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Children's suicide attempts raise concerns about ADHD medication

CARLY WEEKS

From Thursday's Globe and Mail

Latest comment posted at 10:44 AM EST 05/07/08

Issue highlights debate over whether or not to prescribe powerful drugs to treat complex psychiatric problems among children ...Read the full article

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  1. Paul Jones from Kitchener, Canada writes: The 'War on Drugs' does not extend to properly testing powerful drugs used on the populace as long as our 'leaders' friends in the pharma company say they're safe. Our 'leaders' seem content to take their words for it. 'Don't let kids smoke pot - get them hooked on Ritalin!' seems to be the popular motto among our politicians.
  2. Emma Hawthorne from Canada writes: My neighbour has been taking Ritalin for five years. Last week her blood pressure suddenly went through the roof and then she discovered online that the US FDA issued a warning on August 23, 2006, that Dexedrine patients must be alerted to the fact that the drug may increase the risk of heart problems and psychotic behaviour. In May, 2006, the FDA required similar warnings for Ritalin, Adderall XR, Strattera and Concerta. Who knew? My neighbour's doctor reduced her dosage from 70 mg to 30 mg but she is looking into vitamins and herbal remedies with a view to replacing the drug and another she takes, altogether.
  3. Toast And coffee from Somewhere, Canada writes: There should be no doubt that ADHD is over-diagnosed and most, if not all medications to treat it are unecessary.

    Paul Jones, I think your criticism is misdirected. Incompetent medical practicians are behind this problem. Politicians can't be blamed for a medical community that will write a script at the drop of a hat.

    Pharmaceutical companies are effective at marketing their drugs. The only defence we have is a good doctor and some common sense. Unfortunately good doctors are extremely rare and common sense isn't common any more.
  4. grover station from Hamilton, Canada writes: As a method of teaching self-discipline and self-control, preferred for generations, could someone please explain how spanking can be more damaging than powerful drugs that cause suicide, agitation, hallucinations, psychiatric and physical problems?
  5. Expert Eel from OttaPettaOshawawawawa and Wawa, Canada writes: Plain fact of the matter is that antidepressants are addictive and can cause you to want to kill yourself if you don't come off of them properly.

    They are a dangerous substance that is being controlled by medical professionals who took no hippocratic oath and are pushing them for profit.
  6. Expert Eel from OttaPettaOshawawawawa and Wawa, Canada writes: Emma Hawthorne from Canada writes: My neighbour is looking into vitamins and herbal remedies with a view to replacing the drug and another she takes, altogether.

    Well Emma, if Steven Harper's government get their way with bill C51 ( http://tinyurl.com/4se3vs ) you can be fined $5,000,000 for growing, preserving or sharing an unregistered natural health product like vitamins or even garlic.

    http://www.stopc51.com/
  7. Sayless Thinkmore from Tronno, Canada writes: Expert Eel--you speak with emphasis, not evidence.
    All medical professionals who graduate in this country take the Hippocratic Oath.

    Not all physicians push pharmaceuticals. And long gone are the days when they could profit directly from them. While you're busy throwing the law around, educating the ig'nunt around you, why don't you look over the fence?
    Go find the piece of legislation that prevents pharmaceutical companies, their suppliers (such as marketing and PR agencies), and representatives from paying off doctors to push their products.

    Nothing to be afraid of--off you go.
  8. Mr Plow from Canada writes: Everything has pros and cons, nothing is perfect and not everything is known about a given product when it is first use.

    What people seem incapable of understanding is that there is no universal law that states that you are automatically entitled to a cheap car, a great IPhone plan or, in this case, a drug that cures your problem with no risk of side effects.

    People have a condition. A company finds a potential treatment. What works in one person may not in another. If one person has an adverse effect, another may not.

    There are no guarantees in life and there isn't always a conspiracy in play. When you take a drug, you have to judge the potential risks and benefits. Sometimes the risks aren't fully known at that time. Ditto for the benefits.

