The Glade 4.0

How do you know what experience or research Lenas has with the subject?

To be fair to you, you probably do have a very good knowledge of the subject, and some people have no business having opinions on certain subjects. That said, you'd better be prepared to demonstrate why, and that doesn't mean "because I know more than you" that means "this is why your opinion is ill-informed and ridiculous".

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

To say that I've wondered if I have some level of ADD and have done extensive reading on it over the years would probably be an understatement. I'll apologize for calling Riov a bad parent, but I maintain the rest of my original statement: putting a kid on methamphetamines doesn't seem like the right answer, and the fact that they're FDA-regulated doesn't make them any safer than the majority of "street" drugs.

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Holy shitsnacks!

So an unregulated, unknown dosage of an unknown substance, with an unknown set of impurities sold by an individual with an unknown background and agenda is somehow better, than a rigidly defined, tested, and specifically designed drug with an exact dosage designed to minimize a) the risk of overdose b) the risk of addiction, c) the chance of misuse and administered by the individual who loves their child most in the world is somehow .. just as safe?

That's a false equivalence, no one is going to self-medicate ADHD with meth from a dealer. I was only pointing out that just because something is FDA-regulated doesn't make it safe. 60% of overdose deaths in 2010 were from pharmaceuticals.

If it's a false equivalence, why did you make the reference to street drugs in the first place? TR isnt saying that people would self medicate ADHD with street drugs, he's pointing out that taking drugs that are perscribed by a doctor for a condition and come from a tested and accountable sourc are safer than street drugs with unknown quality control, if any and no dosage control, and he's doing it in response to the equivalency you, not he, drew in the first place.

As for something being regulated not making it safe... obviously. If it were safe it wouldnt need to be regulated as a perscription drug. If people dont follow instructions, the chance of an OD is much higher. Thats not a problem with the process of testing or perscribing drugs, its a problem with people either playing doctor on themselves or just not paying attention to instructions.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Actually, in a way, they DO self-medicate with street drugs.

Nearly all recreational drugs, with the exception of alcohol, raise dopamine levels in the brain. Children with untreated ADHD have a much higher incidence of recreational drug dependency, and while the ADHD sufferer's poor impulse control & decision making may account for some of that, the first-time use rates between ADHD positive & negative children is similar. it may be that their reaction to those recreational drugs leads them to remain using them. (ie. their brains seek out the substances that allow them some amount of normal function)


Now, to be fair to Amanar, there is research that has been published in the last 6 months that indicate that depressed dopamine levels are not causative. (The one study he cited is from late last year, and only included 12 ADULT ADHD sufferers)

Furthermore, increased dopamine in the brain has been linked to increased performance in non-ADHD sufferers. (ie, the ADHD drugs improve focus in everyone, not just ADHD) I don't buy the conclusion that that indicates that decreased dopamine efficacy in the brain is not linked to ADHD, seems more likely to me that within limits, more is better for everyone. (of course too much has all sorts of nasty side effects too)

Did I miss something? Who is putting their kids on meth? The fact that you keep bringing up methamphetamines as if it's commonly prescribed to children makes it hard to take your argument seriously (even though I agree with your conclusion for the most part).

Anyway, this issue is obviously a very personal one for many in this thread... but that doesn't mean we should make it personal. I don't think anyone here deserves to be called a bad person when we hardly know each other.

Many of the drugs used in ADHD treatment are amphetamines. The one my daughter takes is a dextroamphetamine but Ritalin is a type of amphetamine as well.

Lenas seems to be using the term Meth short for methamphentamine a pejorative way of referencing the drugs. But lets be clear, lots of drugs have therapeutic uses as well as recreational uses. Oxycotin is perfectly legitimate as a narcotic painkiller, but also is heavily abused as a recreational drug.

I'm sure this occurs, but I doubt very much of it is really "self-medicating" in the sense we're discussing of intentionally saying "OK, let me go get some meth to treat myself for ADHD." It's more a matter of them being easily addictable to those drugs because they happen to address ADHD symptoms.



