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OT: A.D.D.
Ok, so I was watching the news yesterday (flipping through CNN, MSNBC, and Fox), and I see this advertisement. "Adult ADD and ADHD". "You may have it, ask your doctor to give you drugs".
So, I spent the next five minutes laughing... I have nothing but contempt for the pill-popping culture, using drugs as a quick fix for all their problems (and their childrens'!), real or imagined. I'm very skeptical of the entire idea of ADD/ADHD in children -- I mean, kids are supposed to be full of energy, running around, figuring out the world, etc. -- but the idea of this in adults literally sent me to the floor laughing. If the claims made by the ad are true, then something like ten percent of the adult population "suffers" from this "condition". If the amount is that much of the population, who is to say that whatever "symptoms" of this are completely natural, or symptoms of something else? Ok, a short rant, but I felt like posting something. Any comments on this? (post_count++) |
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well okay, correct me if im wrong but ADD is basicly hyper-activeness right?
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The way I'm understanding the current definition of it, someone who has ADD will be focused/energetic in some situations, and distracted/tired in others. To me, it seems it could be better explained by: mood swings, personal interest or disinterest in a subject, different sleeping habits (think of a programmer), or any of many other explanations. Differences in interests and aptitudes are not a mental abnormality, and cannot (should not!)be "fixed" by popping some pills.
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Re: OT: A.D.D.
yeah.
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in my school they said its something because of a chemical disbalance in body - though i cannot remember which disbalance. What the pills do is they insert some other chemical - what it does is reverses the situation. Meaning that you would likely go very hyper after taking these pills.
As for how it can be developed in adulthood, actually it can be - with aging and normal mutation this sometimes happens. Very rarely though. For all i know, taking pills all your life is the only modern way of dealing with ADD. |
Re: OT: A.D.D.
In this day and age, where people are so busy they tend to get easily distracted and be off-focused, the medical term Attention defecit disorder should have never been coined.
The same goes with Munchaousen's (sp?) Syndrome. Edit: Link to the medicine that Will is talking about. strattera [ July 20, 2003, 05:15: Message edited by: TerranC ] |
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Unplug the television, move it out of the house. Don't carry a cell phone everywhere. Take some time to read a book. Go for a walk. Try to actually taste your meals instead of inhaling them. Don't look at a computer for (insert non-insignificant time period here). Exercise. You would be suprised how many people do none of the above. --edit: TC, thanks for the link [ July 20, 2003, 05:37: Message edited by: Will ] |
Re: OT: A.D.D.
it depends. i still think there is at least some biological cause there - at least in some percent of the causes. but mostly i think your right, will.
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Re: OT: A.D.D.
Well, ADD or ADHD (or pick your term) is a mystery to me. I can't understand it. But, I can tell you pills ARE a solution.
Our daughter has it. Yes, it seemed she was full of energy. And it seemed she suffered from what a lot of children suffer from, disinterest in doing things they don't want to do (and therefore do not hear it) and too much interest in doing what they want to do. Sugar, we thought, was the problem. Not. Certainly, there is something wrong with a girl in the first grade who continually, during class, gets up and walks over to a window and looks out. Or gets up and walks over to another child and begins talking. Repeatedly throughout the day. Who brought home red and yellow lights (a conduct code rating for behavior) every day. We started punishing her for her behavior marks. Loss of TV. Restriction. You name it. For a while, she had no TV privilages for 3 or 4 months. We were at our wits end. Her grades ranged from C to D. So, we decided to talk to a doctor. Tested her. Filled out a huge questionaire. Now, she takes a pill every day. Adderall. Her behavior "lights" changed immediately. Her grades improved very noticeably. In the 2nd grade, she almost made the A honor role for the year (only making a few B's). Sometimes, we forget her pill. And the teacher knows within the first hour of class. Does the pill turn her into a zombie? No. She is still energetic. Full of life and still can't sit still while we play Uno. But, she is learning what she needs to be learning, staying out of trouble, and is NOT being punished for something she cannot help any longer. I hope she grows out of it. I don't like pills either. But, I don't see how she could be learning what she needs to in school without it. So, I have to disagree with some of the remarks in here about popping pills at the drop of a hat. |
Re: OT: A.D.D.
I'm not saying that there aren't some situations where medication is not needed (father is on medication for diabetes + insulin; mother has to take imuno-suppresants, steroids, and a few other things, just to function; sister on albuterol; I have no idea what my grandparents are on; I am pretty much the only one in the family not dependant on medication at all). However, it goes too far. The ad I saw claimed that twenty million people in the US have "adult ADD". I would say that maybe twenty thousand adults have symptoms of it that truly require medication, and that's a high estimate. The rest would usually be due to another mental condition, unhealthy lifestyle (ranging from always running around and overloading of tasks to drug abuse), or plain old hypochondria. This is for the adults, mind you...
