I routinely see psychotropic medications such as Ritalin, Concerta, Strattera, Prozac, Risperdal, Adderall, guanfacine, Seroquel, and Abilify prescribed for children between the ages of 5 and 15 years old. These meds include central nervous system stimulants, antidpressants, antihypertensives, antipsychotics, and amphetamines.

On the one hand I find it troubling to see kids so loaded with chemicals. Some children are on two, three, or four psychotrophic meds at once. On the other hand, I identify with some of the behavioral problems these kids encounter in this crazy old world. Perhaps if I got the chance to have the right medication regimen in childhood, I would have had a much easier time growing up which would translate into easier "success" as an adult.

I think the press is biased against meds for kids because good news does not make the news. You only hear about it when a ten year old on Paxil kills himself or when a teenager on Adderall goes on a rampage. I do see the prescription, and over-prescription of meds, as a band-aid solution for our familial and societal hang-ups. I wish we could resolve the issues at large so individual kids did not have to take so many medications. However, problems are nothing new. My family, my schools, my "culture" had problems galore when I was growing up, and try as we might via counseling interventions and psychotherapy, the problems never really got solved. Thus, I'm not convinced I wouldn't have been better off when I was 12 had I been able to get some Concerta and Prozac.

Thoughts on the issue?
???

Thoughts on the issue?
???


Well, I agree with this article. I'll quote a line from it:

"The child is under a medication that changes the way his or her brain operates. Read that again and think about it."

It also seems to me that many of these cases of alphabet soup (i.e. ADD, ADHD, etc.) are manufactured or blown out of proportion just so some psychiatrist with an equal amount of alphabet soup after his name can prescribe expensive, questionably effective and 'method of action unknown' drugs.


Some children are on two, three, or four psychotrophic meds at once.

That's bordering on criminal in my book since many of these meds haven't been thoroughly tested for effects on kids, nor have a long history with adults. AFAIK, none are tested together, so giving a kid say three different drugs that have similar or overlapping effects is a craps shoot.

Thoughts on the issue?


We interrupt this program with a special bulletin:  America is now under martial law.  All constitutional rights have been suspended.  Stay in your homes. Do not attempt to contact loved ones, insurance agents, or attorneys.  Shut up! 

Do not attempt to think, or depression may occur.  Stay in your homes! Curfew is at 7:00 PM sharp, after work. Anyone caught outside of gates of their subdivision sectors after curfew, WILL. BE. SHOT.  (Remain calm.)

Do not panic. Your neighborhood watch officer will be by to collect urine samples in the morning.  Anyone caught intefering with the collection of urine samples - WILL. BE. SHOT.

Stay in your homes!  Remain calm!  The #1 enemy of progress is questions!  National security is more important than individual will!  All sports broadcasts will proceed as normal. No more than two people may gather anywhere without permission. 

Use only the drugs described by your boss or supervisor.

Shut up!  Be happy!  Obey all orders without question!  The comfort youi've demanded is now mandatory.

Be happy.  At last, everything is done for you!

-- Jello Biafra (spoken word) / Ice-T (background music), "Shut Up, Be Happy" (Track 01, Ice-T, The Iceberg / Freedom of Speech (Just watch what you say), 1989)

Yes, I love that intro to Jello's "No More Coccoons." It has more currency today than it did in 1988. Far more!

As Red Ant points out, we don't REALLY know what the long-term effects of a lot of these meds will be.

I am less condemning of psychopharmaceuticals than some others might be. I have major depression and anxiety. I began taking meds when I was 22 years old. They saved my life. I sh!t you not. I would not have seen my thirtieth birthday. It's that simple.

The Ritalin phenomenon is not new. They were giving kids Ritalin for "hyperactivity" as far back as the early '70s. What is new is the number of new drugs and the percentage of kids prescribed them. There is behavior and there is behavior. Some kids I hear about (I often transcribe reports for psychiatric professionals in my line of work) do exhibit symptoms of serious mental illness--sadistical violence, delusions, hallucinations, catalepsy, and so forth. Most though are just "acting out." I expect kids to do that "acting out" is part of "growing up." I'm not trying to sound glib, but the nuns had a "cure" for adhd--it was called a ruler!
In the old days they used to force behavior by violence. Sometimes this worked, other times it merely repressed pathology, leaving it to stew in its own juices only to manifest as something far sicker in adulthood.
I'm not a conservative because I don't believe in just talking about "family values." I believe in family values. Divorce does extrordinary damage to children, and the number of families together is a minority in some communities. Communities? Our communities lack community. Hillary's book title was an African proverb: "It takes a village to raise a child," and I believe that is absolutely right. I believe much of the behavioral problems in children today stem from broken families, children who are the products of clueless and unmarried couples, and a sense of isolation and alienation. Your psychiatric professional knows he or she cannot fix the larger problem, but modern pharmaceuticals may alleviate some of the difficulties. The horrible truth for those who condemn meds for kids outright is more often and not, the meds have a positive effect. Long-term consequences of childhood meds use is a serious issue. The question of making a healthy environment to foster healthy kids is another serious issue. Meanwhile, the psychiatrist and the clinical nurse are faced with a medical question. As medical personnel a medical question, you get a medical answer.

