Fashionable diagnosis - ADHD etc

[Scoop 0]

Why is it that it seems to be fashionable nowadays to be ill. You can't be healthy and normal, thats not interesting enough. You need to have a specific problem. Maybe its because it gives excuses about you or anothers behaviour. It just pisses me off. I'm not saying that there aren't genuine people suffering but most are just labelled as its easy to label someone.

For example the phantom ADHD. I'm no grandad but I remember when it used to just be called hyperactivity or you were just a little shit. Give them pills, make excuses for their behaviour, then your children will never have to be responsible for their own actions. What a fix huh?

ODD. You guys heard of that? "Oppositional Defiance Disorder". Let me cut & paste you a snippet of the definition:

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Oppositional Defiance Disorder is a supposed and largely disputed 'mental illness' characterized by an ongoing pattern of disobedient, hostile, and defiant behavior toward authority figures that goes beyond the bounds of normal childhood behavior.

When a child cannot seem to control his anger or frustration, even over what seems to be trivial or simple to others, the child will often react in violent or negative ways to his own feelings.

Losing temper
Arguing with adults
Refusing to follow the rules
Deliberately annoying people
Blaming others
Easily annoyed
Angry and resentful
Spiteful or even revengeful

I call it naughtiness or bad discipline at home but god forbid we put any burden of blame on the parents

Then we have the children who are apparantly so intelligent, they can't cope with it. Yes thats right. They are so intellectually advanced that they get bored and become unruly

Stop making damn excuses

What good do you think your doing your child by giving it a get out clause every time it misbehaves? Instead of disciplining it just pacifying it with pills? Maybe I'm drifting more into the realms of discipline here but I think you know where I'm coming from

Please discuss!

[miked10270 0]

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ODD. You guys heard of that? "Oppositional Defiance Disorder". Let me cut & paste you a snippet of the definition:

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Oppositional Defiance Disorder is a supposed and largely disputed 'mental illness'...

Losing temper
Arguing with adults
Refusing to follow the rules
Deliberately annoying people
Blaming others
Easily annoyed
Angry and resentful
Spiteful or even revengeful

Yeah? So? Speaking as A Parent in Scotland... I've been aware of this for years, albeit under it's colloquial term; "Lookin'-Fer-A-Smack" which, co-incidentally is also the cure.

Mike.

Taking the piss out of the FrenchAmericans since before it was fashionable.

Prenait la pisse hors du FrançaisCanadiens méridionaux puisqu'avant lui à la mode.

[Andy9o8 0]

You're throwing out the baby with the bathwater. ADD/ADHD exists, both in children and adults. It may be a bit over-diagnosed these days; but having said that, up until very recently it was considerably UNDER-diagnosed: very intelligent people, both children and adults, who desperately wanted to succeed at school and in their careers were chronic under-achievers, and they, their parents, their teachers, etc., were all at a loss to figure out what was causing it or what to do about it. For these people, an understanding of the existence of ADD/ADHD, as well as the means to compensate for it, including but not limited to medication to promote focus and concentration by inhibiting serotonin reuptake by the brain, has been a godsend.

It's become oh-so-vogue of late to bash ADD and meds such as Ritalin or Straterra, but the bash is largely bullshit.

Maybe you're a parent yourself; maybe you're not. I don't know. But I've said it before and I'll say it again: my personal anecdotal experience is that, more often than not, the most strident commentators about "not coddling and making excuses for kids", blah, blah, blah, have never been parents themselves. I've been a parent for 18 years. After a while, I grow impatient hearing homespun expertise from whuffos.

[BIGUN 1,053]

You're all right. There have been studies of too many kids being _labeled_ and placed on prescriptions. There are those that have verfiable diagnoses and warrant medication, and there's some what just needs a smack on the ass.

There's one too Psychologists sitting around doing a dissertation coming up with a new form of label. You ever heard of someone walking into a Psychologist's office and the Psychologist telling them "There's nothing wrong with you. Get the fuck outta my office?" They gotta have labels or the insurance doesn't pay. How much can ya charge the insurance company for, "Needed a good smack on the ass. Patient was sent home."

