OT behavioral/medical question

My nephew is the classic example of this. At age 6, he was an ADHD poster boy. He had all the symptoms and we would have given anything for a magic bullet to cure it, for example a diagnosis so he could have ritalin. However, when he was doing something he wanted to do - usually Sonic the Hedgehog or similar - he could concentrate. Oh, and his hearing improved magically when chocolate was involved. (He and I have hearing loss that runs in our family, but he liked playing that one up....) Anyway, we survived. I didn't duct tape him to the floor, but it was tempting. He looks more like me than his mother, so everyone thought he was mine. Great when he was having a full tantrum on the floor of the supermarket, at the age of 8. He's 19 now and getting married in March. It does get better!

-- Jo in Scotland

You're right that was a very excellent article and extremely informative. Thanks so much!

Karen, Queen of Squishies _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ music is all around us, all you have to do is listen

ahhh.... so my DH and DS really *DO* just have "shiny object boy" disease and not ADD lol

Kellie

My oldest was a lot like this. I removed all artificial colors, artificial flavors and as much sugar and caffeine from his diet as possible and he made a pretty dramatic improvement and settled down a whole lot.

I think a lot of kids that are diagnosed as ADHD are probably just over caffeinated. People let their kids drink a *lot* of pop.

Ms P

yes. i think that is a big factor. my DS was never allowed sugar cereals, etc and he is sooo calm and can concentrate on anything. also, my DD was allowed all kinds of stuff and now has dyslexia and attention span problems. Daycare ruined her. i still believe that. if i could've stayed home w/her like i did him, i think she would've been better. hind sight.... amy in CNY

My DD (13) eats chocolate, sneaks candy (candy wrappers are a regular visitor in my dryer), drinks coke/soda (once a week - otherwise it's Sprite or juice) ... sugar is her best friend. We have a coffee/tea/soda drinker in the making (she'll sometimes sneak her daddy's coffee when he's not looking - all of her friends drink coffee, too). We often call her "Oscar."

My DS (10) NEVER eats sugar-y stuff ... his favorite drink is *gasp* water or that Roaring Waters stuff ... when he was 6 he even told me he was "off sugar" - the kid is honestly, a "health nut" (my DD's words, not mine). If it has sugar in the ingredients, he won't touch it (except for Christmas candy and gingerbread men - he's got amazing Christmas spirit). He's often known as "Felix."

Funny thing? They're both borderline ADD ... we've had them both tested and though they have "attention" and "distraction" issues, they're not severe enough to warrant medication (whew!).

Just thought that since this part of the thread was about sugar & ADD, I thought it might be interesting. :)

-- Connie :)

ACTUALLY, if you give a kid who is ADHD caffeine it will work in a way similar to how some of the medications work. ADHD is not a disorder involving overstimulation, as many think. It actually involves UNDERstimulation of receptors in the brain that are involved in controlling impulsivity among other things. When something happens to stimulate those receptors (like caffeine or some of the stimulant medications), the individual is better able to control impulse and concentration and focus. I have had some students on caffeine therapy and it works for many.

Linda PATCHogue, NY

Linda PATCHogue, NY

Which is why you should take all caffeine away from a kid before they're diagnosed. The kids that calm down were just over caffienate and the ones that get worse are very probably really ADHD.

It wasn't just the sugar that made the difference for my son. He could drink sugared tea and it didn't bother him much. Kool-aid would send him bouncing off the walls. All Kool-aid is is artificial color, artificial flavor and sugar.

Caffeine works for DH but not for DS he is just really the absent minded professor. Too bright to keep thoughts on one thing unless something really makes sense or piques his interest. doesn't have a clue that there is a box to even think inside of let alone outside of lol

The thing Caffeine does for him is help him breathe. Used to use it when the inhaler was not lasting quite long enough, til i could get the doc online.

Kellie

Not exactly....

Computer stimulation is very different then, say, schoolwork. Also, some with ADD have a kind of "hyper-focus" that works for certain things (like reading a book). It is a way to drive out distractions. The sacrifice there is that there is no differentiation between 'distractions' and 'necessary' inputs -- like the teacher's statement to close the reading book or mom's call to come to dinner.

So, you CAN have a biochemical issue making it difficult to 'focus' or stay focused on schoolwork, paperwork and other 'quiet' activites, and yet be able to maintain attention while watching or doing something that is rapid-fire and 'engaging'.

I think that's probably the biggest problem ... the fact that there are so many myths-taken-as-fact about ADD ... I know many, many, many school officials who use the "video game argument" as an way of informally deciding whether a child has a legitimate case of ADD.

I wonder how many kids aren't being helped simply because the adults involved *assume* that just because a child can finish a book or play a video game, they don't have a problem??? Or that the child is just being "lazy" or "immature?" :(

Hugs!!

-- Connie :)

We have a strict cut off time for caffeinated drinks in our house. In fact I rarely have caffeinated drinks with "kid appeal" in the house at all. Tea and coffee are available though, but not for the kids after their caffeine curfew.

