I frikken give up! Is it ADD?

I had a chance to do a quick browse of that link eBeth and it does indeed look great. I'm going to print it out so I can read it without interruption during a quiet part of the day.

I'm thinking I need to orchestrate a "bump into" with my neighbor. She's a physchiatrist who works with children and is the one who recommended the therapist we see, the one she uses for help with her adopted child. We do the "bump into" thing quite a bit just to talk. She could probably point me in the right direction.

I've been thoroughly vetted by the state already when we did the adoption so I'm not fearful of social services and other state agencies but I have heard from others that once the school gets involved it can fall anywhere between a blessing, a headache and a nightmare.

Mo goes to a really excellent, well funded school that has great teachers and staff - the school is the main reason we moved to this neighborhood. I wish I felt more comfortable turning to them for help.

Right now I just want to gather some facts and find some direction.

Montana has two good points. 1) many people have reported their kids school being very insistent that the kids be drugged up, presumably because compliant kids require fewer resources. 2) some pros get very b*tchy and sometimes even vindictive when the client disagrees with them about ending treatment. I have heard this type of story before, and my family had a brush with this type of experience after my wife sought help with dealing with her childhood sexual abuse issues. we turn to pros because we have no where else to go, but they can screw you over, and i think this that this does indeed happen more often then most people realize. Seeking help for some issues is a calculated risk.

And not seeking help can be a death sentence.

Okay, okay, maybe that's a bit dramatic but seriously you're damned if you do and damned if you don't. All you can do is weigh the "what ifs" and do what you think is best.

I'm not trying to pick a fight with you either Littlek. Not at all! I believe you when you said things have changed, but the only reason for this change is the governments lack of funds these days. They no longer have the funding, but I assure you that when the US gets through this financial crisis, DSS will be back in full swing.

I use to know some people in my neighbourhood down there who abused their kids like the one you mentioned, but DSS didn't bother with them, even after several reports. That leads me to believe that they prefered to prey on innocent people. My best friend was dying of cancer and DSS was up her ass.

I know Boomer needs help, which is why I'm here and I think it's extremely important for her to know the fact about the meds used to treat ADD/ADHD (which to this day there's no medical evidence to proove it even exists), so she understands that these meds can actually kill her little boy. Ritalin is the same thing as cocaine and that is a fact!

I had a large box filled with all the research I did that I printed up and I held onto it for years until my son turned 18, just in case. After his 18th birthday, I took the box outside, lit my fire pot and burned it all. I was finally free from the fear they instilled in me, which I carried until my son was finally an adult, so I would have to do the research all over again to add it here and I just don't have the time. I wish I did because the information I dug up was a devistating eye opener.

I know I have some threads on this issue somewhere from way back, which I think has some links to information I found, but I'm not sure. I'll have to go check it out.

My research included information stating that DSS received major government funding for removing children from their homes and the social workers themselves received a $5,000 bonus for their aide in ripping children away from their homes.

You may not see this information as any help to Boomer, but I beg to differ. If Mo tested positive for ADD/ADHD and meds are recommend, I think it's extremely important for Boomer to know what these meds can actually do. I researched every single medication prescribed for ADD/ADHD and I still can't believe they're feeding that poison to kids, yes "poison", because that's exactly what it is.

My son was on Ritalin for a short time and it turned him into someone I didn't even know anymore. His heart raced as fast as a bird, he could eat or sleep. He had headaches, felt sick to his stomache all the time and he was like a zombie. I know there were more side effects but I can't think of them at the moment. I didn't have a computer at the time I agreed to put my son on Ritalin, but if I had, I would have done the research on it first and I would have never ever given it to him if I had known the risks. I'm telling Boomer the risks because they won't.

