ADHD doesn't exist and drugs do more harm than good

iolo said:
If you got any good out of it, I am pleased, but that doesn't mean everyone should be so treated, surely? People differ hugely, and I know that my teachers would have had me drugged up to the eyeballs if they could have got away with it - and I might have made, if I were very lucky, a low-level prison guard. It takes all sorts, Cawacko!
Click to expand...

It's amphetamine, it's not going to reduce your academic performance.
 
Tyrion the Imp said:
Wow, a single doctor. Not even a university doctor, just a generic physician, out of millions of generic physicians. That's a golden standard of evidence.
Click to expand...

Well there is Leon Eisenberg and Jerome Kagan as well.

Harvard psychologist Jerome Kagan is one of the world's leading experts in child development. In a SPIEGEL interview, he offers a scathing critique of the mental-health establishment and pharmaceutical companies, accusing them of incorrectly classifying millions as mentally ill out of self-interest and greed.

SPIEGEL: Professor Kagan, you've been studying the development of children for more than 50 years. During this period, has their mental health gotten better or worse?

Kagan: Let's say it has changed. Particularly in poorer families, among immigrants and minorities, mental health issues have increased. Objectively speaking, adolescents in these groups have more opportunities today than they did 50 years ago, but they are still anxious and frustrated because inequality in society has increased. The number of diagnosed cases of attention-deficit disorders and depression has increased among the poor…

SPIEGEL: … you could also say skyrocketed. In the 1960s, mental disorders were virtually unknown among children. Today, official sources claim that one child in eight in the United States is mentally ill.

Kagan: That's true, but it is primarily due to fuzzy diagnostic practices. Let's go back 50 years. We have a 7-year-old child who is bored in school and disrupts classes. Back then, he was called lazy. Today, he is said to suffer from ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder). That's why the numbers have soared.

SPIEGEL: Experts speak of 5.4 million American children who display the symptoms typical of ADHD. Are you saying that this mental disorder is just an invention?

Kagan: That's correct; it is an invention. Every child who's not doing well in school is sent to see a pediatrician, and the pediatrician says: "It's ADHD; here's Ritalin." In fact, 90 percent of these 5.4 million kids don't have an abnormal dopamine metabolism. The problem is, if a drug is available to doctors, they'll make the corresponding diagnosis.

SPIEGEL: So the alleged health crisis among children is actually nothing but a bugaboo?

Kagan: We could get philosophical and ask ourselves: "What does mental illness mean?" If you do interviews with children and adolescents aged 12 to 19, then 40 percent can be categorized as anxious or depressed. But if you take a closer look and ask how many of them are seriously impaired by this, the number shrinks to 8 percent. Describing every child who is depressed or anxious as being mentally ill is ridiculous. Adolescents are anxious, that's normal. They don't know what college to go to. Their boyfriend or girlfriend just stood them up. Being sad or anxious is just as much a part of life as anger or sexual frustration.

SPIEGEL: What does it mean if millions of American children are wrongly being declared mentally ill?

Kagan: Well, most of all, it means more money for the pharmaceutical industry and more money for psychiatrists and people doing research.

SPIEGEL: And what does it mean for the children concerned?

Kagan: For them, it is a sign that something is wrong with them -- and that can be debilitating. I'm not the only psychologist to say this. But we're up against an enormously powerful alliance: pharmaceutical companies that are making billions, and a profession that is self-interested.

SPIEGEL: You once wrote that you yourself often suffered from inner restlessness as a child. If you were born again in the present era, would you belong to the 13 percent of all children who are said to be mentally ill?

Kagan: Probably. When I was five, I started stuttering. But my mother said: "There's nothing wrong with you. Your mind is working faster than your tongue." And I thought: "Gee, that's great, I'm only stuttering because I'm so smart."

SPIEGEL: In addition to ADHD, a second epidemic is rampant among children: depression. In 1987, one in 400 American adolescents was treated with anti-depressants; by 2002, it was already one on 40. Starting at what age is it possible to speak of depression in children?

Kagan: That's not an easy question to answer. In adults, depression either implies a serious loss, a sense of guilt or a feeling that you are unable to achieve a goal that you really wanted to reach. Infants are obviously not yet capable of these emotions. But, after the age of three or four, a child can develop something like a feeling of guilt, and if it loses its mother at that age, it will be sad for a while. So, from then on, mild depression can occur. But the feeling of not being able to achieve a vital goal in life and seeing no alternative only starts becoming important from puberty on. And that is also the age at which the incidence of depression increases dramatically.

SPIEGEL: The fact is that younger children are also increasingly being treated with antidepressants.

Kagan: Yes, simply because the pills are available.

SPIEGEL: So would you completely abolish the diagnosis of depression among children?

Kagan: No, I wouldn't go as far as that. But if a mother sees a doctor with her young daughter and says the girl used to be much more cheerful, the doctor should first of all find out what the problem is. He should see the girl on her own, perhaps carry out a few tests before prescribing drugs (and) certainly order an EEG. From studies, we know that people with greater activity in the right frontal lobe respond poorly to antidepressants.


http://www.spiegel.de/international...verprescibing-drugs-to-children-a-847500.html
 
Last edited:
cawacko said:
Right now I take Effexor and Concerta. I will admit I'm basically physically addicted to Effexor. It sucks. My body goes through withdrawals if I go more than two days without it.

