Stimulants for ADD

[Lance]

What are everybody's views on stimulants (such as Ritalin and Adderall, but not limited to) prescribed for AD/HD?

 

I few topics I'm interested in:

 

• Stimulants prescribed for school-age children
  
• Teachers pushing stimulants on students
  
• Stimulants prescribed for adult ADD
  

[Dak]

what? stimulants for ADD? i thought that stimulants caused ADD-like symptoms, as they inhibit your brains ability to filter-out uninportant stimuli, and so make it harder to concentrate on the relavant stimulus?

[Lance]

what? stimulants for ADD? i thought that stimulants caused[/i'] ADD-like symptoms, as they inhibit your brains ability to filter-out uninportant stimuli, and so make it harder to concentrate on the relavant stimulus?

 

They have the opposite effect on people with ADD.

[Molotov]

Adderal, which is various amphetamine salts, is neurotoxic and very addicting. I do not support giving it to kids.

 

If an adult wants to tweak thats fine by me as long as they know what they are getting into.

[husmusen]

1) Ritalin gets traded in school grounds alot.

 

2) We know that long term use of ritalin and other amphetamines in truck drivers(for wakefulness) leads to hardened arteries.

 

3) The widespread long-term use of a drug on children whose mechanism

of action is only guessed at for a problem(behavioiur management)

which has other solutions is IMHO unethical.

 

Oh and this factor

 

Harvard medical school study on Ritalin brain changes

 

This topic can get me fired up a bit so I'll leave it at that.

But the above study is very interesting and worth reading if you're into this

area.

 

Cheers.

[stoneage2005]

give them all the drugs they want. the little bastards don't seem to mind. why bother them about it?

[Psion]

give them all the drugs they want. the little bastards don't seem to mind. why bother them about it?

 

heh. very funny. el oh el.

 

Anyways, as a person who has been on medicine since he was about five-years-old I have many views on prescribed medicine.

 

One of my many views is that while growing up, I feel as though I was a guinea pig for the insurance companies. Also, to tell you the truth, I hate all these others bi**hes who are writing books saying they were on medicine, ooh look at me, buy my book, yada yada.

 

In my view of the world. I was a guinea pig for the medical industry. Sure, I may have a type of AD/HD or ADD i don't remember. However, I did take Ritalin, prozac, most mainstream stuff except paxil.. i think i took aderall once, the past thing i did was straterra which made me sleepy. I stick to welbutron but I up'd my own dosage to 600 mg for a day.

 

It's the welbutron xl which ... has time release I think.

 

My view of all view of all of this is that it's a big scam. What people once labeled hyper was just a behavior disorder where kids weren't disciplined enough and their parents didn't whip their ass. I've met kids who had more problems than me at a young age who were hyper, angry, and many other things. These idiots weren't on medicine. So those kids who are very raughty either need discipline or are hyper.

 

But the thing about hyperness is that you can't pay attention. You may not be angry, you would probably be too distracted by the laws of physics behind those balls that hit each other and swing for weeks on end with enough force.

 

tick tick click clack tick tick click clack *oooh pwetty balls on string*

 

i wonder where I can get one of those. I wonder how those do that anyways. What makes those things do that? *keeps pondering*

 

notice how i went off track a bit there. That's where ritalin comes in. It makes you an efficient zombie. That's why i upped my dosage. I wanted to be a damn zombie.

 

The side effects of being a learning zombie is perhaps low selfesteem and confidence where you want to speak up. Perhaps some type of altistic attribute where things come in but they don't come out.

 

I remember my classmates taking advantage of my state by beating me up most of the time. I hate my past and wish I could kill everyone. That's a different story.

 

On the other side though. I believe it was my doctor who wanted me to try something different. It's because doctors are controlled and funded by insurance companies as some of us know. This is where ethics become torn and piss me off.

 

In my opinion ritalin did me good at the time. I haven't been on it since. I've thought about going back on it because I've never experienced such a zombie state unless i take more than 600 of welbutron.

 

Back to the ethics though.. i didn't take my meds today...

 

doctors will keep prescribing drugs to test out how the patient will be. It's a type of guniea pig system which I find very evil. If what has already been working, already works, let it be. However, doctors don't do that because they are corrupt and want to keep in good terms with the insurance company by using people like guinea pigs and having them come back reporting results.

 

I wanted welbutron when my doctor told me to do straterra. I don't know wtf made her think I wanted that. Stupid *****.

 

So in my view. Perhaps some kids are add. However the ones with behavior problems are most likely kids who are assholes. I had a bad childhood. I didn't act with behavior problems. I only let my rage grow until I was intelligent enough to kill people and be labeled a "kewl".

 

So if at anything. I think most of these kids need to be given a low dosage of antipsychotics if they are jerks. If the kids can't concentrate because of the lack of will for homework it's due to a few things.

 

For instance, i want to do my work right now, which i should be doing, but i'm not doing it. I'm typing away right here. I didn't take my medicine. I blew off most of the day imagining stuff and past events and other random events that could happen in my dillusion state without meds. That's where medicine becomes a necessity.

 

When a kid just plays video games without care for homework without distraction of things, that's a discipline problem.

 

Sadly, most teachers somehow have a bachelor's degree from a college and are idiots because they don't know a thing about medicine. I don't think stupid people should be teaching people of less intelligence. It's just a sad sight. I can look back into my past and notice all of this.

 

I think society is screwed up in whole. Not everyone needs medicine. They just need guidance and discipline.

 

If they have discipline and don't understand, they need guidance.

