Reply to Scientific American Mind article on preventing ADHD

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My child has a cardiac condition that we recently learned about with a prolonged QT interval. It turns out I have it too. This is what the kids who just suddenly "drop dead on a soccer field" often are thought to have. It is congenital for some, but it is also induced by certain medications, and I believe many ADHD meds are on that list. Kids like mine can absolutely NOT take meds that further prolong the QT. If you are on a med and notice increased heart rate like that, do NOT take them. Make sure to get an EKG and have the corrected QT interval checked out by a pediatric electrophysiologist, or at least a cardiologist who knows what they are doing. You don't want to play around with that.[/quote]
Wow. I didn't realize that ADHD/ADD meds were linked to fatal heart conditions like that. I'm thinking that especially with younger children, they probably aren't thinking about the dangers of an increased heart rate. [/quote]

I have Long QT from diet pills my mother took during her pregnancy with me. You get LQT either due to being inherited like the previous poster says or it's acquired usually from some type of drug/medication.  Many many drugs are listed as drugs to avoid if you have LQTS but in and of themselves don't necessary cause LQTS. So not to be alarmed that most if not all these ADHD drugs are on the list because they increase heart rate which can be dangerous IF you have LQTS but if you don't have LQTS or other heart probs they aren't necessarily harmful to people with normal heart rhythm.  
Ask your pediatrician to rule out these probs before u give these meds to your kids and if there are no detected heart probs then it should not be a prob.
Kids who die of sudden cardiac arrest in sports are often Kids who, like me, had an undiagnosed heart condition.  LQTS is often the culprit for sudden death in kids and young adults including athletes. If your child ever faints following exertion, surprise/startle or any unexplained reason, get him or her to a cardiologist. Even if you think fainting is caused by low blood sugar or have been diagnosed with seizure disorder these can be false diagnoses as they were in my case. I had numerous fainting spells and was misdiagnosed until my late 40s when I got my first pacemaker.  For more info on LQTS, meds, etc. see www.sads.org

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