Some kids are mellow like my brother was and some are like Mo, my son and myself who have a lot of energy and over active brains that like to get ahead of itself and as overwhelming as it can be to have a child like this, it's who they are and I found that trying to mold my son in any other way was not helpful at all. In fact, it made things worse.
People telling my son he had a disorder disabled my boy and you have no idea the damage that it did. He gave up on everything thinking he couldn't do anything because of his disorder and most of the things are things he had no problem doing before.

You treat a child like he's/she's not normal, he's/she's not going to be normal.

ADHD didn't disable my child and rob him of his self esteme, self worth, and pride, the system did that! My son was a normal little kid until he started school and they became obsessed with him simply because he had trouble with math. My son tested college level spelling when he was 12 years old and tested above average in every other subject except for math, so the schools felt the math was so important that they destroyed our lives because of it.

Funny, I had no problem teaching him the math when I started home schooling him. He was way behind, but he got caught up in no time. To this day I keep asking him how to spell stuff.

Unless Mo is doing things to hurt others or himself, I'd just take one day at a time, take lots of deep breaths and accept that this is just the way he is. As much as we would like to mold our kids into civilized people, they're just kids who are still developing and finding themselves.

I'm all for changing his diet and trying new things to see if that works. It's amazing how different foods can have different effects on the body. The coffee thing sounds interesting and I wish I had heard of that back then because I would have tried it.

You're so very right Boomer. In this situation, it's a damned if you do, damned if you don't.

I know I've gone on and on and I'm very sorry if I'm stressing you in any way, but please know that I'm only trying to protect you and Mo from possibly going through anything near what we did.

My heart truly goes out to you and Mo, Boomer.

http://www.chiropracticresearch.org/NEWSRitalindangers.htm

http://drbate.com/Ref/ritalin.html

I don't have all that much time to do extensive research, but this is important so I'm taking the time to give you some links that may be helpful.

http://www.adhd-report.com/adhd/13_exist.html

http://www.naturalchild.org/guest/john_breeding.html

Thanks Montana. I'll be checking them out later.

I found some interesting info on Montana's links. At one page, they stated some things that the DEA had said about Ritalin. I went to the DEA and searched on Ritalin. The drug is potent and being sold on the black market (or between peers) as a recreational drug. But, I felt non-DEA website was using misleading language in it's listing of DEA findings. Still, the DEA info is informative.

You welcome k. Here's one from Dr. Baughman. This guy helped me realize that I wasn't losing my mind.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/medicating/interviews/baughman.html

I can't speak from my own experience, but a close friend of mine has a child who was completely uncontrollable without ADD drugs. I met the girl when she was three. At that time she didn't respond to her name, wouldn't keep her clothes on, ran away from home and family, bit and kicked other kids at random, couldn't sit still for five minutes, shrieked at the top of her lungs -- all this for eighteen hours a day. She also has a younger brother who has a rather quieter form of this disability. Between the two of them, my friend was at the end of her rope. Her older daughter and my daughter are friends, so all four of them were sometimes at my house.

The first time LittleOne came over, she turned on an iron that was sitting on an end table, marked the beige carpet with a green permanent marker, frightened both my cat and the birds, cut up one of my miniblinds with scissors, and called 911 -- in the time it took my daughter to get her a drink from the kitchen! I heard about this later, when I got home. I also heard from the police about the fraudulent 911 call.

The symptoms persisted, and are with her still (she's now 10). Without medication, I think she'd be institutionalized.

If her medication is correct, she's a happy, active, intelligent girl with wide-ranging interests. She's artistic and loves to learn, especially scientific subjects. She's a pleasure to be around.

Montana, this doesn't mean you're wrong in any way. I'm sad that you had to go to such lengths to assure the best for your son.

And Boomer, this is not meant to say that Mo will need medicine forever, or at all. Plenty of other methods are out there, as has been discussed earlier on this thread, and I can't believe, from your words, that Mo is nearly this bad.

It's just one instance where drugs helped. For one thing, she was able to concentrate and learn coping mechanisms.

Thank you, Wy, for posting what is probably hard.

