what types of treatments are best for children diagnosed with ADD/ADHD?

Question

What effects, if any, would not treating these children have on their later development?

Answer 1

First of all, make sure, your children have ADHD/ADD. A lot of times it is confused with bipolar disorder, which needs a whole different course of treatment.

Secondly, please don't think you can only use drug therapy to treat your children. Talk to a psychologist and ask about psychotherapy. There are a great many, normal things that can be done to help ADHD children. A big thing, being schedules and discipline from you and on their own parts.

As for side effects...most ADHD medications are stimulants (yea, they use stimulants to "calm down" hyper children). In reality, they often make the child lethargic, depressed, super moody (snap at anything). There are some non-stimulant medications now but they still give off a lot of the same effects.

As for later development, these drugs can become very addictive and can be used for non-ADHD reasons. Often older children and even adults use Adderall and Ritalin to get high on, which often stems from usage as a younger child.

Answer 2

Pharmacological interventions are probably most commonly used to treat ADHD. However, they are not the only option and drug free solutions can also be offered. Nevertheless, it is most important to say that you should always check with your GP/psychologist before started/ending any form of treatments.

A variety of psychological and social problems can cause ADHD-like symptoms. Such as the child’s environment, if the child is emotionally distressed, or if they have learning difficulties, or a nutritional deficiency. In fact one in ten children with ADHD can be cured by good nutrition. Some ADHD type behaviours can be a product of food allergies of toxic chemicals such as perfume, lead, or organophosphates (University of Teesside, 2006). Therefore the treatment bust be suited to the root cause of the problem.

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Answer 3

I have not found any medical test available however have received a lot of information regarding food allergies that could cause more severe cases whereas a rotation diet to eliminate the food allergy could make the symptoms of ADD/ADHD more tolerable. From a parent with 6 years of experience.

Answer 4

I would stay away from Riddelin... there are many other choices now a days. I am an adult and was on Strattera for a while... I chose not to use meds after a while but some kids really need it. You need to decide if you want your child medicated... have you tried just changing his diet or having his excersice more? My mom use to just run me til I dropped and never medicated me...

Answer 5

depending on the age...it would be Cellular or Ritalin. My boys used both growing up; there are also new medicines now available check with your family Doctor or Peed.

Answer 6

Just last week there was a piece on the news about how college students get Ritalin (one of the medications used to treat ADHD)and another of those medications (I forget the name. It begins with "A".). It was stated that some people believe the abuse of these medications could be as high as 50% of college students. It was then stated that when these drugs are not needed but are used they can cause brain damage. The news piece did not elaborate, but it made me shudder when I think of the widespread use of these medications in children.

There is much debate about the use of them. Some experts believed children are over-diagnosed and over-prescribed. Others claim these medications are "life-savers". Many mothers claim the same thing, but I always wonder if that's just because their lives are made easier when their children are calmed down.
Some children claim the medications make them sick.

Treatments for ADD/ADHD include behavioral techniques, teaching methods, and medications.

I was a super-well-behaved student who learned easily, so I was always about as far from ADD/ADHD as anyone could be. Still, in my adult life I had a period of time when I was in extreme, extreme, stress. I noticed that I couldn't read and was distracted to a point where I kept thinking about how I now thought I knew what it must be like to have a learning disability. In spite of having above-average math skills, there were times when I couldn't get my brain to "digest" something as simple as adding up three numbers or more. I began looking into what stress can do, and I saw how it causes elevated cortisol levels, which can cause a rise in blood pressure and diffculty concentrating. It has occurred to me that when children are diagnosed as having ADD or ADHD but otherwise show no clear issues (like dyslexia) there has to be the chance that at least some of them could be suffering from nothing more than stress in the school and/or home environment.

I can't help but suspect that if a child begins to have some school problems they could be compounded by his feeling as if he's been placed under a microscope, and all the adults are trying to figure out "what's wrong with him". I can see how there has to at least be the possibility that in some cases what looks like a learning problem could be a matter of stress that has snowballed and increased exponentially.

To the best of my understanding (and I'm not an expert), children who shows signs of ADD/ADHD (whether or not the diagnosis of either of these is accurate) have serious difficulties in school to the point where they lose ground that cannot be made up. Children who act hyperactive can be children that "nobody wants to see coming", and they may sense that people aren't particularly warmed up to them when they show up. I think I've heard that people who have been left untreated can also be prone to depression because they have a whole set of things that add up to it.

The child who doesn't do well in school may end up in Special Ed, which removes them from mainstream and can make them acutely aware of their "special" circumstances or difficulties. They can be in with children who are slower than they are or who have more serious problems.

When a child doesn't do well enough in school he can end up being placed in lower and lower level classes that are in the "mainstream" but that often have kids who are bad influences. The kid with school problems has a bad self image and is more likely to do things that will make himself or others see him as more "in" or "cool". The trouble with the lower level classes and the child with the "mysterious" learning problem is that they don't tend to do all that much better in these classes either; because their problem is usually not a matter of lack of abillity but of lack of ability to concentrate.

Children with severe school problems or hyperactivity-related behavior problems in school can feel like outcasts or different or like problem-people or stupid people. They are more likely to want to drop out of school. Hyperactivity can make them have trouble keeping friends, so they can be lonely.

There is a certain type of structure in the environment and in his daily activities that can help a child with ADD do a little better. There are things that teachers/parents can do to help a child learn techniques to help him put more order to his behavior.

Not treating children who are believed to have ADD/ADHD can have serious effects; but then again there are adults who have gotten through school and who have decent jobs but who discover they have ADD when they're adults. Some people apparently find a way to manage, and my question is this: Is it better to just leave a child in mainstream classes and leave him to struggle and do his best and try to find ways to overcome his concentration problems than it is to allow him to get "sucked in" to the whole "what's wrong with him" thing with all the adults around him focusing on his "problem". Children buy what they are told, and if they're told by adults that they have a problem they will see themselves as "problem people", which isn't good.

When it comes to the question of stress possibly causing elevated cortisol people may look at a happy child's life and think he can't possibly be stressed out; but some of the smallest situations can create stress for a child. Also, I have recently read that if certain things occur in a baby/toddler's life that involve that child's not having the right combination of experiences to develop the right type of brain connections that child's brain may permanently become "wired" to have a higher-than-normal level of cortisol in response to a level of stress that someone with "better wiring" would not respond to to the same degree. In other words, the thing that causes mild worry or stress in the child with an optimally wired brain can cause the child with the "off" wired brain to have a more dramatic response in terms of cortisol levels.

I know I haven't answered as directly or as completely as you may have wished, but I hope some of what I've offered gives you some ideas to look into before making decision about medication.

Final note: Don't be afraid to consider the possibility that the professionals you have been dealing with may not be cream-of-the-crop or else may, at the very least, not be particularly innovative thinkers. Second opinions or changes of schools are things you should also consider. Some schools just aren't aimed at some types of students.