There's an extremely dangerous line of thinking there, if we're using drugs to augment performance and not just to treat deficiencies and medical problems.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

That ship sailed years ago.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

I would argue that its still a form of self-medicating, but you're right, I didn't mean to imply that they were making a conscious choice of I-take-this-to-correct-ADHD but rather I-take-this-because-it-feels-right/better.



I'm certainly not advocating for this, just reporting results of the studies.

So do steroids. But I think we'd all be quite a bit alarmed if medical conditions requiring steroid treatment were being diagnosed in our kids left and right so they could be better at sports.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

This board needs more ADHD. Threads like these would die faster.

It seems to me that most people with mental disorders are duped by others into taking meds. Or people running away from bad feelings. Just because you don't feel good doesn't mean you need medication.

This is a common (mis)perception among people with severe mental disorders and often leads them to "go off their meds" resulting in very self-destructive behavior. And then there are the millions of people who either can't afford medication and treatment or are too far gone to seek it. See, e.g., most long-term homeless people in this country. Overall, I think we have much, much bigger problem with people who need medication not getting/taking it than we do with people overmedicating for mental disorders they don't really have.

ETA: Not intending to imply that Lex is someone "with severe mental disorders"; just that people who have such disorders often mistakenly believe they'd be better off without their meds.

The problem is, there are huge drug companies with nearly unlimited budgets advocating to the medical industry and its consumers on behalf of their products and the 'benefits'.

The flip side of that coin is that there are really very few people or organizations (and nearly zero money) advocating against those philosophies (except apparently the author in the OP).

As a child I suffered from many of the 'anomalies' that would today be diagnosed as various things (ADHD, Depression, maybe even Autism....), but I managed to turn into a fairly successful adult human being without the use of any medications.

Did I struggle? yes... Did my parents struggle? yes... Did we all fare well in the end? I suppose...

Even today, when I talk to my doctor, if I even so much as mention anything related to my mood, or energy levels, or focus and concetration, his immediate response is to get is prescription tablet out.

It seems to me that 'there is a pill for that' is the default answer to everything any more, and almost no one seems interested in learning to manage their problems in other ways.

I'm not taking sides in this discussion. I have no idea what is going on in your lives, and I'm not inclined to tell anyone how to raise their child.

My own personal observations lead me to the conclusion that in general, there is too much medicating going on in the world today, and not enough teaching of life skills.

As someone who has been off their meds for two years against everyone else's advice, I definitely feel it was for the better. I agree some people should take them, but in many other cases it is just unnecessary. I think a lot of mental problems can be solved by better understanding yourself and the world around you, forming realistic expectations about life, acceptance, and stuff like that. Basically, maturity.

Every case is different, Lex. Some people can use the meds for a period and then get off of them. Some have to take meds forever. Depending on the illness or condition, and the person. I knew a doctor/surgeon who had to take lithium, and if he went off of it, he was ready for the rubber room. When he was on his meds, he was still a turd but could perform.

Likewise, my nephew had to have his meds when he was a kid. There was no understanding, food changes, etc that would have solved his problems. The meds were the only thing that kept him sane and controllable.

I think the important thing for people with a history of mental issues, is that they continue to follow up with a doctor regularly. At least once a year, even if they feel they are doing well.

I'm not interested in quibbling over what is and isn't self-medicting so much as pointing out that it's not self-medicating as it was being used in this context. "Self-medicating" can mean a number of different behaviors.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Presently, I don't see drug companies being nearly as responsible for ADHD overdiagnosis as schools anxious to turn childhood energy into easily-managed orderliness, and especially to make little boys adhere to the educational environment that has been tailored to little girls.

Also, I think that the "You can manage it yourself" crowd can be just as bad as the "there's a pill for that" crowd. We have examples like the sort of people that are anti-vaccination (not a pill, but still..) but I'll give a more personal example. I started getting heavy compared to my peers around 6th grade. I stayed heavy and got relatively heavier, even in periods of highly intense physical activity on a daily basis, and despite not eating significantly more or a particularly unhealthy diet - or rather, in periods where I ate less healthy as a general rule, I gained weight just as steadily as in periods where I was hitting the salad bar.