Nobody has time to listen; because they're desperately chasing the need of being heard.

[kelpdiver 2]

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Then we have the children who are apparantly so intelligent, they can't cope with it. Yes thats right. They are so intellectually advanced that they get bored and become unruly

I used the same math book in the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th grades. Thankfully not exclusively, but it got pretty fucking boring taking math instruction from a general ed teacher than may have known less on the subject.

I don't know if I worry more about the overdiagnosis of ADD or the knowing abuse of ADD related drugs by people who just want to use the stimulants. (And while gun ownership hasn't changed as kids supposedly starting shooting up schools in mass, the rate of prescription drug use certainly has)

[skydiver30960 0]

I think part of the problem today is that there is too much pressure to have perfect kids. Being a "C" student is (by definition) an average student, and there was a time when that was just fine. Nowadays, if your kid isn't getting straight A's and captain of the football team then something must be wrong. Of course I can't have an "average" child. There must be a reason my little Johnny isn't perfect. And it damn SURE doesn't have to do with my parenting being less than perfect, so it MUST have to do with ADHD, or ODD, or SOMETHING like that.

So, little Johnny gets jacked up on meds.

Elvisio "ritalin made me thin, alcohol made me fat" Rodriguez

[willard 0]

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Oppositional Defiance Disorder is a supposed and largely disputed 'mental illness'...

Losing temper
Arguing with adults
Refusing to follow the rules
Deliberately annoying people
Blaming others
Easily annoyed
Angry and resentful
Spiteful or even revengeful

Those symptoms could describe almost everyone here! And I'll be the first to admit I'm one of 'em.

[lawrocket 3]

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What good do you think your doing your child by giving it a get out clause every time it misbehaves? Instead of disciplining it just pacifying it with pills?

You seem to believe that mere willpower, reasoning, logic, etc., can deal with what is a legitimate chemical imbalance in a child or adult. A person with anemia may be thought of as lazy or slothful. "Oh, iron supplements? Lazy people are now called, "anemic?" Give me a break."

In my life with ADHD, I managed to graduate from college, law school, bei in the military, pass the bar, and do a number of things that were by all measures indicative of great success. Consider it similar to making it to the big league baseball without a glove.

Now, playing baseball without a glove CAN be done, but you can expect a lot more errors. ANd you'll get worn out pretty quickly. Give a person a glove, and that person will not be a star player - they will just have the chance.

Back at the end of 2004, I got my glove. IT still takes work, but not intense effort 100 percent of the time.

You know, they used to diagnose PTSD as battle fatigue and there was no understanding of it. We have since learned of its power.

I think you may with to show some deference for these things. You may be shocked if you move to the core issues and say, "Hmm. Could I liv

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[Mockingbird 0]

I was never diagnosed with ADD; don't even know if a diagnosis existed when I was a student in the sixties and seventies, but I sure fit the bill, and still do. It's very frustrating. Sometimes I can barely finish a sentence because of the distractions. Ooooo, it was frustrating as a student not to "get" stuff and to always get sub-standard grades. For a long time I just thought I was stupid.

It's good to be a "grown up."

Blue skies & happy jitters ~Mockingbird
"Why is there something rather than nothing?"

[Lucky... 0]

Remember, it's lnguage to get gov grants and then the pharmaceutical cos to make drugs. Just as calling alcoholism a disease, these other disorders are the same kind of thing.

[Royd 0]

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You're throwing out the baby with the bathwater. ADD/ADHD exists, both in children and adults.

Isn't it amazing that when you tell the kid to rake the yard or take out the trash, they can find a thousand other things to do, but give them a video game and they can sit still for hours.

There are many things in the course of a day's work that I'm not particularly fond of, but they have to be done in order to move on to the next thing.

It's called self discipline and concentration.

