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Kids With Special Needs and Disabilities
Reply to "Treating ADHD without meds"
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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous] PP here. It's a medical issue of course it's black and white in that it's addressed as a scientific manner of black and white you idiot! If your kid functions fine then they obviously don't struggle with ADHD! You either have it or not. To a certain extent, you may have different needs in terms of mitigating symptoms but to suggest the kid can function well without any medical intervention is a sign they really are fine. And 12 is totally manageable. When you hit 8th/9th grade, give me call :) Both our kids have ADD and we also thought they were fine handling it organically without meds. At 14, things went to hell. Working memory is a scientifically real thing. Some people truly struggle with focus, complexity, fluid thinking. You can't just exercise it out. It's a medical problem you fool. [/quote] Obviously this is very personal to you and triggers a strong reaction. None the less, the poster is not an idiot or a fool. Some people with depression treat with meds and think there is no other answer (and for some there isn't). Others treat with cognitive behavior therapy, heavy exercise, a combo. ADHD may be a medical issue but like with mental health in general treatment options are more complex. Acknowledging that doesn't make someone else stupid nor does it undermine that you made a solid choice for your own children. The question I have, is what happens when your teens go out at night, after their meds wear off, and have to make social decisions? No one has answered that part. Do you medicate 24/7?[/quote] DP - I'm not sure of your point - are you saying that because ADHD brains are exhibiting disorder 24/7 and medicine is not 24/7, that there is no point to medicine? Stimulants cannot be taken 24/7 because of their effect on sleep - but many people take an extended release version so that the medicine coverage extends as far as possible throughout the day. There are other non-stimulant medicines like Strattera which extend 24 hours. Or is your point that kids have to learn behaviors to cope with the unmedicated portion of their day? OK, but the thing is that medicine has been shown to be effective in clinical trials for about 80% of people. The psychosocial interventions really don't have robust data showing they are effective, except for behavioral modification therapy. NIMH's MultiModal Treatment Study from 2009 says, "the MTA study demonstrated that, on average, carefully monitored medication with monthly follow-up is more effective than intensive behavioral treatment alone, for up to 14 months.". https://www.nimh.nih.gov/funding/clinical-research/practical/mta/the-multimodal-treatment-of-attention-deficit-hyperactivity-disorder-study-mtaquestions-and-answers (Although the study did show meds + behavior therapy is similarly effective) [/quote] Truly I didn't have a point..I have a question. My child is already very thin (thanks hyperactivity) and small..so a key concern is appetite. I've been told you handle that with schedule adjustments so then I wonder how my kid will feel and behave weekends and nights. Will school go better but not sports? Etc. [/quote] As a parent of a thin child with ADHD - there are non-stimulant meds that don't affect appetite. Stimulant meds can be given after breakfast. You can have 2 short acting doses so that kid is hungry at lunch or afterschool, our kid did second dinner for a time. There's also high calorie drinks. And one can take weekend, holiday and summer breaks depending on what else is going on. A good psychiatrist can help you work through many options. Also, look at the MTA study data - I don't think the overall height/weight effect was that great and certainly something that didn't, IMO, outweigh the real benefits in a wide academic and social domain. [/quote] Thank you for replying. Did you find your child struggled during those off times. Weekends are very sports filled and social for us so I just wonder about the contrast of interacting with friends during school, when medicated and then on the weekends when not? Also, my kids hyperactivity is so baked into him, that part of me worries I'll miss him and the fun super creative part. All this would be much clearer if the need was super clear but for us its very border line. (Which is why some of these replies are so off putting to me...not this one of course!)[/quote] Hi pp. I want to at least speak to the fun creative part and say that when my child is on stimulants that isn’t lost at all. My son is still very much himself. Still engaged, creative, intense. It’s more that the edge is slightly off so still hyper but not jumping up and down constantly. Still fun but not as frustrated the second something goes wrong. Hope that helps. And as for weekends, we do a short acting one time in the morning and so far that has worked for him so we use it 7 days a week. Since it is just the short acting he usually has a big afternoon snack and dinner. At first he ate a lot less lunch and some days he still does but that has evened out more and anything he doesn’t eat he makes up at dinner etc. So we just use it consistently. If your child is on the border though there may not be such a difference that you worry with friends. Also anecdotal and just my opinion not based on research but I think it helps my child at night even though the stimulant has worn off. my theory is because he doesn’t have to work as hard to hold it together during the day, he often has a little more bandwidth at night. [/quote]
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