I used to blog the issue of Ritalin almost every week but other issues took over. This is the reason I decided to blog this question from a concern parent.
The bottom line is nothing can be done until Shawn Graham announced a study on the way our kids are being drugged by the system.
Here’s the parent’s comment -
I just typed a complete post on a response to anonymous but due to a server error it was lost. ERRR!
target="_blank">Charles
Blog
Anyhow to sum it up in a nut shell..
As parents you tell me what we are supose to do...Nothing would make us all happier then to not have to give this highly contriversial medication to our child.
When our son takes this medication he has stright A's, popular with his friends and plays sports VERY well.
Without it he gets D's and F's, he has no friends becuase he can not control himself and can no longer be part of his sports team because he can not calm down long enough to know that play is going to happen next.
I have Celiac Disease which is an allergy to wheat and gluten.
Nothing would make me happier than to be told by his doctor that he also has this disease and that if we remove his things from his diet that he will be cured and will no longer have to take this medication.
Are we to trust these people behind the counters of the health food stores (that has no medical background) to be able to cure our children? "Just take this eye of neut and 1 tsp of this fish oil and you will be medication free". "
Oh and by the way when you need your apendix out come back and we can do the surgery out back in the warehouse".
If there is a cure of this dreaded disorder if that is what you call it by all means please share this information with everone.
I don't know much about street drugs but I was a teenager once and know what it feels like to be high. You are giddy, hungry and out in another world. I know for a fact this is not the effect that Ritalin has on our son. He explains it as "being able to calm down and gather his thoughts", "being able to know what he is doing".
I once again ask you "WHAT ARE WE TO DO AS PARENTS"? If you know how to fix my child I beg of you to please tell me. Nothing would make any of us happier then to not have to see our child on any medication.
8 comments:
There are no doctors here so this is the last place a parent should ask what to do. As Charles indicates, the blog does not exist to 'ban' ritalin and other psychotropic drugs. What is at issue is the way it is being handled.
This was mentioned not long before, but we can repeat it again. If your child has been PROPERLY diagnosed and is doing fine with specialized attention, then probably the thing to do is what is being done.
For this website one of the main issues is the AMA's description of how ADHD is determined. The cost is quite extravagant, and involves over six months of investigation. I have doubts that that is being done in schools, but perhaps you are one to ask.
In order to determine whether ADHD is present, environmental factors have to be ruled out. That means that learning environment must be changed, which means adopting a montessori or other adaptive learning environment.
The physical surroundings must be changed because a child could be having a reaction to the physical environment. If you have celiacs then thats a concern because as you know, celiac's is particularly hard to test for and celiacs in infants results in physical disorders, but at advanced ages it is also characterized by learning disabilities and personality disorders. I know a case where teachers informed a parent that their child was close to retarded with significant learning disorders. It was discovered that the child had celiacs and when gluten was removed, literally a new child emerged. That child is now in all advanced classes and likewise does well in sports (though that doesn't necessarily mean anything)
The home environment must also be tested to ensure it isn't that. Keep in mind that herbicides are extremely common in New Brunswick, NB is the only province or state that still allows aerial spraying of herbicides. Obviously that has significant drift, which means most New Brunswickers are exposed to more herbicides than any other part of the continent except Mexico and those living by farms.
The diet is especially important, particularly things like sugar and MSG. Refined sugar raises blood sugar levels and can have effects much like diabetes, it can affect mood and personality. Many people don't know this, but barley malt as a sugar substitute is almost as effective as the expensive stevia for moderating blood sugars-it's available cheap at bulk stores like Scoopnsave.
Something like milk can be a problem, particularly lactose. Milk in the province is all mixed together, and many dairy farmers are in areas like Belledune which have high levels of heavy metals and other pollutants.
Obviously people can't just pack up and move to test a child, but the environment MUST be ruled out before a diagnosis of ADHD is even considered. Keep in mind that this is not a 'disease' like Celiac's, no enzyme has been discovered missing. It is a 'disorder'. IF your child went through six months of those kinds of tests then I'd suggest the situation is well in hand. However, I have heard stories that make Charles fears well grounded, and that children are literally being drugged into submission and at earlier and earlier ages. Drugs 'work', we know that, that's why most are banned, but people will risk jail to get them, and why people line up at Tim Hortons for a fix.