There are also a lot of lazy parents who don't want to have to deal with an energetic child.

The direction society has taken in the last few years doesn't help.

Physical discipline is a crime and so is getting a paying job for anyone under 16yr. of age.

Getting a summer job at the age of 12 was one of the best things that ever happened to me.

[nerdgirl 0]

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For example the phantom ADHD. I'm no grandad but I remember when it used to just be called hyperactivity or you were just a little shit. Give them pills, make excuses for their behaviour, then your children will never have to be responsible for their own actions. What a fix huh?

Hmmm, would you include Alzheimer's or Parkinson's in your subject line "etc"?

Like ADHD, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diagnosis have become hot topics in both the medical and non-medical communities in the last 30 years. Alzheimer's Disease was not considered a major disease or disorder until the 1970s. The biochemical changes in the brains of Parkinson’s patients were not identified until the 1960's.

Like ADHD, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's are most commonly diagnosed based on symptoms. An autopsy is required to unequivocably validate Alzheimer's (to observe the associated amyloid plague formations surrounding the brain's neurons). Parkinson's, as many of us know from (unofficial?) diagnosis of Pope John Paul II, is associated with very observable physical symptoms - uncontrolled shaking - still a symptomatic-based diagnosis.

Neuro-imaging tools such as PET and f-MRI are required to observe the altered norepinephrine and dopamine receptor density/activity in certain areas of the brain of ADHD. Specific genes associated with ADHD have also been identified. (PM me if you want a list.

One requires you to be dead for unequivocable diagnosis, the other costs more, so most diagnoses are made on symptoms.

Is it the mental versus physical behavioral aspects that cause the (on-going) controversy? Why is it acceptable to not be in control of one's physical behavior or mental in certian cases? What causes some diseases to be viewed as explanations for behavior and others as excuses?

In the end, I think the conclusions (not necessarily "answers") are going to be put forth by the ethicists evolving over time and across cultures.

Marg

Act as if everything you do matters, while laughing at yourself for thinking anything you do matters.
Tibetan Buddhist saying

[gontleman 0]

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You're throwing out the baby with the bathwater. ADD/ADHD exists, both in children and adults.

Isn't it amazing that when you tell the kid to rake the yard or take out the trash, they can find a thousand other things to do, but give them a video game and they can sit still for hours.

There are many things in the course of a day's work that I'm not particularly fond of, but they have to be done in order to move on to the next thing.

It's called self discipline and concentration.

There are also a lot of lazy parents who don't want to have to deal with an energetic child.

The direction society has taken in the last few years doesn't help.

Physical discipline is a crime and so is getting a paying job for anyone under 16yr. of age.

Getting a summer job at the age of 12 was one of the best things that ever happened to me.

The example you've given related to playing rather than working isn't really solid. A kid would always rather play than work.

The area of life where ADD/ADHD messes someone up is when they are in a situation where they need to do something and want to do something, but can't do it or can't do it well enough due to the distractions and inability to focus.

Smacking a kid that can't focus won't help them focus. It might make them want to focus more, but if they truly have ADD/ADHD they can only compensate so much for a physical lack of ability with an increased desire to function. And as far as that goes, I don't think anyone has ever "willed" themselves out of a chemical imbalance.

I'm not ADD/ADHD but I was recently diagnosed as bipolar. I spent the first 6 years I was aware of a problem thinking that maybe I had something wrong with my thinking, believing that I could just "think better" and my depression would go away. It never did. The cause of my depression was my thinking. If I wasn't focused on something, and even if i was really, my brain would take every opportunity to run off on tangents that would inevitably lead to thoughts about things that upset me. I would end up thinking about how I could outsmart a situation so that I could manipulate the outcome etc and things like this would leave me frustrated because as I'm thinking that, I also KNOW that it's fruitless and beyond my control.