    There are many, many pharmaceutical products that do more good than harm (on average). Many people have diseases that are debilitating and their lives have been transformed by taking a drug invented by an evil pharmaceutical company.
  9. Stude Ham from Outremont, Canada writes:

    This is not the only pharma pill that causes adverse reactions... most do ... but the abject results are very successfully suppressed from common knowledge.
  10. Leon Russell from Gatineau, Qc, Canada writes: From what I've seen, everybody seems to profit from drugging children, except maybe the taxpayer, and of course the children themselves. In order to get a full-time teacher's aide in my child's school, the school board needs to find three kids and convince their parents to have them seen by a psychiatrist and labelled as with one of the learning disability labels... and they can always find one that fits, even if it's a catch-all like PDD-NOS. That way the Ministry of Education releases funding for the teacher's aide, who is not necessarily there for just the targeted children, but who helps generally in the classroom. The school board becomes addicted to the funding, and the teacher becomes addicted to the help of the teachers' aide. Meanwhile, the psychiatrist knows his/her role, and dutifully writes out a diagnosis in time for the Ministry's deadline, at the school's request, whether or not the child has even been tested yet ('a preliminary diagnosis'). The only help the psychiatrist can suggest though, it seems, are drugs, which is great for the school, who have compliant zombies instead of active children, and it's wonderful for the drug companies. What's in it for the psychiatrist, I don't know. But I do know they are subject to all sorts of high pressure selling tactics by the pharmaceutical companies. The government doles out our money for all of this. Could there be something wrong with this picture?
  11. bob london from Canada writes: ADHD is diagnosed for kids of extremely lazy parents and teachers.

    Keep the kid legally medicated and they can stay seated for 8 hours listening to the droning nonsense of a teacher.
  12. Darphin Cofa from Canada writes: I blame the parents for medicating their children. What child isn't hyperactive at a certain age?
  13. J S from Canada writes: 'it does raise some concerns'? ???? Understatement!
  14. Leon Russell from Gatineau, Qc, Canada writes: Actually, our school system seems to have a 'Pervasive Teaching Disorder'. Maybe we should treat it before treating the kids.
  15. Ed Op from Canada writes:

    Mr. Plow:

    To shrug this off as 'just a side effect, drugs have side effects' is, at best, useless, and at worst, ignorant. The point here is that there seems to be mounting evidence that our approach to medicine might not be the best one. You're right that drugs have side effects, but why should we be content with that as a solution? Here we have children between the ages of 6 and 17 - 6 and 17! - trying to kill themselves possibly as a result of taking a medication that is designed to help them sit still in a classroom. Well, maybe we should be looking at our expectation that children sit still in a classroom for 6 hours a day. Maybe our species hasn't evolved to function that way. Maybe we should insist that drugs given to our children won't cause them to try to kill themselves. Maybe we should stop thinking a simple little pill will always fix what ails us. Maybe there's actually another approach that will help kids who find it hard to focus. Maybe asking any one or all of these questions is a better approach than sweeping it under the carpet as a 'side effect'.
  16. Are We Having This Conversation Again from Toronto, Canada writes: The teacher bashing posted by a few has to stop. As a teacher, I have a few kids in my class that are labelled ADHD, ADD, OCD, and every other 'disability' under the sun. I do not have a TA, EA, or whatever else people want to call them. I had 31 kids in the class and NO I AM NOT COMPLAINING despite what some may think. Do I coddle my students though....NO! Every kid, no matter what their IP/IEP is, they have a role to play in my classroom....they do their work or they are penalized. The 'real world' does not accomodate kids who grow up to be lazy because they could not function in school. And although children are medicated, sometimes it does not always help. The medication MAY help them concentrate a bit more, but they do not become the zombies that one writer posted.....become more educated before saying stuff like that. From a non-teaching perspective though....in my opinion only.....the spanking thing works for me. I got my butt kicked as a kid (exaggeration of course) but my mother made sure we got disciplined by being spanked on the bottom only!!! I'm all for spanking kids....i'm not ADD/ADHD/OCD/OCHD/ etc and I did well in school because my parents taught me to 'suck it up' and learn and do well because the world is a scary place if one is not prepared!
  17. Ed Op from Canada writes:

    AWHTCA:

    Whoa! Tough love indeed! Or is that just tough? Hard to tell, you come across as being quite inflexible with your students. Does punishment always lead to better performance? I'm not a teacher (and don't think I'd make a very good one) but in my experience as a parent punishment and negative consequences are only useful as deterrents to deliberately bad behaviour. To help a child think twice before doing something on purpose. When a kid is just being a kid or simply not able to learn something as well as you'd like, punishment is only going to inflict harm. Is this what they teach at Teachers' College?
  18. Expert Eel from Canada writes: Sayless Thinkmore from Tronno, Canada writes:

    All medical professionals who graduate in this country take the Hippocratic Oath.