In tests increases in physical activity and changes in diet have been found to be as effective as drugs on CERTAIN types of patients. That's why its very important to ensure that a thorough understanding of the child's mental and physical condition has been appraised. Without that, it is impossible to know how to treat it most effectively.
Personally, as a parent, if I had a child with ADHD behaviours, I'd be at pubmed.org learning everything there is to know about it and the clinical trials being conducted. There's a reason that 'suddenly' celiacs and ADHD and other kinds of diseases and disorders are so common nowadays and why these problems are mostly a north american phenomenon. Most importantly, challenge the teachers and doctors. People don't realize that these people are making a living, so they don't have time to be experts. There is tons of material online that means the average parent can know ten times what those who are lecturing them do. Be one of those parents.
You see what you are missing anonymous is that the post that Charles put up was post #3 from another page he did a couple of weeks ago. So truly it looks a bit out of context.
As for removing the sugar, msg. Been there done that. Oh and Milk in all forms casin, whey BEEN THERE DONE THAT TO.
I have read every book there was to read. Oh and had him evaulated by every kid of doctor. From Allergist to a child phys.
Also please excuse my ignorance for not knowing that Charles had blogged this issue before. He is the one who posted a very sweet picture of some boys on the front page weeks ago and put the title "RITALIN, THE SIGN OF THE TIMES". This is why I posted. The post you read just now on here was the last post I wrote and it was the answer to someone who had suggested taking the homopathic route. Like that had not been tried. Everyone has all the answers until it's your child.
Oh and by the way we even built a new house. No rugs, no registers, no lead paint. Oh and no grass to spray.
Had early intervention work with us for 4 years to ensure that it wasn't a parenting thing.
I think that just about covers everything you suggested.
Thanks for the support. It's people like you who think that they have the answers and that is why our children are sterotyped: "Oh your child has ADHD and taking Ritalin"? He must not have a very good home life. His parents didn't do all they could do before taking that medication route.
Just for the record? I took that picture of the three boys.
That's a little unfair. Nobody said they had all the answers and nobody stereotyped you or your child, we don't even know who the heck you are. No medical history was listed so obviously nobody posting here is talking about you specifically. You said 'what is a parent to do', not 'what am I to do'.
As we said, what we are talking about is how the government is addressing it in schools. Has every parent whose child is prescribed ritalin built a new house? That's doubtful.
Don't take offense where none is intended, this is not a personal attack on anybody. In the past charles has often gotten in trouble from posters from paying too much attention to government and not enough on parents. Parents have the ultimate responsibility, but in fairness, not all have the financial means or the time or education to become experts, so I tend to agree with Charles that the focus should be on government, which has the means and plays a large role.
What we still don't know is how much testing is done at the schools before ritalin is prescribed. If Charles really wants to earn that press pass he should start calling some schools and ask them what their system is.
It's a catch 22 for charles though, he needs to be dramatic to focus attention, yet at the same time focusing attention can create more problems for those who take the drug, making them look like they are 'disabled', though like he says, that's one of the problems.
I doubt Charles or anybody else would dispute that there are cases where ritalin is simply necessary, however, as a society we have no knowledge of the issue because the government refuses to study it-that's one of the reasons for the study. When I was at school there was little acting up during classes, but as many have stated, our brains weren't hyperactive because of video games, and our bodies weren't full of sugar and caffeine.
Many kids may simply need much more exercise during the school day. It's only been recently that kids were stuck in classrooms for eight hours a day five days a week. That's something that isn't 'natural' and at least government is adding more phys ed. Recently on television there was a feature that claimed that tests show that homework doesn't add anything to the education of a child. Education is something that should be constantly updated, and in our society unless one has a child in the system very little knowledge of it gets out.
I doubt Charles or anybody else would dispute that there are cases where ritalin is simply necessary
Really? Come on Charles, do you believe that there are some cases that require Ritalin?
As I had stated above, the only reason that I had asked "What is a parent to do" was in response to a post from 2 weeks ago. Moving on!
I guess where I am confused is where you keep referring to the government doing testing. Or testing done in the school. What do they have to do with anything?