I didn't want to take meds. I was afraid they would change my personality since my way of thinking (though relatively uncontrollable) was a large part of who I became, obviously. And the whole notion of bipolarism was, partially, in my mind a laughable thing. I've heard people tell me they were bipolar but I didn't really see it as a rational thing. Emotional cycles are normal right? But I finally went to a doctor after I hit a new low in my depressive phase. It was bad. But we did the evaluation and he prescribed a combo of Prozac (anti-depressant) and Zyprexa (a-typical antipsychotic used to treat schizophrenia and bipolarism) called Symbyax. Once it got into full swing I noticed that I was able to, for the first time I can remember, just not think. I could stop my train of thought and just have some mental serenity. Long story short(er) is that I was skeptical. But now I'm a believer. I was sekptical to the point that I really didn't think the medication would do anything noticeable. But it did.

Point being, just because a diagnosis tends to get blanketed around on people, doesn't mean that there isn't a real need for medication. The brain is complex and amazing and its NOT immune to disfunction. Believing that you can just fix a brain with external behavior modification (spanking etc.) is ignorant. People have real chemical problems that need chemical solutions (natural or synthetic).

[Gene03 0]

If you really want to hurl, just Google Starchild.

“The only fool bigger than the person who knows it all is the person who argues with him.

Stanislaw Jerzy Lec quotes (Polish writer, poet and satirist 1906-1966)

[Andy9o8 0]

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Isn't it amazing that when you tell the kid to rake the yard or take out the trash, they can find a thousand other things to do, but give them a video game and they can sit still for hours.

You obviously don't realize it, but you've just described a classic and genuine clinical symptom of both childhood and adult ADD/ADHD -- one that is recognized by doctors and scientists who are experts on the disorder as being caused NOT by laziness, or lack of discipline or will-power, but a genuine chemical imbalance in the brain.

You also demonstrate the attitude that is most frustrating to ADD/ADHD patients and their clinicians: people who neither have ADD nor treat patients who have it simply cannot understand it, so - lacking sufficient experience or education about it - they simply dismiss it, and chalk it up to "laziness". Well, I'm very sorry, but it just ain't the case.

Anyone who wants to educated oneself on this should read, Driven to Distraction by Edward M. Hallowell, M.D. You will see clinical examples of this symptom: that ADD people will have terrible difficulty starting, focusing on and (especially!) completing tasks that are less interesting to them, but can spend hours on end focusing on a single activity that does interest them. Again: there is a clinical, biochemical cause for this (not mere personality or lack of work ethics), and medication is designed to compensate for the chemical imbalance.

Is the medication ever over-prescribed or abused? Sure. All medications have that potential. Example: Vicodin is a widely abused drug. My mom just had surgery, and her pain currently is being managed by Vicodin. But because of Vicodin's bad reputation for abuse and addiction, she was resistant to taking it. Her doctor had to do some convincing to make her understand that hers was an appropriate use of the medication.

Not all disorders of the brain leave people mumbling, disheveled or psychotic. Some just cause them to be chronic under-acheivers in an over-acheiving world, but otherwise appearing and functioning absolutely normally, stuck in a society that dismisses them as lazy, and snickers at them when they hear the explanation "ADD".

[faulknerwn 36]

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ADD people will have terrible difficulty starting, focusing on and (especially!) completing tasks that are less interesting to them, but can spend hours on end focusing on a single activity that does interest them.


I actually do believe in ADD but the above definition applies to 99% of the planet. Who want to do stuff they hate? I can't think of anyone I've ever met who doesn't have great difficulty starting tasks that are boring to them and isn't addicted to stuff that they love.

That's the human existence!

[lawrocket 3]

Compare it to manic depression. 99 percent of the population has ups and downs! That's th ehuman existence.

But in some, it's more than that. It's the same thing with ADD/ADHD.

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[Lucky... 0]

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Compare it to manic depression. 99 percent of the population has ups and downs! That's th ehuman existence.

But in some, it's more than that. It's the same thing with ADD/ADHD.

Totally agree. Just as alcoholism is registered as a disease, any other anomoly must b e registered that way to get gov funding. It's all a fucking joke.