    Yes, since yesterday.

    Not all physicians push pharmaceuticals.

    no, not all, but many do prescribe unnessessarily.

    And long gone are the days when they could profit directly from them.

    Who do you mean by 'they'? Doctors or pharmaceutical companies?? please be specific when criticizing me.

    While you're busy throwing the law around, educating the ig'nunt around you, why don't you look over the fence?

    What are you talking about??

    Go find the piece of legislation that prevents pharmaceutical companies, their suppliers (such as marketing and PR agencies), and representatives from paying off doctors to push their products.

    And do what with it, you are incomplete.

    Nothing to be afraid of--off you go.

    So you're not afraid of having to get a prescription from your Doctor or Pharmacist to use Garlic or eat an Orange because bill C-51 will make the vitamins and minerals in them contraband?

    You're not afraid that this type of legislation is heading in the direction of a future when we will eventually have to have an approved list of what we are able to eat?

    Sorry Comrade sayless, but I like my Canada the way it is right now. Why is Harper and his band of neocons trying to turn my Country into some kind of neo-proto Communist Russia???

    Stop Bill C-51!!!!!!!

    www.stopc51.com

    here is a site for the online petition

    http://tinyurl.com/5vbc6y
  19. laura napl from Canada writes: 'Emma Hawthorne from Canada writes: My neighbour has been taking Ritalin for five years. Last week her blood pressure suddenly went through the roof . . .'

    I hope your neighbour is seeking medical assistance in finding out what has caused this sudden increase in blood pressure. Any increase in blood pressure will show up when a patient begins taking stimulant medication.

    I have been taking daily doses of Ritalin for twelve years and my blood pressure did increase slightly. My last bp reading was 120 /73 and my doctor considers that o.k. for someone in their fifties.
  20. Are We Having This Conversation Again from Toronto, Canada writes: I am very flexible but I will not bend because a student or a parent comes to me saying that because their son/daughter uses their 'disability' to get out of doing work. MOST of the parents don't have 'time' to spend time helping their kids. In the 7 years of teaching, whenever I have parents saying that they are 'helping' their kids, it's because the parents are doing the work for them.
    I actually told a grandparent that they were failing grade 7 Science because she could not complete a lab report correctly.
    But again, schooling is not the issue...medication for ADHD is the issue...basically what we learn at Teachers College is is the following 'Labelling is disabling'...as long as we find 'labels' to slap on these kids, we will continue to feed into the problem of kids having ADD/ADHD and every other malady under the sun.
  21. Emma Hawthorne from Canada writes: Hi Laura Napl. My neighbour's pressure is usually 120 over 80 but shot up to something like 165 over 100. It dropped to 130 over 70 after one day without Ritalin. I think we need to remember that medicine can be both dangerous and deadly and that patients always need to be on top of their blood pressure. Few doctors realize that Ritalin increases the risk of heart disease. My neighbour also found that most doctors believe low-dose estrogen patches will increase the risk of heart disease when research actually shows that several risk factors for heart disease decrease in younger menopausal women on these patches. It's the older post-menopausal women on larger doses of oral HRT that are at higher risk for heart disease. Low estrogen really aggravates ADHD. These days if you are a patient you need to do your own online research or risk terrible side effects!
  22. Emma Hawthorne from Canada writes: Hi Are We Having This Conversation - If I were a teacher with ADHD students, I would draft an organizational and task check-off help sheet.
    These children need to learn to put their things in the same places every day; to develop workable routines and follow them; and to break large projects down into tiny one-day chunks. As odds are that many ADHD children have an undiagnosed ADHD parent, you can't count on the parents to helpfully assist. I also suspect that too many children who live unsettled lives are simply made the focal point of negative attention which makes them hyperactive as they cannot handle the anxiety. Family systems counselling would help manage many of these problems at a reasonably low cost, but we need to have psychologists and social workers inside OHIP to do that properly.
  23. Dickie Whithers from Coldwater, Canada writes:
    Get the kids off the drugs, let the teachers hit them like they did in the old days. A swat on the knuckles with a wooden ruler is one hell of a motivator for good behaviour.