By highly intense physical activity, I mean high school (playing street hockey or pickup football almost every single day after school, plus hockey practice twice or more a week and at least 2 games a week for all but the first and last month of the school year), during college, despite daily PT for ROTC, plus extra PT for Corps of Cadets activities several times a week, plus ROTC events that weren't PT but were physically demanding PLUS Ranger Challenge the first 2 months of the year which was... well, **** insane. You don't even want to know what life was like in September and October those years.

The same applied on active duty; PT every day and being on your feet all the time, not to mention field exercises and the orange eggs.. well, never mind that. Despite this I just got fatter and fatter, barring two weeks where I literally couldn't eat anything but small amounts of cottage cheese due to having my uvula removed (for no good reason as it turned out)

The attitude of the Army, and most people I knew wasn't "there's a pill for that" it was "get serious about losing weight" - to a degree, understandable because for a lot of people they really are fat just because they don't give a ****.

It wasn't till I was off active duty for 2 years and happened to change doctors that I learned that not only was there a pill for that, it was one that replaced a hormone my body was supposed to be making but didn't, and left alone long enough not only would it make me even fatter, but it would lead to a host of other problems.

That said, it's also not a miracle pill. If I don't exercise and just eat whatever, I'll still get fat, but now exercise and diet actually do help me lose weight.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

There's a fundamental difference between medication to treat a hormonal imbalance and psychotropic medications used to treat mood disorders. In one case, doctors measure a deficit in a certain hormone (or something like insulin in diabetes) and then prescribe a medication designed to correct that imbalance.

In ADHD, there is no identifiable imbalance in the body. There's no physical test for it. An ADHD brain cannot be distinguished from a normal one, from a diagnostic perspective anyway. And the stimulants used to treat it create an abnormally functioning brain, with increased dopamine levels and decreased sensitivity in dopamine receptors. They create a chemical imbalance in an otherwise healthy looking brain.

Now, there's nothing inherently wrong with this. If they are effective in treating the symptoms of ADHD and providing a better quality of life, then that's great. But the problem is the research does not show this. There's plenty of evidence to show that they are effective in the short term. After 1 year on stimulants, kids are doing great. After 2 years even, they still show many benefits compared to non-medicated kids. But after 3+ years, this benefit has disappeared. Kids being treated with stimulants do not perform any better academically or socially. There is no measurable benefit to children after 3+ years on stimulants. There are also many harmful effects, like a reduction in growth.

An even clearer example can be seen with benzodiazepines, which are commonly used to treat anxiety. Researchers have consistently found that after as little as a month on benzos, they show no benefit in reducing anxiety. Treatment guidelines for anxiety all recommend against long term use of benzos, suggesting treatment be limited to a few weeks maximum or for situational things like panic attacks.

Yet there are still millions of Americans being prescribed benzodiazepines for long term treatment of anxiety. They are extremely addicting and have many detrimental effects on their health. If they try to go off their medication, their anxiety worsens (in addition a bunch of terrible withdrawal symptoms). This leads to the perception that the medication is helping their anxiety, but on an objective scale, it's just the withdrawal that makes their anxiety worse than it ever was before.

I think it's only a matter of time before the same thing is proven and accepted with the use of stimulants to treat ADHD. Over several years, you adjust to the medication and find yourself back at baseline. Trying to stop treatment will exacerbate your symptoms in the short term, but that's not a sign the medication is working. In my personal experience, most ADHD sufferers will eventually come to this conclusion on there own.

All that research you're referring to, Amanar has only come down in the last 6 months, has not been corroborated in any other study, that I have seen. There are already some criticisms that the study only looked at a tiny sample. I agree it deserves additional research, but its far from conclusive at this point.

I suggest a psilocybin regimen.

Worked for me. I used to have huge issues with focus and attention, but now I have no...god, these purple marshmallow clouds smell awesome...problem staying on...whoa! did you guys see the size of that chicken?!...task.