Why another site about ADHD?

Well, here’s my story. Our daughter was diagnosed with “mild” ADHD when she was 5 years old. The diagnosis was based on a very limited assessment–a questionaire my wife and I filled out. No physical exam was done, and no further psychological exams or assessments were recommended or even offered, but suddenly we had a psychologist and pediatrician strongly recommending that we start her on Ritalin. When asked about whether we should first look at any alternative approaches, they both started talking about how there are “snake oil” salesmen out there. Drugs, they said, are the only thing that works. Both repeatedly said that there are NO studies that show or suggest any alternative treatment works.

Are all alternative treatments scams?

We are well aware of the scams and miracle cures, certainly. On the other hand, we really felt rubbed the wrong way by this pressure to immediately start medicating our daughter. After looking at the standard ADHD symptoms, we didn’t think our daughter’s behaviors fit the symptoms very well. And we really wanted o rule out any possible medical problems that she might have, like allergies, that at a minimum might be contributing to her behavioral problems in some way. We are not opposed to drugs, and we know that they have helped many children. But we wanted to be sure before we started using any of them. We wanted to be informed. So, I started doing my own research, as many of you probably have done.

What we found out

I found out was that Ritalin is not supposed to be used for children under the age of 6, according to the drug insert sheet. Our daughter was 5. Why was our pediatrician pushing us to use a mind-altering drug for our child, when it was not supposed to be use for a child that young?

I found that a number of the ADHD web sites are either owned by the drug companies, or are run by organizations that receive funding from the drug companies. This makes everything they say somewhat suspect. Many others want to sell you their alternative treatments. Only a few seem to be relatively independent of financial bias.

I found some research studies that show that certain alternative treatments might be effective. Of course the majority of the research has studied the drugs–that’s where the money is. But as I mentioned earlier, our health care professionals stated that these studies of alternative treatments simply do not exist. I actually ended up printing out a copy of these and taking them to our pediatrician. I doubt it had any influence–after all, why should a highly trained professional listen to the “ignorant”, “misguided” parents of her patients?

I learned that an MRI is the only scientific and sure way to diagnose ADHD. But doctors and psychologists continue to use the highly subjective and error-prone observational technique.

I learned that even when using the observational technique (which involves surveying parents and teachers), the child must be a year or two older than our daughter was at the time.

I learned that a large number of children are misdiagnosed with ADHD.

Our pediatrician was insistent that she could only accept scientific approaches to the problem. Yet the bottom line was that she was using these approaches on a patient that was too young for the technique used for the diagnosis, and was too young for the prescribed medication. The diagnosis was hardly scientific, but was instead highly subjective. The lesson to be learned: don’t automatically accept whatever your pediatrician tells you about ADHD. This is your child, who is ultimately your responsibility. Get a second opinion, do research, demand that they spend more than the 5 minutes they’ve alloted to you in their busy day–do what it takes to make sure that they’ve got it right.

So what happened?

Our doctor told us not to waste our money, but we ignored this well-intended advice, and took our daughter to see an allergist. We found that she does not have allergies, but does have a number of food sensitivities that were causing her behavior problems. With a change in diet and careful monitoring (via regular lab tests), she does extremely well. Instead of treating the symptoms by drugging her, we’re treating the causes.

I think that busy pediatricians with hundreds of patients have very little time to think about what is really going on with individual patients. It’s easier, faster, and probably more profitable to prescribe a pill and move on to the next patient. This works very well for physical problems–broken bones, colds, flus, and so on. But when it comes to the way a child behaves, the cookie-cutter approach probably doesn’t work very well. Science is just at the earliest stages of understanding how the mind works. We don’t really understand very well how the drug-based treatments actually work, and we don’t have a very good idea of their long-term effects. Yet doctors continue to prescribe them to more, younger patients, even exceeding the ages recommended by the drug companies. It’s all a bit scary.

Why a new site?

What I never could find is a web site that is 1) independent and unbiased and 2) has regular news updates. That’s the kind of place I wanted to go to find current news about ADHD, and to look for objective information to validate someone’s statements or claims, whether it’s coming from my doctor or someone else. And so that is the motivation behind ADHDWeb.