 

If you don't have discipline, but plenty of guidance with the want to do what is needed but get sidetracked, you need meds.]

 

i could probably rant on and give more info, but eh.

[Lance]

The side effects of being a learning zombie is perhaps low selfesteem and confidence where you want to speak up. Perhaps some type of altistic attribute where things come in but they don't come out.

 

Funny how I have never experienced this nor is it listed on the slip of paper that comes with the perscription.

 

I remember my classmates taking advantage of my state by beating me up most of the time. I hate my past and wish I could kill everyone. That's a different story.

 

To be perfectly honest with you It doesn't sound like people beating you up was caused by a drug.

 

On the other side though. I believe it was my doctor who wanted me to try something different. It's because doctors are controlled and funded by insurance companies as some of us know. This is where ethics become torn and piss me off.

 

doctors will keep prescribing drugs to test out how the patient will be. It's a type of guniea pig system which I find very evil. If what has already been working' date=' already works, let it be. However, doctors don't do that because they are corrupt and want to keep in good terms with the insurance company by using people like guinea pigs and having them come back reporting results.

[/quote']

 

I think you're stereotyping. Most doctors are not like this. You should have changed doctors which means the previous doctor would have lost money and had to change his ways to prevent losing more patients.

 

When a kid just plays video games without care for homework without distraction of things, that's a discipline problem.

 

It's a shame beating doesn't work for these ' discipline' problems.

 

Just out of curiosity, exactly how much ritialin were you taking at the time?

[j_p]

I suspect they are over-prescribed.

 

However, I do know of one pre-adolescent that responded very well to them, and then made the decision to stop using them around the onset of adolescence.

[Psion]

Lance, I'm sure you can do addition.

 

Since the medical had a psychological reaction on me, I couldn't sum up the want to fight back. Thus they took advantage of my state.

 

There are side effects to medicine. Most of them bad.

However, the attention needed to do assignments came from the zombie-like state.

 

Zombie like as in, I need to do a task. I am going to do that task until it is done. Not very much is going inside of my head until the task is done. Perhaps tunnelvision would have been a better term.

 

Change doctors you say? Doesn't work that way too often.

 

Insurance companies don't want to change doctors for me. I don't really have that option. Right now I'm struggling to still get medicine.

 

My parents were stupid about medicine which was why I was switched around so often. Now that I'm older I'm in charge. I choose to be on welbutron. My parents were the type of idiots that thought sugar made children hyper and was bad for kids with add, and all that other nonsense

 

Who said beating was the direct answer? Aggressive children may need a beating or just an antipsychotic if calm parenting doesn't sooth their rage.

 

However psychological problems such as disorderly conduct are based on a nature-nuture perspective which is way too long of a thing to get into.

 

Video game player's don't need a beating if they are just sidetracked.

I thought your view on this was people putting kids on drugs for disorder conduct and attention disorder.

 

If it wasn't an aggressive view then I take it back. I just remember that many people thought add medicine could solve such problems back then.

[Mayflower]

what? stimulants for ADD? i thought that stimulants caused[/i'] ADD-like symptoms, as they inhibit your brains ability to filter-out uninportant stimuli, and so make it harder to concentrate on the relavant stimulus?

 

Who says stimulants inhibit the brain's ability to filter-out unimportant stimuli?

 

Surely it can go both ways. With different drugs, at different doses, in different enviornments, with different people.

 

I was never diagnosed or perscribed, but I used to take an ampthetamine (in the same manner that some ADD diagnosed kids would) when I was a teen, and it was incredible in a way, how I could focus better with things like class.

 

Being hyper and/or out of control isn't the same. I was always a very patient, quiet, well behaved child that got very good grades. I always had the feeling that it was incredibly over-perscribed, and it certainly isn't a class of drugs (are any?) that I would consider safe for children.

[ffsjoe]

If a child isn't behaving properly you don't beat or use any violence on them. If they have a disorder like ADHD you can't just prescribe them drugs and think that it will fix it, it won't. You need to teach the child how to control themselves and to act properly. You can do this with aid of drugs such a ritilin to make it easier on the child. Also a therapist could help the child work through the disorder and there may also be underlying problems that trigger the disorder (ADHD or OCD) and or make it worse.

 

Since the medical had a psychological reaction on me, I couldn't sum up the want to fight back. Thus they took advantage of my state

 

It sounds asthough you were taking way too much if it was putting you in a zombie like state or you had a bad reaction to it. Personally it helped me concentrate on the task but in no way did it limit my thinking to just that. It made it easier and I didn't get sidetracked. The main reason why I have stopped taking it is because I can work efficently without it, and its side affects of loss of appetite but being starving.

 

From reading what you have said it looks as though you are very angry at your parents, your doctor and the "system". As you said you had a hard childhood and have built up anger, just taking drugs isn't going to fix it, the help of a therapist can make your life a whole lot better.

 

Who said beating was the direct answer? Aggressive children may need a beating or just an antipsychotic if calm parenting doesn't sooth their rage.

 

If a child is aggressive beating will not help the problem it will only make it worse and the child will feel a lot of hate towards the person who is beating them and later one day lash out. Or in later life if they have a family see that beating is the way to get their kids to behave and the cycle goes on.

 

Of course years ago in school when they had the cane Im sure it did straigten some kids out and make them behave, but at what cost?

 

give them all the drugs they want. the little bastards don't seem to mind. why bother them about it?

 

That isn't helpful at all and if you were not being serious then you should keep your flippant comments to yourself.