This is really getting irritating, I am seeing so many people who are on ADHD drugs, prescribed to them when they are adults.
I also see ADHD drugs prescribed for incarcerated adolescents–which is BS.
These are people who are surely diagnosable jackasses. They get ADHD drugs as a remote and stupid effort by primary care and psych docs to make them more functional.
Somebody should have taught them manners, for a start, and then discipline as a back up.
They don’t need a pill–they need a swift kick in the ass.
http://acsh.org/2014/03/rates-adhd-prescriptions-soar-among-adults/
You are lashing out at the wrong people. This is what the CDC says comprises attention deficit disorder:
Often fails to give close attention to details or makes careless mistakes in schoolwork, at work, or with other activities.
Often has trouble holding attention on tasks or play activities.
Often does not seem to listen when spoken to directly.
Often does not follow through on instructions and fails to finish schoolwork, chores, or duties in the workplace (e.g., loses focus, side-tracked).
Often has trouble organizing tasks and activities.
(partial list)
http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/adhd/diagnosis.html
The reason people became suspicious and not accepting of ADHD is the outrageous criteria used to diagnose it. As in most “mental disorders”, the criteria just keeps growing and growing. Autism is another example–throw in “spectrum” and you have thousands of people to diagnose with a disorder. The science/pharmaceutical communities are the ones responsible for the suspicion and disbelief. When they make every behaviour a disorder, you should not be surprised when people start realizing they have been duped. It is bad for those children who truly do need help, but lashing out at those who question is not going to change anything. Complain to the people who openly encouraged over-diagnosis and watered down the condition to include as many potential customers as possible.
You don’t have a clue as to what you are talking about. ADHD can’t be disciplined out of you. I have a child with it who left the school system and home schools with it. It doesn’t remove his ADHD. He is not on medicine either. He stil struggles getting through a lot of tasks that are essential for becoming an independent adult. It takes more time for people with ADHD to figure things out and need an advocate to help them find coping mechanisms. He receives healthy discipline as well. He is a wonderful child and I am confident that he will blossom into a creative and capable adult. But the last thing he needs is people denying he is different because of a few bad apples who abuse the system. I too struggle with ADHD and received stern disabling with a wooden spoon, which did not help me succeed in school or life. You are all sadly mistaken by ignoring this difficulty that many people face. The reason there is a high population of inmates with ADHD imprison is because they never received the help they needed and turned to illegal means to get by. The reason why baseball players have it is because they are the ones with the energy level to play the game. In you denial of this disability you are trying to make everyone the same without differences. Oh the irony. The other reason why there are so many diagnosis is made is because more people are becoming aware that there is a difficulty. The more you deny it and spread lies the more difficult it will be to help sufferers from getting the treatment and tools they need to become successful. I know what I am talking about as I am a victim of mis-truth spread by ignorant people. lighten up, don’t poison the well becaus there are a few delinquents who would abuse the system. And no I am not a major supporter of the medication, but if it helps some people get on with their lives then stop humiliating them with talk about giving them a swift kick in the ass.
Agreed. The more people you can prescribe a drug for, the greater the income potential. Cymbalta was originally for neuropathy (I remember ads with cactus and fire beneath a foot!) and then it turned out to be an effective antidepressent. Then it was approved for fibromyalgia (another disease based on primarily subjective criteria). As the drugs are developed, it seems the number of people diagnosed with the “diseases” treated by the drugs also increases. And then people start to question the whole diagnosis and massive prescribing. It is very unfair to those who have serious conditions that do require treatment and very unfair to those don’t but are told they are “sick”.
Doctors label too many disorders under ADHD label. There are severe ones that really need treatments. There are also tons of cases where kids just need some diet changes. Unfortunately because of the misuse of this label , kids with the real problem are not being treated right by the society.
At a middle-age, my mind still runs a mile-a-minute, and I am ahead of the stupid people. I also have a lot of physical energy.
I do not have ADHD. I am a healthy male with great capabilities and energy.
The guy in the video was being very politic. He couldn’t say that the ADHD industry is a fraud. I can.
Don’t you ppl read magazines? There are pills to make you thin, too…
I was the opposite when studying–I needed absolute quiet or I would be too distracted. Fortunately I had photographic and brute force memory (no analogies or mnemonics) so that I could study in small bursts and then take breaks. By the same token, I found out that I cannot go into the trance necessary for hypnosis.
As we agree, it is different for everyone.
If we give you a pill and “your” IQ doubles, it’s your IQ plus the drug. It’s not that you are smarter–you’re just drugged in such a way you score higher on IQ tests.
ADHD is about peddling medicine, nothing else.
An interesting point with some complicated ramifications for the old War on Drugs conversation we have periodically. The next question for me would be how do you define “better”? In my limited experience the patients aren’t better, just docile. I’m inclined to agree with you based on my beliefs in personal freedom, but if they’re making the decision because they’ve been given an innacurate understanding of the drug, then it is no longer a personal choice; it’s fraud. ADHD drugs do not make you smarter.
I think too many people are willing to believe there is something wrong with them or their child rather than examine the possibility that there is something wrong with their life. The official symptoms of ADHD are the same as the symptoms of boredom and cabin fever. I’m not normally one to jump on the “natural” bandwagon, but forcing small children to sit in an uncomfortable desk in a dimly lit room and perform dull, repetitive tasks for 8 hours isn’t natural. The more athletic or intelligent a child is, the harder it will be for them to acquiesce.