    The nurture program just doesn't work.

    .
  24. Lain Watson from Hamilton, Canada writes: Those of you focusing on blaming someone (teachers, parents, children themselves) for the classic ADHD symptoms instead of working to help children and adults with this disorder are demonstrating your lack of understanding of what this disorder is all about. Before we had medications and targeted interventions, these children were routinely 'spanked' and beaten in schools and in their homes. Those that were spanked and immediately changed their behavior were not likely ADHD children. My brother was strapped in school multiple times per week by one elementary teacher set on 'teaching him' to do as he was told. His crimes? Basic restlessness and inattention - never aggressive, never hurt anyone, never mean. He, of course, was too scared to tell my parents!! Did it 'cure' him? Of course not. It's a neurological disorder!! You'll have about as much success at beating ADHD out of a child as beating major anxiety or autism out of a child. Behavioral interventions, classroom accommodations, executive function training and coaching, and parenting strategies are ideal treatments, but sometimes medications are also needed, especially if childrens' learning is significantly compromised. The problem with medications is that they can be prescribed without comprehensive evaluations and/or poor monitoring.
  25. dick brown from missy, Canada writes: Seeing as most ADHD candidates diagnosed are boys, the feminization of classrooms certainly contributes to an over-diagnosis. Boys weren't designed to sit and listen to high pitched voices drone on for 6 hours a day only to cancel P.E. for the entire class because ONE boy couldn't sit still.
  26. n' che from Canada writes: One of the ways doctors push drugs:
    http://www.pharmalot.com/2008/04/university-will-scrutinize-professor-for-conflicts/

    Anther way. This physician discusses his experience with drug dealers attempting to enlist him as their pusher:
    http://www.procor.org/discussion/displaymsg.asp?ref=1586&cate=ProCOR Dialogue&parent=1561
  27. The Work Farce from Canada writes: The unparalleled success of harmaceutical drugs are the triumph of illusion and wishful thinking over reality. Parents who play Russian roulette with the brains of their children ought to have their heads examined. Blind faith in psychiatric drugs can destroy the health of children in many ways. Sometimes the toxic side effects show up years later, for example, tardive dyskinesia.
  28. che burashka from Canada writes: I once popped a couple pills that were prescribed for a kid with ADHD, just out of sheer curiosity. I was in my twenties, and not exactly a newbie in terms of drug experiences. The effect of the pills was somewhat similar to speed, which also increases your concentration. This effect was far from negligible - on me, a fully grown adult. I was floored that these drugs are regularly prescribed to children.

    Many kids have an attention span of a fly because they are raised on TV that changes frames every two seconds. This is not an issue that should be treated with medication. While some kids benefit from these drugs, many do not. They are over-prescribed, and the business is very successful at marketing their product - whether to doctors or patients. In addition, it is always easier to fill out a prescription than to deal with the problem differently - and this, again, concerns both parents and doctors.
  29. S M from Canada writes: I think the drugging of children is just a sad commentary on the state of society. Everyone is looking for a quick fix to problems and too much faith is placed in pharmaceuticals. We have become so intolerant to any level of discomfort and irritation.

    Before any pill is prescribed to a child to change behaviour, a full work up should be done. Food allergies/intolerances/malabsorption can play a huge part as can sleep disorders.

    Parents can be pressured to give their child these meds. When my son who is diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder started kindergarten, the school counselor heavily endorsed and directed us towards medication even though my son was not hyperactive. I asked if she had a medical license and if she knew what the long term effect of taking these drugs would have on a child whose brain and body was still developing. She had no response.
  30. Russell Barth from Nepean, Canada writes: marijuana is positively indicated in the treatment of ADHD, but since it doesn't make any money for big pharma, it is strictly prohibited.
  31. D N M from Ontario, Canada writes: dick brown from missy, Canada :