We knew that there was something wrong ith our son from birth. We took him to the doctors. They did the testing. Why is it the governments job to do testing? We do not pay to see the pediatrition so therefore the government did help there.
The school has NO say in my childs dosing etc. They are not medical doctors and I would never let them do any tests on him.
I work in the school system and I could not imagine doing testing on someones child where it came to medical issues. ADHD is not a learning disability. If it were this would be different. Children who haver ADHD are usually to smart. As you will notice Charles is not exactly a simple man.
I agree and disagree with adding more phys-ed in the school week. If my child has phys-ed at 10:30 in the morning he is unable to calm down to learn anything for quite awhile after ward. Unable to sit still after all of that stimulation. A longer lunch hour may help though.
However we can chalk it up to parenting. It should be the parents who make sure that they are getting plenty of physical activity at home.
I do apologize though. After putting up with so much from having to take the medication route over the years, that is what I did read into your post.
Also when Charles took that picture of those sweet boys and posted it on his blog with that title "Ritalin the sign of the times" my heart ached for those children. It looked like he had labelled them.
If you type in Ritalin on the top left of his search box and scroll down you will find it.
That's why its good that sometimes Charles posts pictures like that, because it does at least get people to discuss the issue where they never did before.
Those are good points about phys ed, because the one thing that I am most sure of, and probably the only thing, is that the method used for one child doesn't necessarily work with the others. That brings up broader issues of the educational system, the only thing I'd mention there is that states like Vermont who are most like New Brunswick with large rural populations went out of their way starting in the nineties to hire more teachers, and brought class sizes down to ten students per teacher.
Back to the study though, this is where we get into problems, because the government has a big part to play-that's who pays doctors and regulates them. I know of many families with children with celiacs, ADHD, behavioural problems and other diseases and disorders, and I know there are some very bad doctors out there. There are also some very good ones.
The cases at issue are not the ones where parents are doing like the above and proactively studying and taking part in the child's healthcare and medication. I won't say that that's 'unusual', but it isn't always the case. Many parents simply don't have the time or money or know how to question health care providers.
For the school system the question is more one of pressure. A teacher or school may simply tell a parent that the child needs to be medicated in order to attend school. There used to be some real horror stories there, but again, we can't comment because we simply don't know. The teachers do play a HUGE part in the issue, I know for a fact that in Ontario teachers have the drugs in their possession and are in charge of medicating the children.
We don't know what the policy is in New Brunswick, hence the need for tests. We do know many things. We know that New Brunswickers pay more out of pocket for drug costs than anywhere else in Canada. We know that medications are increasing. We know that unlike Nova Scotia, New Brunswick leaves most regulatory decisions on drug issues and new drugs to medical boards, not to government overseers.
What we don't know is how many kids are on the drugs, how many have gone through the procedure described by the parent above, what types of effects these drugs have on school, what type of long lasting effects they have, what procedure is made to decrease dosages, etc., etc. Again, thats what a public study would do. It is unfortunate that it would 'spotlight' children taking the drugs, however, these are pretty important questions needing answers.
With all of the research that I have done I had not come across regulations in other Provinces. This is not something that is mentioned in the literature.
I was not aware that a teacher has the right to decide what is right for the children in thier class. Or the fact that they have the right to give medication to them. In my town/schools the office nor the teachers are not even aloud to give out a Tylenol or a pill of any kind.
That is unbelieveable! I would be the first one to complain and protest. No teacher would be administrating medication to my child.
I also agree that hiring more teachers would benefit the school system. At least giving more hours to the Teachers assistants would also help. Some classroom have upwards of 30 students in them.
I just wish that most of the protesting would be pointed directly at the government intended to deal with this. I hate the fact that the children are pulled into it with pictures etc. The truth is the are stereo typed.
The next question should also be "how many children are on anti depressents"? In the courses that I was taught it sates that there are many stages. Starting with ADHD then if left untreated it can grow into Depression. If that goes untreated it can lead to by-polar then to manic depressive etc. I think that you get my drift.
I thought that this is what they were trying to prevent in the long term was for children such as Gregory Despres to grow up and go into to the state of mind that he is in right now.
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