Forget about ADHD for a moment. Think about psychopathology. What if Jeffrey Dahmer's psychopathology was properly treated starting in his teens? If Dahmer had a drug such as Seroquel or Abilify in conjunction with outpatient psychotherapy, he may have been marginally functional, and at least would not have killed all those young men.

Yes, I love that intro to Jello's "No More Coccoons."

Thanks - as I was transcribing it, I knew I'd also heard it on a spoken word project of his, but I couldn't place the original. There are some minor lyrical changes from the original to the Ice-T version, if I recall correctly.  But yeah, the dude was ahead of his time.

I've worked with some kids who had to be on meds.  No question.  Without it they would have ended up in jail or in the psych hospital long-term.  They had hallucinations (before the drugs, not after) or they had severe behavioral issues.  I'm not talking about ADD.  I'm talking about severe bipolar disorder and the like.  The severe mood swings made it impossible for them to attend school and their parents were going crazy trying to cope.  Meds have made a huge difference for these kids.  The system of prescribing these meds will never be perfect because the reaction of each child to each medication can be different.  It's a trial-and-error process and that's just the way it is.  But for many kids, they can live a somewhat normal life with these meds.

And again, this isn't about making everyone happy or shutting off their personalities.  It's about survival and having a decent shot at life.  Sometimes meds are a good thing.

Some adults need to be medicated and some kids need to be medicated.  On the flip-side, some kids are medicated when they shouldn't be the same as some adults are medicated when they shouldn't be.  I think that prescribing hardcore meds like Valium, Ritalin, Prozac, Thorazine and the such should really be left for the most extreme cases, and not just for anyone who might exhibit a symptom or two.  Overmedication is a growing problem, I believe.

I think the problem in this area is that people still think that holistic touted by quacks.  There is a definite bias against anything not ascribed by the AMA and that too many doctors are reluctant to come on board out of arrogance, and maybe greed.  I believe their are certainly those who do need drugs, at what age to begin is a matter of conjecture, but, I think that if the child is treated with a regimen of diet and therapy, including "alternatives" such as yoga and acupuncture, before the introduction of pharmaceuticals they could possibly learn coping techniques that would alleviate the necessity of ever increasing dosages in adulthood.  I also believe that with the advancement in pharmaceuticals that the drugs and doses could tailored to the individual, just as diets and therapies are. I think the problem is more of parents, doctors and educators looking for a quick fix that ends up being more harmful in the long run.

^ I think there definitely should be more support for non-pharmaceutical solutions for young people with behavioral problems. I despair that the schools and the adjunct mental health professional seem neither able nor willing to tackle the root causes. The child is not raised in a vacuum. The problems stem from dysfunctional families, school that really does suck, and cultural values toxic to kids. More excersize, better nutrition, and less toxic stimuli would go a long way.

On the other hand, you've got a kid from a severely dysfunctional family going to an underfunded public school, what do you do as the assigned mental health provider? You have limited resources. A lot of these familes are chaotic and clueless. They don't know what to do. Then you've got schools with barely enough funding to buy textbooks, let alone invest in a holistic approach. That holistic approach requires us as a society to actually give a damn about kids. We don't, just follow the money.

Pills come through in a pinch.

I caution about the "holistic approach," one must be just as skeptical in this area as in the area of conventional medicine and therapy. There are indeed a lot well meaning idiots and outright frauds who will take your money for snake oil.

For psychiatric problems such as bipolarity, schizophrenia, severe depression, and various psychoses, pharmaceutical therapy must be part of the treatment. I have heard sundry Scientologists, naturopaths, and "mental health reformers" denounce ALL psychiatry as fraud. We have one such anti-psychiatry fruit loop on a local radio station out here who denies there is any such thing as schizophrenia and encourages bipolarity sufferers not to take medication. I've met this guy, I think he needs not only medication, but a straightjacket and electroshock therapy!

For psychiatric problems such as bipolarity, schizophrenia, severe depression, and various psychoses, pharmaceutical therapy must be part of the treatment. I have heard sundry Scientologists, naturopaths, and "mental health reformers" denounce ALL psychiatry as fraud.



Although a wouldn't wish this anguish an anyone(well most anyone), it would be nice to see a pic of Katie Holmes having a post partum episode all over Tom Cruises face.

^ I think there definitely should be more support for non-pharmaceutical solutions for young people with behavioral problems. I despair that the schools and the adjunct mental health professional seem neither able nor willing to tackle the root causes. The child is not raised in a vacuum. The problems stem from dysfunctional families, school that really does suck, and cultural values toxic to kids. More excersize, better nutrition, and less toxic stimuli would go a long way.