    Yes yes women are the cause of all life's problems. I knew it wouldn't take long to blame the females on this board. sigh The problem with your idiotic theory is that generations of real men before you, dick, have mastered the classroom quite skillfully. Well done guys. Nice try though.
  32. Jennie MacCrae from Canada from Canada writes: From my experience, and I don't have children but I work in the education field, schools put a lot of pressure on parents to put their kids on these medications. For various reasons I'm sure most can thinks of but perhaps these professionals working in education should think about how putting young children on medication, while their brains are still developing, may affect them in the long term.
  33. dick brown from missy, Canada writes: DNM...not women...feminists...big difference. Of course, assuming today's classroom is the same as a classroom in the 50's shows your ignorance.
  34. dick brown from missy, Canada writes: ...oh ya, most boys diagnosed with ADHD are raised in single female parent homes.
  35. dick brown from missy, Canada writes: Not that single moms are the cause of course, it would be nice if they had dads to set limits and boundaries and teach them to become men.
  36. Leon Russell from Gatineau, Qc, Canada writes: dick brown from missy, Canada writes: 'Not that single moms are the cause of course, it would be nice if they had dads to set limits and boundaries and teach them to become men. '

    Wow. Thanks for tainting what had previously been an idiot-free conversation.
  37. dick brown from missy, Canada writes: Look at the stats Leon, take a look dummy!
  38. sue c. from london, Canada writes: I would suggest looking at the CADDRA.ca website for information on ADHD including the use of medication. To paint all doctors as bad and as pill pushers who profit from pharmaceutical companies is ignorant and only serves to further marginalize patients of all ages with mental health issues and perpetuate the stigma associated with mental illness. Un-treated mental illness also has side effects, including suicide. Maybe people need to be educating themselves about the neurobiology behind all mental illnesses before they dismiss the merit of psychotropic medication. And patients and their caregivers certainly need to educate themselves about the specific medication they are taking. BTW, my profit comes from seeing patients get better. My decision making about treatment for a patient is a shared one balancing the risks and benefits of medication with non-pharmacological interventions. I have taken the Hippocratic oath and know full well what it means and my patients would say the same thing.
  39. Jennie MacCrae from Canada from Canada writes: Sue writes: 'Maybe people need to be educating themselves about the neurobiology behind all mental illnesses before they dismiss the merit of psychotropic medication.'

    ... Sue, as a university educated individual with a psychology honours/Crim. degree, I can tell you that much of my information about these medications have come from professors of neurobiology, pharmacology and psychology. Many of them believe that these medications are over-prescribed.
  40. dick brown from missy, Canada writes: of course they're over-prescribed...you don't need a degree in neurobiology to know that! Virtually all students diagnosed are male...hello???????? Where were these bags of nerves 30 years ago? oh ya...with their dads too!
  41. Jennie MaCrae from Canada from Canada writes: dick brown:

    .. Helloooo, I was responding to the doctor's post. I know you don't need a phd. but she is suggesting that we need an education. Got it?
  42. Leon Russell from Gatineau, Qc, Canada writes: che burashka from Canada writes: 'I once popped a couple pills that were prescribed for a kid with ADHD, just out of sheer curiosity.'

    This is a really interesting post. Maybe every parent should do that before allowing other grown-ups to prescribe drugs for their child.

    sue c. from london, Canada writes: 'BTW, my profit comes from seeing patients get better. '

    This needs explanation. And possibly you need to come to some kind of understanding with the pharmaceutical companies, whose profits come from people becoming desperately hooked on their products.
  43. Mani Pulated from Bymedia, Canada writes: Sometimes I think that, doctors are nothing but glorified dope dealers, with a degree.
  44. che burashka from Canada writes: You can't blame everything on the doctors, though they do hold a measure of responsibility along with parents and school staff who push this idea because they don't want to deal with unruly kids who don't fit a cookie cutter ideal type of student.

    A much larger issue here is our culture at large - which encourages attention deficit to some degree. From the aforementioned two second tv frames, to dismissal of history as something that puts things in perspective, to the fact that everyone multi-tasks, to the quest for constant renewal of everything from cars and wardrobes to spiritual worldviews.

    When there is so much less consistency in our world (which is not always a bad thing), how can we expect that this situation won't have an effect on the way we and our children behave?
  45. S Ellison from Canada writes: ADHD, yep my kid was labelled with it. He was put on ritalin. Later he had every side affect there was. Fortunately a little research later we found a book titled, Talking Back to Ritalin. By Dr Breggin.
    We ended up taking him off of it for the better.
    http://www.breggin.com/ritalinbkexcerpt.html
    Check it out.
  46. Righteous Indignation from Somewhere, Canada writes: This is somewhat off-topic, but while looking into vaccines and their potential harmful effects, I stumbled across a book by Eustace Mullins, 'Murder by Injection: The Story of the Medical Conspiracy Against America'. I finally managed to obtain a copy, and it was an absolute eye-opener. You can watch an interview with the author on www.video.google.com by keying in Eustace Mullins Murder by Injection.