Now, for children... a case like your daughter's looks like one where drugs help. That is not the normal situation. There are schools in this country that will recommend a psychologist for the parents of children who "misbehave" only a few times, and it is not uncommon to walk into classrooms with a large fraction the students on Ritalin (or some other "behaviour modification" drug). It's very much a "let's let the drugs deal with them, so we don't have to" situation. And to make things worse, doctors don't even know HOW these drugs work, just that they seem to work. It seems a bit unwise to be tinkering with the brain chemistries of millions of kids who really could do just fine without a pill. |
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I "hear" ya, Will. And I think I understand. Beleive me, I hope our daughter can "grow out of her hyperactivity" somehow. We are not a family that believes a pill is the answer to everything. Even now, when she stubs (stumps?) her toe, she wants a "pain" pill. And we explain to her she doesn't need one. She still thinks bandaids stop pain (even though we tell her bandaids are for protecting a cut).
But, as you said, and I think I agree if I understand you correctly, the US has become, to some degree, a nation that thinks the answer to any problem is a pill. Part of that is marketing efforts by the people who stand to make a profit from selling them. The other part, perhaps, is the average US citizen's response to a problem by denying any of it is their own fault and that they can fix it themselves...i.e., whatever bad happens to someone is not THEIR fault, but something else...either a medical excuse or something that someone else is to be blamed for. [edit] As a side note, I researched Adderall as best I could on the I'Net. Weirdly enough, one of the main ingredients is basically an "upper". Go figure! An "upper" to cure hyperactivity? Strange! [ July 20, 2003, 14:10: Message edited by: Slynky ] |
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I don't know much about ADD and such, but it seems like this condition was more or less unheard of before the widespread use of computers, TV, cell phones, and other hi tech distractions. I could be wrong, but maybe ADD has more to do with being exposed to attention-grabbing TV ads, thru computers, etc from a young age. Of course schoolwork would seem boring in comparison to these colorful and noisy toys. Not to say that there aren't any legit cases though, just that most of it is probably enviromental in its ultimate cause.
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Re: OT: A.D.D.
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All I know is that she is still energetic (not a "zombie"), eats VERY well, and makes good grades. She reads well (above average) and people remark on her vocabulary and speech all the time...which isn't bad considering she's growing up in the south (ugh!). Before the "pill", she lagged in all those areas. So, with a bit of tear in my eye, I'm glad she has that pill so that she can be all that she and we want her to be. OK...I'm done. (sorry) |
Re: OT: A.D.D.
It is good to hear that these meds to good in some situations. I have a rather cynical view of the whole medical "industry" in general, including pharmecutical (sp?) and insurance companies, but if it works for even a small number of people, then overall it is a better thing to have than not.
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Re: OT: A.D.D.
ADD is quite common but often not diagnosed. I have a family member that surely had an ADD syndrome if you read his school grades (from the 1950s).
People with ADD cannot focus themselves to a thing for more then a short amount of time. Every little distortion will break their concentration. A "normal" person can ignore a mutter in a bar when he is talking to another person and won't notice it any longer. Not so an ADD person. It hears all the mutters and the person he is talking to the same (and loud!) and cannot concentrate for long. |
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The 'problem' with the vast majority of kids OR adults diagnosed with 'ADD' is that they don't deal well with the regimentation of modern industrial slave society. Year after year the 'employers' have obsessively struggled to squeeze more and more performance out of the proles so they can rack up more 'points' in the bank/stock market and claim to be 'better businessmen' than their rival 'employers'. In Ye Olde Dayes you just had to go plant the stuff you were told to plant in Spring and bring in the hay/wheat/turnips or whatever when it was ready. Not very intensely demanding of 'attention' since you had to go marching out into the fields and do it manually. When the weather or other conditions interfered you didn't do anything at all that day, so there was plenty of 'lag time' to chat and otherwise have a LIFE outside of your work even if life in general was quite a bit more difficult due to low availability of food and other goods. The percentage of the population doing anything other than basic agriculture was pretty low, but even those who were manufacturing tools (blacksmiths) or doing what little 'information work' was available (scribes and then printers) didn't have to work anything like the hours that a typical factory or office worker does today. Since the so-called 'Industrial Revolution' though, more has changed than just the availability of food and those other 'goods'. Yes, some things have gotten better, and new things that didn't exist at all in the past are now available. But other things have gotten drastically worse, and the one thing that has gotten completely intolerable is control of your own TIME. The so-called 'free market' has been fine-tuned to require everyone to work 60+ hours a week to maintain their automobiles (required for their job) along with whatever tiny patch of private space they are allowed to rent (have you seen any recent 'deeds' for property? You don't OWN property anymore. Only the Government does, and allows you to pretend to own it for a while...), and the 'employers' have now honed 'personnel management' techniques to the point where they can order people shuffled around as easily as the machines they work for. You dare not look up from your desk/terminal/assembly station for an instant for fear some scanning supervisor might write you up. Unfortunately for a certain portion of the population, they don't concentrate on one thing very well for hours at a time. They have this terrible habit of spontanaeity. Horrors! Think of how much lost work those spare seconds of looking around or cracking a joke are costing! So the 'employers' have figured out how to bLast them with drugs to make them 'concentrate' better and produce like everyone else. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif That's what gets you the ADD diagnosis, low productivity. You can be as hyper as you want as long as the 'work' flows fast enough. Only a fraction of the so-called 'sufferers' of ADD would really have any problems functioning if we weren't a culture obsessed with regimented performance. [ July 20, 2003, 23:51: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ] |
Re: OT: A.D.D.