Lizzy

Back in the '80s when there was a tendancy to diagnose every kid who was late turning in their homework as ADD, DD1 was diagnosed. Well, actually the school got a court order that said I had to give her medication for ADD, flying in the face of 3 pediatricians, a pediatric psychiatrist, a psychologist and 2 counselors, that all said she was not ADD. Thing was she did have some of the hallmarks. However she was not ADD as her behavior while on the drugs proved to everybody but the school. I got very used to going to pediatrician appointments and seeing him frown while he said "this medication is clearly not working" after he read the reports from the school. He fiddled the dosage, changed the drugs, did everything he could to make it work. Finally since he had to prescribe something as per the court order, her put her on the lowest possible doasage of the mildest possible drug. Meanwhile her teachers were raving about how wonderfully the drugs were working, at least until the following year when the new teachers were all WTF??? this kid is taking ritalin?

DD1 has inherited my brain chemistry, though apparently to a lesser degree. Though symptomaticly mania and ADD may have some similarities they are very different, and do not by any stretch of the imagination respond to the same drugs. Doctors will also go through just about every posible diagnosis there is until they resign themselves to diagnosing it properly. They like to try to fit you into bipolar or psychosis definitions. Same drugs in those cases, so it is not as incredibly bad as feeding you stimulants as in the case of ADD.

I sometimes wonder how many kids they have diagnosed or are diagnosing as ADD are in fact actually Bipolar I or manic.

NightMist

Nothing has been the same since that house fell on my sister.

Caffeine has a half life of 10 hours. That means only half the caffeine has left your body after 10 hours.

Ms P

With all due respect, NightMist, where do you live? 'Cause I sure as heck don't ever want to live there. Even though I'm sure you were abridging your post and more than likely omitted a few details that weren't very pertinent, I don't *ever* want to live in an area where the school can demand such a thing - especially if it flies in the face of even *one* pediatrician's diagnosis - especially if that pediatrician was someone you trusted.

I thought I had it bad when about 3 years ago, my DS' teacher was (literally) harassing us *every day* to get my son medicated (despite my telling her that we had taken him to three different doctors - two of which SHE recommended - to test for ADD - all negative). Every single day he'd come home and tell us how she made a *point* of mentioning it to the whole class that he should be medicated. By 3 months time, I was sick of it. So the next time I picked my son up at school, I pointedly told her that unless she had a medical degree she'd care to show our family lawyer, she needed to keep her trap shut in class (my son was being humiliated).

I think it's shocking, disgusting and .... Orwellian that the school can demand such a thing when it *clearly* goes against a doctor's diagnosis (or two, or three, or four). How in the world did a judge (someone I have to assume is of reasonable intelligence) decide in their favor??! Let me guess ... HE was on Ritalin, right? :(

-- Connie :)

rofl, Connie. i'd never assume that a judge has a reasonable level of intelligence, tho you certainly would hope so, eh. those who sit on the supreme court are for life. consider how some of us do and will get mentally as we age. consider that removing a judge from the supreme court aint an easy task from what i hear. consider who appoints those judges. :)) cronyism is alive and well at the federal govt level. scarey thot but true. i too was aghast when i read about a judge ordering nightmist to give her kiddie meds when she had several doctors saying the kid did not have ADD and did not need the meds. i think i'd move to another state, hell i'd move to a different country if i had to. its not like the poor kid was off causing mayhem and chaos all over town.

good > With all due respect, NightMist, where do you live? 'Cause I sure as heck

Weeelllll ... you at least have to assume that the judge is smart enough to write his own name on the election form! In NightMist's case, I think he signed it with an "X."

As for who appoints'em, how hard it is to get'em out, etc ... I don't *want* to think about that. If I do, I don't think I'll ever find myself able to vote again. :(

And yep, I'd move, too ... just one county over would do it. But that's not fair. Why should we have to move to keep our kids safe from the *school*? Crime, I can understand ... drugs, I can understand ... but the school???

But my son's teacher's case I think was an anomally. The school itself would

*never* do that ... in fact, I ended up complaining to the school about her actions and they supported us all the way (having the paperwork from the doctors helped back us up, I assume). Her own son was ADD (and from what she said, heavily medicated), so perhaps that had something to do with it?

And believe me, I'm pretty durn gobsmacked, too, 'bout this.

-- Connie :)

message

To fit in some pieces... When we kept consistantly telling the school that the doctors said she was not ADD, they kept insisting we needed to see a different doctor. We went through every pediatrician in town, the psychologist and the counselors were also local, the psychiatrist was from a clinic in Buffalo. I think it was the psychiatrist that was the last straw. After getting the paperwork from him, they called CPS and told CPS what they wanted. Of course I trotted out all the paper, and all the names and what have you for CPS. Their response was to accuse us of using drugs and to kidnap the children. It was simple enough to disprove everything they said, but during the month or so they had the kids, they went to court _without informing us of it_ and got the order to give DD ADD meds. They only presented their opinion, and that of their pet psychiatrist who had never even met DD and was just going off written reports from the school. The same court order included an open ended ruling that said we were forbidden to move out of the county. CPS had presented us as a flight risk. This was all done in family court. You don't have many rights in family court. So far as I know we still legally cannot move out of the county until DD3 (the youngest child named in the paperwork) turns 18 this June.

Your tax dollars at work.

NightMist

On Wed, 9 Jan 2008 14:03:27 -0600, "SewVeryCreative" wrote: