed toward a diagnosis either of ODD, ADHD or something else.

Good luck to everyone!

[Anonymous]

Also see here re research on additives and hyperactive behavior:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?cmd=retrieve&db=pubmed&list_uids=17825405,15155391

(Not trying to convince anyone of anything; am just sharing information which was helpful for me!)

Take care.

[Anonymous]

Interactive Metronome at the Lab School


http://www.interactivemetronome.com/IMPublic/CaseStudies/ADHD.pdf

http://www.webmd.com/video/interactive-metronome-adhd

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11761130?dopt=Abstract