Wy, I understand that some children are totally out of control and there just isn't any other choice than to medicate. The little girl sounds more to me like she's autistic.

I agree that in extreme cases like this little girl, meds are needed just so she doesn't hurt herself or others. It's very sad, to say the least, but I'm glad to hear she's doing well.

What I'm ranting about here is that the majority of children who are on these meds, shouldn't be.

My son wasn't even hyper (lazy as hell for a kid), yet they diagnosed him with ADHD. I'm the one who's hyper and can't sit still long enough most of the time to finish a meal. I have so much energy, it's a job just burning enough of it every day so I can get some sleep.

The schools never had any problems at all with my son, was not bouncing off the walls or disrupting class. The schools insisted he couldn't focus, yet he was only having problems with one subject.

They diagnosed my son with something where he showed no symptoms, but I sure have them all. Go figure

Anyway, I just wanted to add that I am aware that there are extreme cases where meds are needed and I'd be content if it didn't get out of hand.

I just don't believe in medicating a kid simply because they're a huge pain in the ass.

At my sons last school in the states, over 25% of his school was on ADHD meds and I checked the #s of children who are on them now and those numbers have increaded dramatically since then. This has just gotten to the point where it's way out of control.

Extreme cases - Yes Handing it out like candy - No way

I'd have a chat with Mo's therapist first, and discuss what the current concerns are.


I think the advice re having an assessment by someone known to be conservative re medicating is very good advice, and someone who will explore and consider Mo's history, as well as talk to the school about strategies for helping him settle etc.

As I recall, he had a quiet place at his previous school that was used sometimes to help him concentrate on work, for example?



Also exploring other approaches, like fish oil, may be a good idea.

What a story, Wy. Thank heaven's Mo isn't like that.

Actually he's pretty well behaved. When he does disrupt the class it is usually on a friendly note: he wants to talk and play when it isn't appropriate. With Mo, though, this friendliness is really an attempt to control whatever situation he is in and he's pretty damn good at it so things get out of control for the teacher.

I agree with you about medication. If it was some other medical problem and I ignored it l be an idiot. Concentration and focus are important.

One of the really worrisome things I've been coming across in my reading is doctors trying out different drugs on kids until they find the one that works best for them. "He was on this for four months then we added that, the we took him off the first and added other' is not uncommon. I can understand why they have to do this but it scares the living daylights out of me.

I think that ADD is way over diagnosed, Montana, and that for a lot of people drugs are the easy way to deal with it. In these cases I think the parents are as guilty as the doctor. My psychiatrist neighbor tells me about parents coming in begging for drugs for their kids and being mad when she won't prescribe them.

ACK, dlowan, my "quiet place for concentration" suggestion at school completely backfired on us and I'm still digging us out of it. The teacher moved his desk away from the other kids instead of letting him decide when he needed a quiet place to work. He cries about it all the time.

Thank god this year is almost over.

Interesting that you bring up fish oil. I see it mentioned on a lot of ADD discussions.....

This is an excellent point. I have a friend (a physician's assistant) who told me the same thing.

and there are way too many pediatricians willing to prescribe Ritalin without fully assessing the individual needs and circumstances of the child. A close friend has a son who was ultimately diagnosed as high-functioning aspergers. Her pediatrician tried to push her to give him Ritalin for years which is not at all what he needed, but it certainly would have zombied him out.

Sure.

Babies and bathwater, though; don't let the fact that some doctors are overzealous keep you away from all doctors. Some doctors are very good.

Y'all know my saga with sozlet's ears and ENT's -- we went through three or four not-good to quite-sucky ENT's before lighting on our current absolutely fabulous ENT. The moral is not "all doctors suck" but "not all doctors are equally good -- keep looking until you find a really good one."

Boomer seems to be approaching this in just the right way... gathering info and getting advice from a variety of (actual credentialed on-the-spot) experts and then making a decision based on that info. Best of luck.