On the other hand, you've got a kid from a severely dysfunctional family going to an underfunded public school, what do you do as the assigned mental health provider? You have limited resources. A lot of these familes are chaotic and clueless. They don't know what to do. Then you've got schools with barely enough funding to buy textbooks, let alone invest in a holistic approach. That holistic approach requires us as a society to actually give a damn about kids. We don't, just follow the money.




This ties in with the previous thread about the causes of prostitution.  We are seeing a generation of "Focus Factor" prozaced kids coming of age.  The ones who haven't been cared for, who have been overprescribed or underprescribed, are coming of age and the consequences to the well being of the nation could be serious. It is the first generation of  medically produced "1984" Epsilons

As someone who suffered from severe clinical depression and was prescribed Zoloft when I was like almost 11, I can say it did wonders for me and I was more able to deal with my problems after that. However, I think ADD and ADHD are about as overdiagnosed as anything can be, and Ritalin is harmful. People have been able to deal with "ADHD" forever without medication...I'm sick of people trying to make their kids perfect when alot of people just grow out of their preadolescent problems.

As someone who suffered from severe clinical depression and was prescribed Zoloft when I was like almost 11, I can say it did wonders for me and I was more able to deal with my problems after that. However, I think ADD and ADHD are about as overdiagnosed as anything can be, and Ritalin is harmful. People have been able to deal with "ADHD" forever without medication...I'm sick of people trying to make their kids perfect when alot of people just grow out of their preadolescent problems.


I had no idea, Jimmy  ;) ^

Zoloft, yeah, I think I took that two when I was about 13-14 to cure my Anxiety/lack of concentration in school. At one stage, my anxiety was so bad I could barely eat, and had problems sleeping. I've sort of had mixed experiences with meds - I tried dex-amphetamines and they sort of worked, but were a slightly unpleasant experience. Well, that's all I can really say.

This ties in with the previous thread about the causes of prostitution.  We are seeing a generation of "Focus Factor" prozaced kids coming of age.  The ones who haven't been cared for, who have been overprescribed or underprescribed, are coming of age and the consequences to the well being of the nation could be serious. It is the first generation of  medically produced "1984" Epsilons

I think you mean Huxley, "Brave New World."
Anyway, post partum depression is transient, though it can be tragic if not treated. Just look at the case of Andrea Yates!
:o

Tom Cruise protesteth too much. There's a guy who could benefit from some meds!

^    ^^

Were you also in some kind of therapeutic program, or was it take the meds and go?


I think you mean Huxley, "Brave New World."



oops, my bad  :-[

As a few people have already mentioned, I think that there are a % of kids (as well as adults) who benefit from these drugs but many doctors, teachers, parents, and pharmaceutical companies try to use these drugs as a catch-all. "OMG, my kid has so much energy-let's drug them." News flash: KIDS HAVE LOTS OF ENERGY!!! So they turn kids into zombies-not to mention future junkies-yes, it is true that kids who grew up on Ritlin often turn to more power drugs (either prescription or illegal).  One of my best friends has a kid that they wanted to put on Ritlin-she refused. She said, "He is a boy. Boys have lots of energy." He is just about graduate HS and is doing well-WITHOUT DRUGS. But, I also know people with kids who do benefit from using these drugs. I really wish that there were more indepth tests to deminate if a kid would benefit or not-rather and the attitude of "Let's put him/her on the drug and see what happens." 




Cat

^    ^^

Were you also in some kind of therapeutic program, or was it take the meds and go?


oops, my bad  :-[


Me? I was seeing a shrink.

^     ^^

Were you also in some kind of therapeutic program, or was it take the meds and go?



Medication does not obviate the need for talk therapy. In some cases Prozac did in a year what psychotherapy could not do in twenty years. No amount of analysis could break the cycle of clinical depression. Once the neurochemical cycle is broken, it does not mean a person's psychological responses to life  have changed. Modern antidepressants make talk therapy more effective, but they do not replace it.

It is also vital for psychiatric professionals to monitor all psychotrophic medications. Especially in the beginning, the cure can feel worse than the illness. Sometimes people have manic responses to SSRIs. Close monitoring of meds is emportant for insuring the effectiveness of medications and the well-being of the patient.

Close monitoring is even more important for patients on medications for schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and psychoses. Drugs such as Seroquel and Abilify can also have physiolgical effects such as drastic weight gain and tardive dyskinesia.

A lot of the bad press Prozac and Paxil got, IMO, came from cases where the meds were prescribed hastily buy underqualified doctors. You had in the '90s people gett Prozac scrips from their MDs for the sake of vanity. They wanted a personality tune-up. Well, taking an SSRI when you don't need it is like taking heart medication when you don't need it. It's asking for trouble!

