Your Questions About Adhd Medications For Kids

Wednesday, January 25th, 2012 at 1:00 am

George asks…

Kids on medication that shouldn’t be on them?

There are many choices that as parents you will make for your children throughout their lives. Some of these choices that are made will have a strong enough impact to affect their entire lives. Medication is one of the many choices that parents will have to face when it comes to their children. As a parent, you will have to make the final decision of what you are going to choose to put into your childs body. Your childs doctor can help guide you through some of these choices and offer suggestions of what they believe would be the best for your child. It is important to rememner that these are only suggestions and it is entirely your choice as a parent to decide what and what should not be put into your childs body. Parents often feel pressure from doctors and through the media as to how they should medicate their child. Some parents choose to use therse medications to avoid any controversy that they might encounter if they were to choose to not medicate their child in a certain way. Vaccination is a very common debate when it comes to children. Unfortunately our sociewty has bagan to turn to medication to try solve any problem that as a parent we might encounter. Many parents are choosing to medicate their children in hopes of improving their behavior or even quitingh them down! And then there are the parents that have given medication to children to make them be quiet so we need to look at all different ways of medicating a child and real stories about what parents are doing. And some debates on different views on medication and vaccines.

Unfortunately in today’s society, parents who are told that their child has a medical condition like ADD or ADHD and without any hesition or even a second opinion, start giving their child medication such as Ritalin, Concerta,Adderall, and Vyvanse. Many people believe that medication should only be used as a last resort after further actions have already been taken and found to be of no help. Other methods would include special classes at school and possibly researching the child’s physicality’s involvement at school and their home life. It is possible that if we start early enough using some of these other methods for children with these conditions, they could possibly be able to control their condition better as they get older without the medication. As a child, you are taught to do as you are told and trust in your parents to make the right choices for you. As parents, we are supposed to put trust in your child’s doctor and believe that what they say is in fact the very best thing for your child. Unfortunately, too much trust is being given to these doctors and our childrens lives are being left in their hands with no questions asked! Side effects from these medications often include symptoms such as drowsiness, zombie like actions and sometimes even mad and violent actions. Any child that is left with these side effects cannot be benifiting from the medication enough to make it worthwhile at all. On the other side of ADD and ADHD these kids can be very gifted and talented by where do this kids go without medication these kids still can’t be in a regular ed class so they are too but in to a special ed class. This is something to look at kids on medication in a regular ed class and kids without medication in a regular ed class how do they behave can they stay with other kids or do this conditions cause these kid to have to go into another call where they have more one with teachers and kids in a special ed class.
There has been an alarming report on the rise of giving kids medication “July 2009 Scientific American Mind Article Do ADHD Drugs take a toll on the brain? A comprehensive report of the long-term dangers of ADHD drugs. The centers for Diseases control estimated in 2005 that 9% of boys and 4% of girls in the US was taking ADHD stimulant medications and according to a 2007 study ADHD – drug prescription drugs rose by almost 12% a year between 2000 and 2005”.
Why would a parent give their child medication or antibiotics when they don’t need it? The disturbing news from parents admitting they give their child cold medicine just to shut them up does them not understands the real harm they are putting on their children. “The research, published in the journal of pediatrics found an average 160 annual cases in which pharmaceutical drugs were maliciously used on children.” CNN reported that 1,439 cases from 2000 to 2008 of those 14 percent resulted in injuries, and 18 children died more than half of the cases involved at least one sedating drug. Just seeing these reports put awareness out there that this is really happing and I don’t understand why a parent would want to hurt their own children. Can this be considered abuse real people have opinions on this? “Giving children drugs they don’t need is abuse. Period.”

barry jennings answers:

That was ridiculously long. Condense in future, please.

A few things:

” It is important to remember that these are only suggestions and it is entirely your choice as a parent to decide what and what should not be put into your child’s body.”

Suggestions made by a qualified Doctor, who, whether you like it or not, knows more than you about health related matters. Parent qualifications do not trump your MD’s.

“Vaccination is a very common debate when it comes to children.”

Not really. There is no scientific debate. The evidence is very clear: vaccines are in every instance preferable.

“Unfortunately in today’s society, parents who are told that their child has a medical condition like ADD or ADHD and without any hesitation or even a second opinion…”

The condition is being diagnosed more due to broadening of the definition and Doctors have been given further training to spot the disorder, whereas before, it often went undiagnosed.. Don’t confuse that with Doctors loosely “branding” a child with a disorder on some kind of whim.

The drugs you mentioned are not be taken lightly, however as always, it’s a question of risks and benefits. To be blunt, someone like you simply isn’t qualified to weigh this up. Sometimes drug therapy IS the only realistic option to ensure QOL.

“Why would a parent give their child medication or antibiotics when they don’t need it?”

If they’ve been prescribed it, then they do need it. It’s been given for a reason.

Parents giving their children various drugs as a “cosh” to silence them is unacceptable. I agree. However, don’t confuse that with drugs that are prescribed to children by MDs for a valid MEDICAL indication.

Nancy asks…

Don’t you think it’s kinda bad that they’re advertising ADHD meds for kids?

Constantly I see adds for adhd meds… and it’s clearly for kids. I don’t think they should PROMOTE the use of them. I mean, I could see if they really have a problem then MAYBE. But even then use it as a last resort.

Do you think it’s okay to be advertising medication for kids so young?

barry jennings answers:

Hi Euphoric,

Excellent question, why more people are not asking this question is stunning to me. First there is an excellent story on this on the NPR website which includes the audio to the story. You need to go read that story and listen to the audio. It will get your blood moving. The name of the story is “Selling Sickness”. See source 1.
Secondly when you read that story you will learn that when the first direct to consumer drug ads came onto tv the sales response was unbelievable. Their goal was to get to $100 million in sales on that drug. They got to $800 million. This is a staggering number. It was 1986. Again see the first source for details.
In 1998 the U.S. Consumed 85% of the worlds Ritalin. WHat is the deal with that? THings that make you go HMMMMM.

Now, when you start to review the statistics you find that the rates of increase for the prescriptions of Adderall since it first came out is in the neighborhood of 800%, are you seeing a trend here?

Beyond that kids who are not diagnosed with ADHD are now abusing ADHD drugs at rates higher than those kids who are accurately diagnosed with ADHD. I write about this topic all the time. See my second source. Among college estimates have ranged from 20% to 70% of students different ages are abusing these drugs.

In fact I will soon post a story about Purdue University and Stanford University students and the escalation of Adderall abuse on those campuses. Look at my second source for those posts either tomorrow or next week. And my third source will have more posts on that as well.

It is not simply a pollyanna issue about being aware of problems. The issue is that these ads suggest a specific strategy to address these problems. The problem with that strategy is that the best long term outcome study ever done on ADHD treatment found that the children who received the best treatment (including meds and behavioral interventions) were worse on 91% of the variables compared to the control group. This was 6 and 8 years after the initial interventions. See my 3rd and 4th sources.

The research has found that ADHD drugs work SHORT term, not long term. So, these are highly addictive drugs which are only a short term strategy at best. Yet, what comes through the ads is that this is the Solution. It is not. It is one approach. At best it is a decent short term approach.

I think that is enough for now.

Sincerely,

Dr. Chaz (Shinaver)

Here are some other sites about adhd that you might be interested in checking out, thanks for visiting my site.

Adult ADHD Self-Report Scale - Wikipedia the free encyclopedia
15 signs you have adult ADHD - CBS News.com
Lisa Moore (@adultadhdtreatm) on Twitter
Impulse control disorder: Definition from Answers.com
add fuel to the... - Dictionary.com - Reference.com

barry jennings

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