ADHD/LD and Ritalin

I am a 42 year old male who was diagnosed with "ADHD" or the equivilent back in the early sixties. I feel for the young people today who have a problem in school fitting in. I am very much against the perscribing of Ritalin for this problem. To make a long story short, I feel many things could have been done different in my case and would hate to see another person go through what I have.I am now happily married and have been drug and alcohol free for over 12 years and am currently attending college and doing well.I know how it is to fell and be called "stupid." I encourage parents to look deep inside and consider all aspects of your home life before you allow your child to be fed Ritalin.Thank You.

: Learning disabilities are NOT synonymous with ADHD. Many folks with LDs do NOT have ADHD (most of my resource room caseload). Some people with ADHD do not have learning disabilities, aside from their own inattentiveness.It is lovely for you folks to chastise the prescribing of medications for ADHD. As an adult with very likely above average intelligence and maturity, you understand your issues and can actively act to counteract them. As an adult who is motivated to hold a job, perhaps to support a family, you have the wherewithall to go the extra mile to monitor your own behavior. Many intelligent ADHD adults can and do manage their lives w/o medication.Consider the youngster who has ADHD that is so severe he/she cannot learn, cannot suppress impulses....... Frequently these youngsters have no friends and they live with daily correction. They learn very early that they cannot and do not. They learn that they are socially unacceptable. When thus afflicted, they do not succeed in academics because they cannot focus long enough.These severe cases of ADHD often get a real chance with ritalin. I have seen and worked with children who had no friends succeed in their peer group and at academics because they were medicated. The medication helped them to suppress destructive impulses and enabled them to pay attention long enough to learn something. It can turn their lives around and give them the tools to benefit from learning.......about themselves, their needs and the ability to learn strategies to manage themselves and their lives as adults.Severe ADHD children often have very unhappy lives at school and home. They are at higher risk for drug and alcohol abuse because of their unhappiness and their inherent need to self-medicate. Our prisons are full of (not necessarily LD people) ADHD individuals who never developed the self-monitoring skills to stop and consider options and possible outcomes before acting on impulses. The medication can give these children a life that is more rewarding and create the internal climate where the child can possibly learn some self-monitoring strategies and techniques.I am very sorry you feel the way you do. I do wish you could come to visit my school to see the effects of unmedicated SEVERE ADHD on the life of a child. I can think of three little fellows who have no friends, no life, poor prospects because their parents will not consider meds.Finally, I have had many borderline ADHD students over the years who are not medicated and who manifest some of these issues in lesser degrees. I do not push meds. for them if they are learning (with some resource help) and have a modicum of a social life (usually they are not particularly well liked by peers, though).

: Lee, you are so right, I incorrectly posted under your post. I intended the message for Tom, as you yourself did. I was moving fast, short on time, and got it under the wrong name w/o realizing. Did not mean to offend. I agree with your comments.

Hi,

I realize this is an old thread. However, I still feel my response will add to the discussion.

First, a bit about me. I am an adult with LD/ADHD who is very slowly tapering off of a psych coctail, which included Adderall.

When I last posted on these boards, I was very pro meds and anybody who wrote a post like the one I am about to write would get an argument from me. Quite an irony, eh?

Before I get started, as an FYI, I am not and I repeated, I am not a scientologist. They get associated with every anti meds post and I wanted to be clear that I am not one of them.

How did I get from being pro meds to anti meds? Well, the side effects that I experienced were becoming intolerable including tinnitus and a hearing loss. LD symptoms also worsened considerably.

My visual memory, which was never that great prior to being medicated started getting worse. For example, if I went to visit somebody who lived in an apartment complex that I had been to many times, unless I parked right in front of their apartment, I would forget where I had parked the car.

Wordfinding problems worsened considerably. I would not be able to think of words that I definitely had no problems coming up with prior to the side effects getting worse.

The worst symptom was overall memory. I would lose items that I had no memory of losing. It was like I never owned the items to begin with.

To the poster who talked about the kids who don't do well until they are medicated, even though your post is dated 2001, I will go ahead and address this issue as I am sure you aren't alone with those views.

I do understand the desperation of wanting to do something quickly when you see someone not coping in life or you aren't coping in life.
That is how I got on what I call the psychiatric treadmill. When I was given a test dose of ritalin for an ADHD test, I got things done I hadn't gotten done in years. So of course, I thought medication was the solution and when a psychiatrist also told me that an antidepressant would be good, of course, I accepted what he said.

But I had know then what awaited me as far as side effects, I would have rejected all meds and worked like heck to find non med related solutions. The short term gains were definitely not the long term pains I have encountered as the result of being on these meds. By the way, I haven't even told the whole story as this post would be way too long.

I am very concerned about how these meds are affecting kids with LD/ADHD. A friend of mine told a surgeon friend of hers about what happened to me and she wasn't surprised at all as she said these types of effects are very common with people with LD.

If meds can't be avoided, then what needs to happen is this. A plan should be written that will outline how often an assessment will take place as to whether a person still needs to be on meds or not. That is not done in most cases as psychiatrists are erroneously deciding that people need to be on meds for life. It wasn't done in my case.

By the way, I accept my share of responsibility for not asking about getting off these meds. But at the same time, my doctor also deserves his share of blame for not doing tha assessment.

Also, there needs to be an IEP type plan as to the non med alternatives that someone will take that will eventually enable to the person to transition off the meds. Again, that was not done in my case although again, I take responsibility for my share of the failings.

These meds needs to stop being treated like candy. I used to think that stimulants had a pretty benign side effect profile. But I recently found out that if you are on them for awhile, that is not the case.

Those of you who think my experience is simply out of the ordinary, think again. Med side effects that are supposedly rare are alot more common that what is reported.

Since I have been tapering off of psych meds, I am finding out that my coping abilities are alot better than I thought. I have been through crises like losing a job and dealing with a family member being in ICU. I have held up very well and have continued my tapering.

By the way, if you do decide to taper off of meds or have your kid do it, it needs to be done very slowly. The rates that doctors have you taper at are way too fast.

Well, if you have read this far, I thank you for staying with me. My intent is not to turn this thread into an anti-meds rant.

But because meds have worsened my LD symptoms, I don't want to see anyone else suffer like this

PT