Guys, I'll post more tomorrow. If it was not for the meds I take to counter ADD I would not have been able to read through the entire thread to this point.
It is not a lack of effort, It is not a lack of desire. Is not due to training by parents or anyone else. Up threw 8th grade I never got better than a C in school. In high school I flunked most science and math classes. I passed most classes which were interactive, (Spanish, sign, history, English, etc...). All report cards said, "Gryphin shows such potential but is not working up to capacity" It was not a lack of effort. Still many of you have seen I don't stick with long term projects very well. It is why I don't do PBW. I can't stay with something that long. I am now takin Welbutrin. It has given me a huge amount of control over my life. I still can't do PBW type things but...More Latter I would suggest anyone truly interested to look up a book: You Mean I'm not Lazy, Stupid, or Crazy? That said, I do agree it is likely it is often misdiagnosed and mis treated. I am sure that some parrents use it for an excuse. More later. Another symptom: Impulsiveness. [ July 21, 2003, 02:21: Message edited by: Gryphin ] |
Re: OT: A.D.D.
Wow, i read all the stuff, especialy about the changing sleeping habits, being focused on one thing and not on the other and so on, these are all things i suffer from.
As for the comment, "minipol shows such potential but is not working up to capacity", this sounds very familiar. I'm a nervous type as well so this makes one wonder. I've seen once in a documentary that there are a lot of adult people who don't even know they suffer from ADD in one form or another. How is ADD diagnosed? I've got a little boy (7 months) and he's behaving just like me when i was his age according to my mum. At some point, she didn't know what to do with me because i was so energetic. Seems my little boy is heading there also. Makes one wonder if there could be ADD involved? Anyway to early to tell i guess. |
Re: OT: A.D.D.
Ever see the South Park episode about Ritalin?
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Re: OT: A.D.D.
South Park, one of the best "cartoon" series. As was "Ren and Stimpy" and "Pinky and the brain". http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif
What happened in that episode? |
Re: OT: A.D.D.
Background:
I am 49, was diagnosed 4.5 years ago. I graduated 1973 I was not dianosed untill the end of my second marriage, (when I ended up in therapy) They put me on 60mg of Ritalin, (an upper) and 3mg of Klonopin, (a downer and a narcotic). every day. I lost 40 lbs in 3 weeks because I stopped eating. Ritalin kills your appitite. The Klonopin "takes the edge off". During the next year and a half I was nearly fired 3 times for behavior issues. Go figure. Statistic (that I can't back up at the moment so it constitutes hear say) ADD is responsible for or present in 50 percent of divorces. |
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And diagnosed at the age of 44.5? Makes you wonder how many doctors know about ADD and what to look for in people http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif |
Re: OT: A.D.D.
ADD, (note I don't include the "H" because I am not Hyper Active)
There are about 10 symptoms that are common to people with ADD. Most people who are diagnosed with this have 6 or more. It was not diagnosed in me because it had not been identifyed when I was in school. The teachers all thought I was lazy. What they could not figure out was how did I excel in some classes and fail others. I have not been in a shrinks chair till the start of the divorce. |
Re: OT: A.D.D.
I was diagnosed with ADD about 6 years ago (doc said I had the highest score on some standard ADD test he's seen), and take 100mg of Adderal, and 80mg of Wellbutrin a day for it. I have almost every symptom common with ADD, but wasn't diagnosed until an adult because acording to my doc I was good enough in school that ADD let me pick up what was being taught exceptionally fast; making the teachers look good.
Like Gryphon pointed out, reading through the Posts can often be trying; to the extent that while using a 56k modem I can't take going through the post more than about once a week recently. Of all the symptoms, the worst for me are the interuptions though. From trying to explain what ADD is like to others, I thing the easiest, and best way to explain it I have found is to compare it to a slipping clutch in a car. Consider that your brain is like the engine of a car; in a person without ADD, everything is normal, when the brain is is gear the wheels turn. But with ADD, the clutch slips; the faster their brain goes, the more the clutch slips; the drugs help make the slipping less (but they don't stop it completely). Well, that didn't come out exactly how I wanted, I got interrupted halfway through, and lost my train of thought. |
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