The problems with bad experiences with medications, especially with children, speak more of a need to reform our healthcare system than they do against the drugs themselves.

I think meds are prescribed too much. There's a difference between being a little "weird" or "energetic" and being truly mentally ill.  Sometimes Ritalin, etc. are just prescribed to "control behavior" easily.

.

A lot of the bad press Prozac and Paxil got, IMO, came from cases where the meds were prescribed hastily buy underqualified doctors. You had in the '90s people gett Prozac scrips from their MDs for the sake of vanity. They wanted a personality tune-up. Well, taking an SSRI when you don't need it is like taking heart medication when you don't need it. It's asking for trouble!



A friend of mine who is clinical once sent me a couple of her Prozac when I was going through a mental slump. She pressed me to take them because they had done so much for her(it did wonders for her), but I threw them away instead and a good thing too.  I know that I have an addictive personality when it comes to something like that and knew I would end up in trouble.  I think the problem is with people who have addictive personalities, who do not need meds but are given them and end up in an endless cycle. This is the problem when medicating children.  If borderline children have meds thrown at them it can be the beginning of a lifelong dependency.  A friend thought she would help her son out with his anxiety of entering high school by giving him some of her Xanax.  Big mistake.  By the time they got him to a professional he was all screwed up. 

A friend of mine who is clinical once sent me a couple of her Prozac when I was going through a mental slump. She pressed me to take them because they had done so much for her(it did wonders for her), but I threw them away instead and a good thing too.  I know that I have an addictive personality when it comes to something like that and knew I would end up in trouble.  I think the problem is with people who have addictive personalities, who do not need meds but are given them and end up in an endless cycle. This is the problem when medicating children.  If borderline children have meds thrown at them it can be the beginning of a lifelong dependency.  A friend thought she would help her son out with his anxiety of entering high school by giving him some of her Xanax.  Big mistake.  By the time they got him to a professional he was all screwed up. 

Yes, it's a good thing you threw those tablets away. Antidepressants are not immediate remedies for depression like Xanax or Klonopin are for anxiety. It takes anywhere from four to eight weeks to ascertain the effectiveness of an SSRI such as Prozac. The other important distinguishing property of antidepressants is the are not habit-forming. Your physiology does become acclimatized to them so it can be difficult to start them or to come off of them. You can get terrible withdrawal symptoms from antidepressants, such as nausea, dizziness, malaise, nightmares, and fatigue. However, you don't get hooked on them like you get hooked on Valium or Xanax. That is why antidepressants are in a different control schedule from the anti-anxiety drugs, sedatives, and narcotic analgesics. Your doctor can just hand you a "starter pack" of samples of Prozac or Wellbutrin, but cannot freely distribute controlled medications such as Ativan or Vicodin. The doctor by law must write an official prescription for these.
Xanax is getting less popular among doctors because it is so habit-forming along with being a short-acting drug that encourages the user to take escalating doses. I think Xanax is sh^t! I have taken Xanax a few times and did not like it. I found it made me feel dull and muddy-headed. There are newer anti-anxiety drugs (such as Klonopin, which I take) that are longer-acting and less habit forming.  Klonopin is still habit-forming, but not as prone as the older benzodiazepines.
I don't know if your friend was aware how irresponsible she was being. First off, it is illegal to distribute a controlled substance prescribed to you to another person. Period. Secondly, child and adolescent neurochemistry is different form that of an adult. I mean, a one-time dose of 1, 2, or even 4 mg of Xanax wouldn't be dangerous to a kid. The worst it would do is make him extremely torpid and sleep for about fourteen hours! However, the chemical build-up of a benzodiazepine taken by a child over several days or weeks could cause some serious problems.  Your friend could have gotten in big trouble, even if she was ignorant of the law. I'm not saying she had anything but good intentions, but you know what they say about good intentions!

My son is currently on ADD meds and is doing well.  I know many kids who are on meds that are doing well, some who shouldn't be, and some who aren't but probably should be.  He's been diagnosed with ADD (caused by CAPD).  There's really no "treatment" for the CAPD so the best we can do is treat the ADD.  We tried the diet and it had no effect so we tried the meds.  I AM concerned about the long-term effects, though, so I am adamant about keeping him on the smallest dose possible.  His doctor said he'd probably get more benefit out of a higher dose, but IMO, since he's doing okay on the smaller dose, why increase it?  I'm also hyper-vigilant about watching for side-effects since he reacted so badly to the prior medications (one the "traditional stimulant" meds {Adderall, Concerta, Ritalin}, he became violent, on the "stimulant free" {Strattera}, he became suicidal).  One of my older son's friends is on the ADD meds, then 2 other meds to counteract the side-effects.  IMO, that's too much and there's a marked difference (and not a positive one) between him ON meds and OFF.    On the other hand, my best friend's son is on meds and it's been night and day with him.  He's still very much the same boy he was before, but he's MUCH more in control of his behavior.  He's still mischievous, but not dangerously so and he can actually hold a coherent conversation with you whereas before, he'd start on dinosaurs and in the matter of minutes, be on baseball.  Then, there's a boy down the street that I will not allow in my house/yard/etc.  He's been diagnosed with ADHD and his parents REFUSE to treat him AT ALL.  He has no impulse control and I'm scared that he's going to hurt himself or one of my other kids when he's here.  The parents are also the type that would sue me if he got hurt at my house so I won't let the kids play with him here.  The last time he was here, he was walking across the top of our playset after I told him MULTIPLE times NOT to (it's about 12' off the ground). :o

