Why do so many Doctors prescribe pills like ritalin for children when there MAY be other alternatives?

Question

More and more children are being prescribed pills like these for conditions like Aspergers, ADHD. I have heard the wonders it does for these children through a lot of answers here. The reason I ask is because of the problems I had with my daughter when she was younger, all symptoms the same as ADHD, and it was suggested to me by my doctor and health visitor that she may have one of these conditions and ritalin was suggested to me. I disagreed and pursued the avenue that it may be food related. After trial and error over a period of time, I found food and drinks containing pure aspartame were the problem and upon presenting this to my doctor was given a full diagnosis that her body could not process this chemical and it caused the chemical imbalance in her brain.
This made me wonder how many doctors actually suggest the food related issues concerning these conditions rather than prescribing these sorts of treatments straight away.

Yes Doctors are overworked etc etc but a change in diet was not even suggested to me, just the introduction of medication. Maybe if it was suggested that parents take the initative and try a change of diet (or in some cases discipline) to see if this improves the child's behaviour before medication is prescribed, an improvement may be seen in a lot of the children like my in my daughter. In obvious serious cases medication is the only route of course. It just makes me wonder if I had let my daughter have ritalin what long term damage MAY have been done to her through taking Unnecessary medication.

Yes Doctors are overworked etc etc but a change in diet was not even suggested to me, just the introduction of medication. Maybe if it was suggested that parents take the initative and try a change of diet (or in some cases discipline) to see if this improves the child's behaviour before medication is prescribed, an improvement may be seen in a lot of the children like in my daughter. In obvious serious cases medication is the only route of course. It just makes me wonder if I had let my daughter have ritalin what long term damage MAY have been done to her through taking Unnecessary medication.

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Answer 1

Sadly I think Drs now days have become blinkered and find it hard to appreciate there can be a cure without drugs. They are far to quick to pigeon hole people and lable them as having a 'treatable' condition, without first looking at other possible explanations and/or causes. Drug companies have a lot to do with it too, they have a scary hold over our Drs, our NHS and our society, when it comes down to it, it's all about the money.

A friend of a friend of mine had a similar problem with misdiagnosis. Her daughter had a red raw rash on her thighs and bum, she was prescribed anti eczema creams but it became so bad the child was hospitalised. It gradually got better until she went home and it flareded up again. To cut a long story short, she took her to a holistic practitioner and it was discovered the child was allergic to the type of rubber in her bath mat. Result - no mat, no rash - simple as that.

We are far to quick to assume that drugs are the only cure, and the media does not help matters. I'm afraid we will only see an increase in children being labeled as having ADHD etc. as the diet we feed our children declines further into the relms of cheap, quick and easy, toxic ladened convienience foods. Our bodied weren't build to cope with the levels of preservatives, additives and essentially poisons that we pump it full of daily. Even when we think we are doing well by eating low-fat food, we're only making things worse as these are full of increasing levels of sugar, or worse, aspartame to compensate for the lack of fat.

Sadly I don't know the solution, but It has to come from the top. Organic foods need to be cheaper, and food education should be a top priority. Our diet affects us more than we know!

Answer 2

lots of 'doctor knocking' going on here,
I agree that our society wants the quick fix solution.......that goes equally as much for the parent/patient as it does for the doctor.
the doctor may feel under pressure (and feel that is is a good solution) to prescribe a treatment with a known, proven record, rather than tell the parent to take weeks or months to try eliminating 'this' from the diet and then 'that', and then something else - which may ultimately prove fruitless in many cases.
even organic, home prepared 'pure' food can cause a reaction in some people, so it's not just a simple case of cutting out food colouring and additives.
I also note that you mention aspartame.........there is a lot of nonsense talked about aspartame, especially since a hoax e-mail started popping up a couple of years ago.........it all sounded *very* convincing citing (supposed) medical research and (invented) societies with grand titles.
I am not saying that aspartame NEVER causes problems!!
I just note that a lot of people are overly cautious about it's use, with no need, and are quick to blame it for any problems.
There is a well known medical effect called the placebo effect, where people (taking a medicine) get better because they _think they are supposed_ to get better - this works even when the 'medicine' is nothing but sugar pills.............there is a negative corollary to this where people think that a particular substance is harmful, and feel better when this substance is removed from their diet...even though the substance has no actual effect.