    Bill C-51 would appear to be part and parcel of the monopolists' scheme to lock us into the 'slash and burn' school of medicine relying on drugs, surgery and hospital stays, rather than natural remedies. The fact that the government could actually criminalize people for growing their own vegetables and herbs is a chilling foretaste of the tyranny that could well be descending upon us unless we wake up. Eustace Mullins sounds the alarm.
  47. sue c. from London, Canada writes: It seems I needed to clarify my point. I do not have any financial profit from the prescribing of psychotropic drugs despite what others may think. While on the topic of ADHD and Strattera, late last summer I was referred an 18 year old university student identified as gifted through the school system. She struggled in 1st year of university and could not write her spring exams because of emerging depressive and anxiety symptoms. She was already seeing a psychologist who specialized in giftedness who was asute enough to think maybe this patient has ADD. She was assessed by me and was diagnosed with ADD- inattentive subtype. The family (father a math teacher) was desperate to know what was wrong with their daughter. She was never tested for ADHD in school and as many of us in this field know, IQ has nothing to do with who may develop ADHD and who may not.
    Strattera was suggested because it can treat co-morbid anxiety and depressed mood symptoms in addition to ADHD symptoms. I suggested to her and the family that if they gave it 6 weeks, by Thanksgiving hopefully improvement would be noted. I also informed the father that I wouldn't be at all surprised if some of the females in his classroom who are quiet and daydreamers actually have the same problem with inattention. Males tend to have more hyperactive and impulse symptoms thus they are more disruptive and visible in a classroom setting.
    I heard back from this family at Christmas, having received a Christmas card letting me know the family 'had their daughter back' and she was doing great with the medication, and she was able to study for the SAT's with the hope of attending college in the states at a program that better suited her style of learning. This family was grateful and this has to be one of the most rewarding clinical encounters I have ever been involved with. As I said earlier 'my profit comes from seeing patients get better'. Profit is not always financial, at least not to me.
  48. Luke R from Toronto, Canada writes: Stude Ham from Outremont, Canada writes:

    This is not the only pharma pill that causes adverse reactions... most do ... but the abject results are very successfully suppressed from common knowledge.
    ******
    Get a clue. It's public knowledge and it's not suppressed. You just have to spend 1 hour educating yourself on it. Here's a link from Health Canada. Type the name of the drug in, click on the drug, download the product monograph and read it. It goes on for pages about all the side effects and who shouldn't be taking this drug.

    http://205.193.93.51/dpdonline/startup.do?applanguage=en_CA

    Not everything is a conspiracy. But there does seem to be a lot of reactionary stupidity out there.