As a few people have already mentioned, I think that there are a % of kids (as well as adults) who benefit from these drugs but many doctors, teachers, parents, and pharmaceutical companies try to use these drugs as a catch-all. "OMG, my kid has so much energy-let's drug them." News flash: KIDS HAVE LOTS OF ENERGY!!! So they turn kids into zombies-not to mention future junkies-yes, it is true that kids who grew up on Ritlin often turn to more power drugs (either prescription or illegal).  One of my best friends has a kid that they wanted to put on Ritlin-she refused. She said, "He is a boy. Boys have lots of energy." He is just about graduate HS and is doing well-WITHOUT DRUGS. But, I also know people with kids who do benefit from using these drugs. I really wish that there were more indepth tests to deminate if a kid would benefit or not-rather and the attitude of "Let's put him/her on the drug and see what happens." 

Yeah, that's part of it. Kids have a lot of energy. But look at what we feed them - sugar, sugar, and more sugar, with sugar on the side. No wonder they get all hyped up, and then crash and get moody. If I'd been a little younger, I'd probably be diagnosed as ADD. The symptoms are a lot the same - inability to concentrate especially. However, what I have has nothing to do with ADD - it has everything to do with my blood sugar. Ritalin probably wouldn't help me at all - but if I were 10 years younger I'll bet you anything I would be on it.

The truth is, if I eat a high-protein diet, my "ADD" symptoms go away. I wonder how many of these kids would be totally different if they just ate something besides simple carbs all day. I mean, everything has got high-fructose corn syrup in it now. It ramps those kids' metabolism up like a rocket, and then drops it like a stone. It's insane.

Yeah, that's part of it. Kids have a lot of energy. But look at what we feed them - sugar, sugar, and more sugar, with sugar on the side. No wonder they get all hyped up, and then crash and get moody. If I'd been a little younger, I'd probably be diagnosed as ADD. The symptoms are a lot the same - inability to concentrate especially. However, what I have has nothing to do with ADD - it has everything to do with my blood sugar. Ritalin probably wouldn't help me at all - but if I were 10 years younger I'll bet you anything I would be on it.

The truth is, if I eat a high-protein diet, my "ADD" symptoms go away. I wonder how many of these kids would be totally different if they just ate something besides simple carbs all day. I mean, everything has got high-fructose corn syrup in it now. It ramps those kids' metabolism up like a rocket, and then drops it like a stone. It's insane.



VERY true. Diet is a big part of it-and then many of these kids have either t.v. computer, or video games as babysitters instead of going out and playing to work off all that energy.



Cat

^ Careful about the "diet" thing. Diet can neither precipitate nor cure a discrete psychiatric illness. As an individual who has met with severe depression his entire life, I'm fed up with cranks who write diet books. If you have depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia or whatever, a salubrious diet and daily exercise will help  some of your symptoms--but you will still have the psychiatric illness.

Sugar is anything but harmless to kids, but it's also a convenient scapegoat. If you have child who has trouble sitting still or engaging in rigorous intellectual activities, cutting back on the sugar, the TV, and the videogames might help. But be careful. If that child is manifesting early symptoms of depression, anxiety, or schizotype disorders, modifying diet and regulating behavior will not address the root of the problem. In the case of childhood ADD/ADHD, I do believe this is a discrete pyschiatric problem and needs to be treated as such.

One of the problems we face is a crummy healthcare system. Proper counseling and psychometry will parse one problem from another, but most health plans will not cover diagnostics adequately enough. Without adequate diagnostics you can't determine whether it is discrete ADHD, too much sugar in the diet, or dysfunctional family stressors causing the problem. It's cheaper for insurance companies and more profitable for pharmaceutical companies for a 3-year-old to get a scrip for 5 mg Adderall a day.
::)

^ Careful about the "diet" thing. Diet can neither precipitate nor cure a discrete psychiatric illness. As an individual who has met with severe depression his entire life, I'm fed up with cranks who write diet books. If you have depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia or whatever, a salubrious diet and daily exercise will help  some of your symptoms--but you will still have the psychiatric illness.