I took Dexedrine when I was younger. I tried Adderall before and had a horrible reaction to it.
Click to expand...

Effexor sucks, I hate the new SNRI class drugs. Typically, that wouldn't be classified as addictive though. Concerta would be what would be considered addictive. I have heard about SNRI's having horrible withdrawal symptoms, though. Concerta, Dexedrine, and Adderal, I've found, actually have fairly mild withdrawal, you might sleep for 12 hours for a few days but it isn't any worse than that. Odd that you had an reaction to Adderall when you tolerated Dexedrine, too. They're largely the same drug, just adderall is 25% levoamphetamine, which boosts norepinephrine instead of dopamine. Norepinephrine, BTW, would be the neurochemical boosted by Effexor (in addition to Serotonin).
 
cawacko said:
Right now I take Effexor and Concerta. I will admit I'm basically physically addicted to Effexor. It sucks. My body goes through withdrawals if I go more than two days without it.

I took Dexedrine when I was younger. I tried Adderall before and had a horrible reaction to it.
Click to expand...

It certainly sounds like you are physically addicted, that's not good.
 
The Dude said:
You have to me, I'm use to it.
That's some serious anti depressants to be hooked on.
Click to expand...

What have I said? You have me confused with some other black guy.

(For the record I don't do pot but I don't care if people do so I'm pretty sure I've never commented on it about you)
 
cawacko said:
Alcohol and ADD medication do not mix well.
Click to expand...

Yeah, that's perhaps the one good thing ADD medication did for me, I quit drinking when I started taking it. I was drinking half a fifth every single night for a while there, then I started taking Vyvanse, and the desire to drink just disappeared. Strange. Now you'd have to pay me to drink, I hate alcohol.

In most other ways have I really liked it's effects, though. Not that I'm going to stop.
 
Last edited:
Tyrion the Imp said:
Effexor sucks, I hate the new SNRI class drugs. Typically, that wouldn't be classified as addictive though. Concerta would be what would be considered addictive. I have heard about SNRI's having horrible withdrawal symptoms, though. Concerta, Dexedrine, and Adderal, I've found, actually have fairly mild withdrawal, you might sleep for 12 hours for a few days but it isn't any worse than that. Odd that you had an reaction to Adderall when you tolerated Dexedrine, too. They're largely the same drug, just adderall is 25% levoamphetamine, which boosts norepinephrine instead of dopamine. Norepinephrine, BTW, would be the neurochemical boosted by Effexor (in addition to Serotonin).
Click to expand...

That's interesting. I've started and stopped concerta before and not had a problem. Freaking Effexor though...

I took Adderall for five or six days. Man it was awful. I could see people at work were looking at me like 'wtf is wrong with you?'
 
cawacko said:
That's interesting. I've started and stopped concerta before and not had a problem. Freaking Effexor though...

I took Adderall for five or six days. Man it was awful. I could see people at work were looking at me like 'wtf is wrong with you?'
Click to expand...

Now that I remember, when I was on Adderall, people would seriously look at me and be like "Are you mad at me?" I think it gave me a serious case of bitchy resting face.

Now I've got insurance, so I'm back on Vyvanse, which is a lot milder (at it's core, it's the same drug that's in dexedrine, it's just extended release).
 
Tyrion the Imp said:
Yeah, that's perhaps the one good thing ADD medication did for me, I quit drinking when I started taking it. I was drinking half a fifth every single night for a while there, then I started taking Vyvanse, and the desire to drink just disappeared. Strange. Now you'd have to pay me to drink, I hate alcohol.

In no other way have I really liked it's effects, though. Not that I'm going to stop.
Click to expand...

I think I tried Vyvanse last year. Gave me a tick like reaction though so I had to stop.

I'm aware of the effects of the medicine but it doesn't stop me from drinking. I'm kind of an all or nothing drinker. I don't drink often but when I do I go all out.
 
They had my brother-in-law on SNRI's for a while. He got drunk on them and smashed in his own windshield. He is not the calmest fellow even at the best of times, the norephinephrine stimulant kind of threw him over the edge.
 
Tyrion the Imp said:
They had my brother-in-law on SNRI's for a while. He got drunk on them and smashed in his own windshield. He is not the calmest fellow even at the best of times, the norephinephrine stimulant kind of threw him over the edge.
Click to expand...

Ouch. That's rather scary.
 
cawacko said:
I can tell you I have it. I was diagnosed my junior year in high school and first took medication my senior year in college. Made all the difference in the world to me. My uncle has ADD and so does my grandfather.

Now I realize there are many hyper (normal) kids who instantly get diagnosed with ADHD and are put on medication to try and calm them down and that over diagnosis seems to be a problem. But to say it doesn't exist?
Click to expand...

I think it exists and once again I'll resort to my favorite phrase: I don't get it. Why is it so hard to believe that with all the strides in medicine, brain imagery, genetic testing, etc. that doctors think this can't be a legitimate problem? Maybe because it presents with behavioural issues and people like to think those don't originate in the brain, and totally discount a brain-body link.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top