[Cudlo 0]

In research, you MIGHT be able to get PET or fMRI testing for ADD/ADHD tho good luck getting it approved. I may very well be wrong, but I have NEVER heard of those tests being done for a diagnosis. Most ADD/ADHD diagnosis are based almost purely on natural observation by UNTRAINED persons (parents and teachers). In 60%+ of cases the doc doesn't even look at school records. Teachers and parents are given a little scale to answer questions on and thats that in most cases. There are too many variables left open in this. What is the rest of the teacher's classes like. If he/she has a year or two with particularly frustrating children he/she may be more predisposed to exaggerating the behavior, same with the parent if they have a stressful home/work situation.

Also, it isn't that its just suddenly turned fashionable to bash the methods of diagnosis. Its just hard to keep turning a blind eye to something that is being done wrong. For instance, it isn't that uncommon for a child to be diagnosed with ADD/ADHD when they actually have childhood onset bipolar or some such. And the medication they are given actually aggravates their actual problem. Also, alot of these kids will end up on chemical cocktails of prescriptions as they simply load on more drugs to see what will fix problems AND the side effects of the drugs they are already on. Please realize that there has been VERY LITTLE research done with children as it pertains to neurochemical imbalances. Hell, they only just recently admitted that giving SSRIs and other anti-depressants to children/adolescents can cause suicidal ideation.

There IS a problem. And yes, ADD/ADHD is often the most misdiagnosed disorder in children these days.

_________________________________________
"People demand freedom of speech to make up for the freedom of thought which they avoid." - Kierkegaard

[Andy9o8 0]

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Compare it to manic depression. 99 percent of the population has ups and downs! That's th ehuman existence.

But in some, it's more than that. It's the same thing with ADD/ADHD.

Totally agree. Just as alcoholism is registered as a disease, any other anomoly must b e registered that way to get gov funding. It's all a fucking joke.

Alcoholism IS a bona fide disease, and ADD IS a bona fide, medically-treatable, biochemical imbalance of the brain; and it doesn't just affect "undisciplined" children, it also affects many, many adults. If you're implying anything that diminishes those truths, you're simply wrong.

[Andy9o8 0]

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[reply>
ADD people will have terrible difficulty starting, focusing on and (especially!) completing tasks that are less interesting to them, but can spend hours on end focusing on a single activity that does interest them.


I actually do believe in ADD but the above definition applies to 99% of the planet. Who want to do stuff they hate? I can't think of anyone I've ever met who doesn't have great difficulty starting tasks that are boring to them and isn't addicted to stuff that they love.

That's the human existence!

Again, you're just proving what I said above: most people who haven't experienced it simply cannot, do not, will not, understand it.

[Andy9o8 0]

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Compare it to manic depression. 99 percent of the population has ups and downs! That's th ehuman existence.

But in some, it's more than that. It's the same thing with ADD/ADHD.

What he said.

[Royd 0]

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Alcoholism IS a bona fide disease, and ADD IS a bona fide, medically-treatable, biochemical imbalance of the brain; and it doesn't just affect "undisciplined" children, it also affects many, many adults. If you're implying anything that diminishes those truths, you're simply wrong.

I have no doubt that ADD exists. Hell, my dog has it.

I just wonder how much of it is caused by improper diet and lifestyle.
There are any number of physical problems that are caused by chemical imbalances that can be remedied by a change in diet.

There does seem to be a considerable rise in problems these days that simply didn't manifest themselves when I was a child.
Asthma, diabetes, and any number of problems with the ability to concentrate; there seems to be a dysfunction of the month club.

The only solution seems to come from companies such as Phizer and Merck. That makes you wonder about it.
My point of view is that any manmade chemical will eventually become a poison. I believe this is proven by any number of drugs that are lauded as a cureall and a couple of years later are the cause of class action lawsuits.

[Remster 24]

Oh. And smilling too. That will cure everything.

Remster

[Shotgun 1]

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