Sugar is anything but harmless to kids, but it's also a convenient scapegoat. If you have child who has trouble sitting still or engaging in rigorous intellectual activities, cutting back on the sugar, the TV, and the videogames might help. But be careful. If that child is manifesting early symptoms of depression, anxiety, or schizotype disorders, modifying diet and regulating behavior will not address the root of the problem. In the case of childhood ADD/ADHD, I do believe this is a discrete pyschiatric problem and needs to be treated as such.

One of the problems we face is a crummy healthcare system. Proper counseling and psychometry will parse one problem from another, but most health plans will not cover diagnostics adequately enough. Without adequate diagnostics you can't determine whether it is discrete ADHD, too much sugar in the diet, or dysfunctional family stressors causing the problem. It's cheaper for insurance companies and more profitable for pharmaceutical companies for a 3-year-old to get a scrip for 5 mg Adderall a day.
::)
I agree.  As I stated, we tried the "diet" approach with my son before he started the meds and it had absolutely no effect because his is primarily caused by a medical condition.  What we HAVE found, oddly enough, is that sugar actually HELPS his symptoms somewhat.  Now, most of those "sugars" he gets are through fruits, so I guess it's healthier than the "high fructose corn syrup".  Now that summer's here, we have cut his meds down DRAMATICALLY and once baseball is over, we will stop them altogether and try school again without them. 

^ Careful about the "diet" thing. Diet can neither precipitate nor cure a discrete psychiatric illness. As an individual who has met with severe depression his entire life, I'm fed up with cranks who write diet books. If you have depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia or whatever, a salubrious diet and daily exercise will help  some of your symptoms--but you will still have the psychiatric illness.

Sugar is anything but harmless to kids, but it's also a convenient scapegoat. If you have child who has trouble sitting still or engaging in rigorous intellectual activities, cutting back on the sugar, the TV, and the videogames might help. But be careful. If that child is manifesting early symptoms of depression, anxiety, or schizotype disorders, modifying diet and regulating behavior will not address the root of the problem. In the case of childhood ADD/ADHD, I do believe this is a discrete pyschiatric problem and needs to be treated as such.

One of the problems we face is a crummy healthcare system. Proper counseling and psychometry will parse one problem from another, but most health plans will not cover diagnostics adequately enough. Without adequate diagnostics you can't determine whether it is discrete ADHD, too much sugar in the diet, or dysfunctional family stressors causing the problem. It's cheaper for insurance companies and more profitable for pharmaceutical companies for a 3-year-old to get a scrip for 5 mg Adderall a day.
::)



I'm not saying that is the totally cause to the problem. I'm saying that it COULD be for some. Every body is different and what will work for some, won't work for someone else. I agree with you about diet books. As for myself, I suffer from low blood sugar. Sometimes it really drops like a rock and I need something to eat-and fast. Usually, I find that bread helps. (So much for all those low carb diets for me). I have learned that I need carbs. Also, many times I need sugar too. So, I know sugar isn't the "enemy"-at least it isn't for me. But for some people it is. Again, like I said in my first post on this thread-there is no one size fits all-and that is what I hate about these so-called "experts" who want to put every kid on the same meds, on the same diet, etc. And again, I agree with you about the health care system (actually we don't have a health care system, we have a "sick care system" which really sucks.) that doctors don't want to take the time to evalute people properly. Just give them drugs and send them on their way and who cares if that is not the right treatment for that individual. We get our $$$, the insurence companies get theirs, and the pharmaceutical companies get theirs. It is a win-win situation for everyone-except the patient.  ::)




Cat

I also suffer from low blood sugar - hence the high protein diet. Protein breaks down into glucose a lot slower than carbs do, thus giving me a more steady supply and causing less of those "need sugar now" episodes. At least, this works for me - Catwoman might have a different condition. I have to eat regularly, though, or I have severe mood swings and difficulty concentrating.

If blood sugar is not the issue, these medications might work better. Clinical depression, for example, appears to respond better to medication. But I do have to wonder if they are over-prescribed and misdiagnosed at times. Diabetics, for example, need insulin, not Ritalin. But it can cause many of the same behavioral problems as ADHD, especially if the kid is only borderline.

For example, I am not classed as hypoglycemic even though my blood sugar often goes low enough to impair my daily functioning, because it does not drop below a certain level.

I routinely see psychotropic medications such as Ritalin, Concerta, Strattera, Prozac, Risperdal, Adderall, guanfacine, Seroquel, and Abilify prescribed for children between the ages of 5 and 15 years old. These meds include central nervous system stimulants, antidpressants, antihypertensives, antipsychotics, and amphetamines.

On the one hand I find it troubling to see kids so loaded with chemicals. Some children are on two, three, or four psychotrophic meds at once. On the other hand, I identify with some of the behavioral problems these kids encounter in this crazy old world. Perhaps if I got the chance to have the right medication regimen in childhood, I would have had a much easier time growing up which would translate into easier "success" as an adult.