    Also, one fact that the activists conveniently gloss over is the number of suicides by those kids when not treated. How do they compare?
  49. mr obvious from nowhere, Canada writes: Have ADD, taken ritalin, does help concentration, doesnt cure the problem, never expected it too, perhaps a bit of a downer when the meds wear off as well as a constant stigma attached to you once you are 'one of those' is what largely causes these kids to go a bit nutty, rahter than the drugs alone...didnt find out I had it until 19, before that was deeply troubled , never fit in, and at times did feel 'suicidal' (before ever taking the drugs). before you judge the drugs, think about the problems that the ADD itself causes, but dont just put a kid on them becaue he's hyperactive....or even unruly, talk to him first of all...
  50. J W from United States writes: Luke R -- Your comment regarding obtaining knowlege re: both sides of the argument is very vaild (for any issue one should educate themselves before attacking something that has helped some significantly.) I direct you to 2 articles that show that suicide rates actually increased significantly since the initial 2003 black box warning about suicide and Paxil: 'Two reports released this week show significant increases in youth suicide rates between 2003 and 2004, following a consistent drop since the 1990s. A study released in the September issue of The American Journal of Psychiatry, shows a 14 percent increase in suicide rates for children and adolescents under the age of 19 from 2003 to 2004. The second study, published in the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, shows an eight percent increase in suicide rates for individuals between the ages of 10 and 24 in 2004, following a 28 percent decrease over the last 15 years. This is the largest escalation in this group since the agency began collecting suicide data in 1979. ' If you could meet those for whom medication has significantly helped them, you may have a better understanding - at least, that is, if you don't want to educate yourself about the pros AND cons. By the way, all medications have potential risks - antibiotics, insulin, antiepileptics, even herbal remedies (and sometimes more with those.) One more thought that may shed some light, and is quite a simplistic way of thinking actually: There are some who may have unfortunately inherited ('naturally,' one might say) the horrible and frightening symptoms of hallucinations as seen with schizophrenia - Yet others take LSD, let's say, in order to experience this. Does it not make sense then that the complexity of the brain lends to the necessity of balancing thses chemicals for some unfortunate few? We do it for diabetics, thyroid disease, etc. Maybe they should go untreated as well...
  51. Erna Mercredi from Fond du Lac, Canada writes: I have read all the comments posted regarding this very disturbing article about the high sucide rate among children who have been diagnosed with ADHD. Many of the comments have been written with compassion and many from those who have no clue what it is like. I am an educator and a very dedicated mother of a child with ADHD. My son was diagnosed four years ago, life before this diagnosis was very challenging and life today continues to be challenging. My husband and I have had our struggles with the education systems, the teachers that have worked with my son and the administrators that try to understand what it is our son faces everyday of his life. What I find striking about this article about this new drug that has been on the market since 2995, was I just reciently met with an education phycologist and he was telling me all about this new drug and how it is not addictive and all the good things about it, I am so glad my friend forwarded this article to me. The struggles my son faces have been at times very difficult, for him, for us and as well for anyone else who is a positive influence in his life. During the school year when my son is in school we have him on Ritilin, just so that we can help the teachers cope with his outbursts, frustrations, behaviours easier because frankly there are many people out there who just do not have the patience any more to try to deal with all our children on a daily basis. As a mother with tons of compassion and a great education, we deal as best we can with our boy. That includes all the great times, the difficult times, but is that not our job as dedciated loving parents? That is the way I was raised, we do the best we can with waht we have, and no punishment, verbal insults, and impatient people who act like they care are not the answer. In my final words, our children are a reflection of us and no we are not perfect but who is? We have children because we chose to love, care, and protect them the best way we know how.
  52. D K from Canada writes: When I was five I was diagnosed with ADD and put on medication. After seeing the change to my behavior my parents pulled me off. Apparently I didn't behave like a normal child, running around and being active is what childern do, they just look like mini-adults but some people expect them to behave as mini-adults too. My parents put in the time to play memory games with me, they disciplined me when I acted up to teach me what was and wasn't appropriate behaviour and they sat down with me for my homework. I wasn't learning english very well, they placed me in French and it peaked my interest enough to learn. Kids get bored, easily, their minds wander and so do they if you can't engage them. It took me several years of sub-standard marks to adapt to school. I didn't get my first 'A' until grade 8 but by the time I graduated high school I was in the top of my class. I learned what worked for me in class, and that was multi-tasking. I would do something else and the combination of doing two things at once helped me pay more attention in the end. For university I began to knit in class and it moved my GPA from a 3.0 to a 3.5. But I would have never tried to find a way to make sitting for long periods of time work for me if my parents hadn't ALWAYS been supportive. I'm sorry if it offends people but from my experience drugging your kids is a lazy way out. Don't feed them a lot of sugar, enroll them in sports as an outlet for some energy and try to find ways to teach them concepts that engage them. Being a parent is more then just birthing the kid and then tossing him or her in a classroom, it's a full-time job.
  53. J W from United States writes: Until you have known someone close to you, or have been personally treated for significant ADHD, you will not understand the benefit of medication.

    DK, You may have a more mild form, not to mention intelligence and very supportive parents. You were able to deal with your symptoms due to several factors, including your diligence as well the other factors above.

    HOWEVER, in cases of significant ADHD - We're talking about the people who cannot keep their finances up as adults, forget or are at least late to appts and dates, go through several jobs, and other life impairing symptoms - When you meet someone who is no longer depressed, or anxious, or suffering fro mself-esteem issues because people are always yelling at them, or they are losing friends, THEN you will know that there is a range of ADHD - and for some, believe it or not, medications will have changed their lives

    But you won't read about that on the internet or hear it in the media - b/c they are content, and have nothing to complain about.

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