Answer 3

The answer is simple, if he prescribes amphetamine based medications he has treated the problem and he only has to see the patient once or maybe twice. Going through an exclusion diet to ascertain intolerances is a lengthy process which many doctors would rather not embark on. As well as the Parents/patients too. In the UK for example, the prescription rate of ADHD drugs is very small and therefore the market size is tiny. P.s. Aspartane is not a great thing! causal link to other issues. Omega 3,6 and 9 oils are good for kids who cannot concentrate

Answer 4

Firstly, a suggestion that it might be ADHD by the doctor and health visitor is not the same as a diagnosis; likewise, a suggestion that ritalin might be used is not the same as a prescription. As already stated by others, this diagnosis can only be carried out by a child psychiatrist or paediatrician with experience of ADHD.

For some parents, it may be more convenient to accept a diagnosis of ADHD and prescription of Ritalin than to go through exclusion diets, which as you say are trial and error and time consuming; for this reason, I believe that some healthcare professionals have become conditioned to make the suggestion that you received first.

Secondly, in some situations it may be cheaper to the NHS to make the prescription than to have a patient referred - the NHS therefore only has to pay for one consultation with a GP, rather than one with a GP, followed by who knows how many with a specialist.

Rather than blaming the GPs who are the first point of contact, or accusing them of prescribing as a way of filling their own pockets, perhaps sometimes we should look at the guidance that is given to them by the NHS and other bodies, such as the National Institute of Clinical Excellence (NICE). This is not easy, hence the media don't often tend to bother. It's easier to blame to doctors.

Answer 5

My son is 11 and his school reckon he has ADAH because he fidgets alot. Academically he is a very bright boy who did really well in his SATS but he is only the third pupil in his entire class of about 30 whom english is the first language so the classes are slow so the remaining 27 pupils can get the gist of things. Kids today arent allowed to be kids and if they act like kids ie, fannying about and talking or getting excited in the playground then they must have ADAH. To be honest im getting pretty sick of schools trying to label our kids and trying to ram drugs down their necks.Fortunatly we have a really good doctor who would only prescribe drugs if there is no alternative. He always looks at the diet of the child first and the enviroment and even he reckons there are far too many children taking class A drugs which ritalin is classed as.

Answer 6

Because it works?
I don't know if Ritalin is effective on Asperger's, but it sure works on ADHD.
The main reasons that doctors dont follow the regime contained in "Is your child's brain starving to death" by Michael Lyons are 1) a lack of time to do this 2) a lack of evidence that this works in controlled studies. There is no doubt that certain people have triggers - sugar, chocolate, dyes etc that can trigger behaviour. There is no guarantee that you can accurately predict what the triggers are because we are all unique. This accounts for the failure of the Feingold diet in controlled studies.
Because it is time consuming to follow an elimination diet with the rigours of controls, the results are not often found.

Answer 7

they per scribe pills because that's what they believe is wrong but like you did parents will try to find other alternatives to what might be causing the symptoms... I have a very rare case i have ADD, ADHD, ADD with the violent sideffects, and ADHD with the Violent Sideffects, and my doctor wanted to place me on 10 different pills to try to counter act a lot of it, but a child can over come it with out pillls, i have not been on pills since i was about three and that was a mistake instead of slowing my brain down like it was designed to it had a reverse effect and made me worse especially the violence. But i was told when i went back that i also had a chemical imbalance in my brain... in reality i didn't i have over come and learned to controll my ADD and ADHD. But i believe that in some cases that the pills do not work but i have seen then work and yes a lot of children are diagnosed wrong. it seem that now and day's doctors will just say that a child will have ADD or ADHD just to say they do with out thoroughly looking it to the symptoms.

Answer 8

First of all, our society is accustomed to the "quick fix" and the idea that a pill can/should cure any ailment. And let's face it, parents don't invest the time and concern into their kids like parents from decades past; they don't want to change their home diet if it will help their kids be less hyperactive, nor do they teach them the manners they need (so they end up appearing more out of control). This was my experience with my aunt and uncle and their 3 ADHD/Hyperactive children. It was exhausting when they came for Thanksgiving!

Answer 9

I agree, it's too easy for GP's to dish out medication instead of offering advise on perhaps changing foods etc. My cousins daughter used to be a right little madam until the health advisor said try cutting out certain foods or colourings in the food/drink she has. After a month they narrowed it down to orange juice and that type of thing and now she's fine.

Answer 10

my sister had adhd symptoms all the way through childhood,she is 21 now and still has these symptoms. her dr told her it might be food related and we went down that line,she was told she couldn't have dairy products,fizzy drinks, and loads of other foods. but none of this controlled her completely, so we gave up and just got on with life. she was an uncontrollable teenager and still doesn't know how to act 'normal' but dr's say its too late to use ritilin now and shes on anti-depressents,which practicly make her unconscious. if it was offered to her earlier, her life and our lives would have been made easier. ritilin is a last resort and other things should be tryed first, but it definatly should not be overlooked. :)