I think the press is biased against meds for kids because good news does not make the news. You only hear about it when a ten year old on Paxil kills himself or when a teenager on Adderall goes on a rampage. I do see the prescription, and over-prescription of meds, as a band-aid solution for our familial and societal hang-ups. I wish we could resolve the issues at large so individual kids did not have to take so many medications. However, problems are nothing new. My family, my schools, my "culture" had problems galore when I was growing up, and try as we might via counseling interventions and psychotherapy, the problems never really got solved. Thus, I'm not convinced I wouldn't have been better off when I was 12 had I been able to get some Concerta and Prozac.

Thoughts on the issue?
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I know a guy who was prescribed Ritalin from the age of 5. He stopped taking the stuff when he turned 18. He' now 35, still lives with his mom, can't hold down a job, is constantly getting himself into trouble.

I also suffer from low blood sugar - hence the high protein diet. Protein breaks down into glucose a lot slower than carbs do, thus giving me a more steady supply and causing less of those "need sugar now" episodes. At least, this works for me - Catwoman might have a different condition. I have to eat regularly, though, or I have severe mood swings and difficulty concentrating.

If blood sugar is not the issue, these medications might work better. Clinical depression, for example, appears to respond better to medication. But I do have to wonder if they are over-prescribed and misdiagnosed at times. Diabetics, for example, need insulin, not Ritalin. But it can cause many of the same behavioral problems as ADHD, especially if the kid is only borderline.

For example, I am not classed as hypoglycemic even though my blood sugar often goes low enough to impair my daily functioning, because it does not drop below a certain level.



If I eat regularly, I am fine. However, I don't eat regularly.  :-[  Yeah, yeah. I know it is my own fault when my blood sugar drops. (But it does give me a good excuse for eating chocolate.  ;D ;D)




Cat

I have been on psychiatric meds of some kind or another since I was thirteen years old. That's when my illness got so bad I had to be hospitalized for six months, and while a big part of my illness came from all the abuse I endured in foster care, it was a chemical imbalance also. I was not only angry and self-sabotaging but also anxious and delusional as well as extremely paranoid. The night before I was admitted to Ancora Psychiatric Hospital(only State facilities had children's treatment wards in the early 70's)I ran away from my foster home after what was two nights of hell because I said something off-the-wall to them..I took off and managed to get sexually assaulted...

To sum it up, psych meds saved my life. I would have been long gone by now had I not been comitted that first time.

^ I think there definitely should be more support for non-pharmaceutical solutions for young people with behavioral problems. I despair that the schools and the adjunct mental health professional seem neither able nor willing to tackle the root causes. The child is not raised in a vacuum. The problems stem from dysfunctional families, school that really does suck, and cultural values toxic to kids. More excersize, better nutrition, and less toxic stimuli would go a long way.

On the other hand, you've got a kid from a severely dysfunctional family going to an underfunded public school, what do you do as the assigned mental health provider? You have limited resources. A lot of these familes are chaotic and clueless. They don't know what to do. Then you've got schools with barely enough funding to buy textbooks, let alone invest in a holistic approach. That holistic approach requires us as a society to actually give a damn about kids. We don't, just follow the money.

Pills come through in a pinch.

I caution about the "holistic approach," one must be just as skeptical in this area as in the area of conventional medicine and therapy. There are indeed a lot well meaning idiots and outright frauds who will take your money for snake oil.

For psychiatric problems such as bipolarity, schizophrenia, severe depression, and various psychoses, pharmaceutical therapy must be part of the treatment. I have heard sundry Scientologists, naturopaths, and "mental health reformers" denounce ALL psychiatry as fraud. We have one such anti-psychiatry fruit loop on a local radio station out here who denies there is any such thing as schizophrenia and encourages bipolarity sufferers not to take medication. I've met this guy, I think he needs not only medication, but a straightjacket and electroshock therapy!


Your posts have always impressed me dude, I never knew some of that stuff - thanks for sharing it.

In the UK we seem a little more cautious and wary of giving out prescribed harder drugs as a matter of course. It's weird tho' how nowadays ADHD is becoming so much more common, when I was little these conditions were something that hadn't been identified as such.  I can recall one of my friends who trashed his sisters bedroom in a tantrum, and thirty years on the same guy had thrown himself infront of a train... should he have been picked up as mentally ill back then? the very sad irony is that his mother is a trained nurse.  On a personal level I can recall several issues/behaviours obviously exacerbated by our social/domestic circumstances that I feel might have been helped by child psycotherapy/intervention, possibly enabling me a healthier psychological outlook now..who knows??  of course none of these therapies were even considered back then. 

It seems drugs are handed out far to easily as a quick 'fix' in the US or am I wrong?

Your posts have always impressed me dude, I never knew some of that stuff - thanks for sharing it.