The fact that these drugged children grow up to be listless, dissatisfied adults is no surprise. They never had to learn to control themselves or find outlets for their creativity on their own because the drug did it for them. Of course they still need the drug into adulthood. Not only are they still the same person they were before the drug, they’ve missed the opportunity to learn how to be that person without a drug to help them.
If you use discipline instead of drugs, you’re only teaching the children that they have to repress their energy and creativity or be punished for standing out from the crowd. They’ll carry that lesson into adulthood where they find boring jobs exercising the one skill school taught them, how to sit at a desk and not get noticed. Offering them a drug to make the bad feelings go away doesn’t solve their problems, it only masks them. Whether or not an adult decides that’s worth the money is their business as you suggest, but implying that it’s the same as increasing their IQ is wildly inaccurate. The true effect is generally the opposite. The drug relieves the side-effects of being the smartest person in the room.
As for incarcerated criminals, if there were any valid research indicating that ADHD drugs reduced crime, I could see the argument, but the jury is still out. In the meantime, as I said above, ADHD medications are methamphetamines. Supplying powerful stimulants to incarcerated criminals doesn’t sound like a good idea for a whole host of reasons.
For adults the only issue is whether the person taking the medication does better than when they don’t take it. That should be between the person and their doctor. For research purposes, the why is interesting but irrelevant to the decision.
If there was a pill that doubled your IQ would you take it?
Would you want it restricted only to people with a recognized mental defect?
Or should it be a personal decision to be made by the adult with the advice of their doctor?
I went through grade school in the 60’s, we got a swift kick in the ass, and another one at home for disobedience and distraction in school. Nobody was on drugs. Most of us that grew up then are productive adults. It must be some virus the commies brought when they took over the education system. When discipline was removed from the classroom, they brought in drugs instead.
I double dog dare you to try and kick them in the ass.
Glad you mentioned the “intense concentration”. I generally studied with a tv and/or radio on to force myself to pay attention to the subject I was studying. Having to shut out one or two distractions allowed me to pay attention to the one thing I needed to pay attention to. Intense concentration can function to keep one’s mind occupied. It’s an individual thing.
It is very scary that kids are medicated for something that is just part of life. Who knows what it does to them? I know one former meth addict who started out on the ADHD drugs and worked his way up. How many addicts are we creating here? Bet we never get a study on that one.
When discussing Adult ADHD, particularly in prisoners, I think it’s important to call the treatment by its real name, Meth. There was recently a spike in ADD/ADHD prescriptions in major league baseball, oddly coincident with the advent of testing for methamphetamines. According to the DSM, diagnosis of ADHD is purely behavioral with great emphasis placed on interviews with care-givers rather than the patient. DSM-5, the most recent update, just introduced diagnosis and care of adults. Since the diagnostic criteria are publicly available, and the evidence is behavioral, the clinician is essentially taking the patients word.
Seeing as there’s no physical test to determine if ADHD is present, and a diagnosis can get you consequence free, and often monetarily free, access to meth, it’s no surprise that the new guidelines have led to a rash of adults suddenly realizing they have a problem, particularly criminals and hyper-competitive athletes.
I had, and continue to have, now at age 65, what used to be called hyperactivity. After spending much time in the hallway in 4th grade since the teacher moved my desk there, I decided, along with 2 others who also sat there, that I must cool it. At that age (9) I was reading at 12th grade level so I wonder how many children are being destroyed and not helped by these psychotropic drugs. I also did not enter a profession that allowed for constant activity but rather one that required intense concentration. I burned off my energy through other productive means. What does it say that today a teacher who tried to remove a child to the hallway would be disciplined while medication to mood level is the standard of care? As with big government, there is too much tendency to lump all people together instead of viewing each as an individual and treating accordingly. This will only get worse with government run healthcare.
While I have sympathy for your grandson, the fact is millions of people grew up with exactly the same problem years before it became a fashionable disease. They could not sit still in school and spent much time in the principal’s office for not sitting still. Their attention span was equal to that of a gnat. Yet, somehow, the vast majority of these people managed to make it in life. The seventies and eighties are not full of baby boomers who spent all day tweaking and living in alleys (some did, most did not). Adapting occured. They found occuaptions where long attention spans are not needed and much physical movement was. This is not a new problem. It’s just that we made it so dramatic and “wrong” to not be all alike. We try to medicate people into “likeness”. Your grandson, if given encouragement and help, or maybe just time, will adapt. Not sitting still and your mind running a mile minute is not a life sentence to being “ruined” or different. It’s who he is and you work within that idea. Home school–give his mind something to engage in. It’s hard, but it certainly can be done. It was done in the past. (It’s not a goal to “slow his mind and body down”. It’s a goal to engage his mind and body in useful activities that allow him to participate in society.)
It’s so much easier to get legal meds than buy from “Bob” in the back alley. And insurance pays for the legal ones.
I wish you would tell my 10 year old grandson that and his parents I am sure that they will be very relieved to here it.
He has been diagnosed with ADHD, not so much for his inability to interact with others, which is a problem, but so much as he cannot stay still and his mind can’t either.
He is continually trying to run off his excess energy, but controlling his mind is much more difficult. They did try drugs but they made him worse not better. He literally does not stay still for much more than a minute or two at a time.
Admittedly discipline and order need to be carefully used with him along with diet to avoid colourants etc.
Perhaps you know some special way to administer the “swift kick in the ass” to slow down his body and mind as I would be grateful to hear it.
Mind you it might well lead to charges of Child Abuse though.