In the UK we seem a little more cautious and wary of giving out prescribed harder drugs as a matter of course. It's weird tho' how nowadays ADHD is becoming so much more common, when I was little these conditions were something that hadn't been identified as such.  I can recall one of my friends who trashed his sisters bedroom in a tantrum, and thirty years on the same guy had thrown himself infront of a train... should he have been picked up as mentally ill back then? the very sad irony is that his mother is a trained nurse.   On a personal level I can recall several issues/behaviours obviously exacerbated by our social/domestic circumstances that I feel might have been helped by child psycotherapy/intervention, possibly enabling me a healthier psychological outlook now..who knows??   of course none of these therapies were even considered back then.   

It seems drugs are handed out far to easily as a quick 'fix' in the US or am I wrong?


Yes psychotrophic drugs are over-prescribed in the U.S. No question about it. However, I think it's more an indictment of our rotten healthcare system than the chemicals themselves. The same psychotrophic drugs that revolutionized the treatment of mental illnesses can cause a person to get hurt or killed if prescribed without the proper care. As I said in a previous posts, Prozac did more for depression than all the treatments in the previous hundred years, but it is still just a drug. A depressed person still needs psychotherapy to unlearn the thought patterns of depression. What these SSRIs really did was make the depressed mind receptive to therapy. SSRIs saved me from dying of depression in my early 20s, but it still took a long, long time to retrain my brain from what I learned in the first few years of life.
The reason you saw so many suicides in patients who were taking Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft, or what have you, is they were not treated as patients. They were treated as consumers. Proper psychiatric care requires an investment in people rather than an investment in Lily or Pfizer. If you're rich in America and can afford to pay $200 a session, you can get great counseling. Most people with mental ilnesses are poor, so they wind up talking to socal workers and seeing a nurse practitioner for meds every two months. This is not to disparage social workers. They generally do their best, but they are not psychiatrists, and neither are most psychologists. If the primary treatment for mental ilness is going to be pharmaceutical, then the primary mental healthcare giver needs to be a physician. A psychiatrist reviewing the notes from a social worker or GP every couple of months is not the same level of care as being rigorously followed week by week by a psychiatrist. Close monitoring of meds is vital, especially when a patient is starting a new drug, or making changes in the drug regimen. This is usually when a drug-related behavioral emergency is likely to occur. However, the privilege of seeing a psychiatrist on a weekly basis is reserved for those with the ability to pay. Thus, psychiatrists spend their time listening to the "worried well" fret, while a patient with, say, schizoaffective disorder gets handed a scrip Seroquel and told, "See you in six-to-eight weeks."



I know a guy who was prescribed Ritalin from the age of 5. He stopped taking the stuff when he turned 18. He' now 35, still lives with his mom, can't hold down a job, is constantly getting himself into trouble.

But how do you establish cause and effect? There are plenty of 35-year-olds living with their moms, who can't hold down a job, and who keep getting themselves into trouble, but who were never prescribed Ritalin. At the same time, there are plenty of 35-year-olds who had Ritalin shoved down their throats when they were kids who are now living happy and productive lives. It is tempting to point to behavioral problems and generalize, but this does not help. Every individual is different. There are too many variables case-by-case. You can look for discrete side effects of pharmaceuticals, such as tardive dyskinesia caused by neuroleptic drugs, but this is a far cry from tracing all an individual's behavioral problems back to a drug he took in childhood. I'm not making a pro-Ritalin argument, I'm just saying anectdotes are not evidence.


I have been on psychiatric meds of some kind or another since I was thirteen years old. That's when my illness got so bad I had to be hospitalized for six months, and while a big part of my illness came from all the abuse I endured in foster care, it was a chemical imbalance also. I was not only angry and self-sabotaging but also anxious and delusional as well as extremely paranoid. The night before I was admitted to Ancora Psychiatric Hospital(only State facilities had children's treatment wards in the early 70's)I ran away from my foster home after what was two nights of hell because I said something off-the-wall to them..I took off and managed to get sexually assaulted...

To sum it up, psych meds saved my life. I would have been long gone by now had I not been comitted that first time.

And this brings up another good point. I knew a woman with schizoaffective disorder who was sexually assaulted numerous times before she was properly treated with meds. She was on Seroquel and something else last time I talked to her. However, when she was younger, and just pretty young thing, her symptoms left her unable to exercise good judgment, and sometimes interfered with her ability to orient herself to her environment. Thus she was easy prey for vicious people. More to the point, a person with a psychiatric illness is far more likely to be a crime victim than a criminal.

There is a small fraction of mentally ill people who may be the most dangerous people out there (think Jeffrey Dahmer, Charles Manson, and Andrea Yates), and this tiny minority causes a lot of the prejudice because they're the ones everybody else hears about!

leave the dicision making to the parents of the children

I think giving people medicine that's needed regardless of age at either a low fair reasonable price or governmently is a great thing, if available and realistic among goals.  However I think it's sad that instead of sitting down and talking and listening to children and really trying to help them out we give them a glass of water and a pill and go about our day.