Tag Archives: ADHD medications

Christmas Shopping with the ADHD Child

December 03, 2012   admin

Christmas Shopping with the ADHD Child
This article could also be titled “How to avoid the stress of Christmas shopping with a child with ADHD and behavior problems.”
I bet you have a horror story about shopping with a son or daughter who made your trip to the mall so bad that you swore you’d never take them back again. If that’s the case, then you’ll be able to empathize with this mom.
Christopher had been successfully treated for ADHD for two years.… Read the rest
You could hear him screaming from halfway across the store. The louder he got, the louder his mom got in a shouting match that was stopping passersby’s and had to be terribly embarrassing for the mom.
“I want this airplane now. I don’t want to wait for Christmas. I ‘m not going to wait for Santa to bring it. I want it now!” He was throwing items out of her shopping cart as he screamed and threatened; “And if you don’t buy it….I’ll….I’ll”
She responded loudly; “If you don’t shut-up and behave yourself, you won’t get anything for Christmas….much less this airplane. Now, put it back on the shelf.”
I was shopping for Christmas presents at

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Cure ADHD Behavior without using Drugs

May 23, 2012   admin

Cure ADHD Behavior without using Drugs
ADHD behavior can be cured or treated without using drugs or medications for ADHD or behavioral problems.
Avoiding medications for treating ADHD… Read the rest and other behavior disorders now seems to be a hot topic on both parent’s and other healthcare professional’s minds.
Why you ask? I believe it’s because so much research is now available showing ADHD behavior can actually be caused by so many things that clearly are not ADHD. In addition, most of us have now heard the recent news of statistics that show as many as 1 in 5 US children will be diagnosed as ADHD by the end of this year.
If one in five children in the US is diagnosed as ADHD, nearly 14 million kids will be treated with either ADHD drugs or behavioral therapy by the end of this year. Of those, we expect between 5 and 7 million will have been misdiagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
That’s scary and in fact is scaring so many parents of children treated with medications for ADHD that they are now asking questions – questions they never asked before. Yes, with more and better information available, parents like yourself; are

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Using ADHD medications to improve self-esteem in ADHD children and teens

April 10, 2012   admin

How to Build Self Esteem in ADHD Kids Five
Using ADHD medications to improve self-esteem in ADHD children and teens
It’s a simple fact: ADHD children and teens with ADHD cannot build self-esteem if they can’t concentrate on or pay attention to the visual, auditory and non-verbal cues that they must absorb in order to learn social skills and advance in academics. (Long sentence…but necessary to get it all out!)
Everyone is quick to describe the child with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder as impulsive, poorly focused, having poor social skills and possibly hyperactive-driven to distraction. But they often forget the single most consistently occurring core symptom of ADHD is poor attention span or inattentiveness, not hyperactivity or impulsivity.
In my experience, about 70% to 75% of kids with ADHD … Read the restwill need medication to help them focus better, pay better attention and decrease their impulsivity and hyperactivity so that they can learn all of those things needed to build self-esteem.
The other 25% to 30% of ADHD children and teens will either get better with coaching or behavior training or will just go untreated. Once again I’d like to point out an untreated or undertreated child with ADHD will suffer multiple

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Diabetes Risk in ADHD Children Treated with Atypical Antipsychotics

March 06, 2012   admin

ADHD children treated with atypical antipsychotics and antidepressants for depression or other behavior disorders are at greater risk for developing diabetes mellitus.
While atypical antipsychotics are traditionally used to treat schizophrenia, I’ve found more and more doctors using them to treat bipolar disorder, agitated depression, anxiety associated with depression, major depressive disorder, oppositional behavior disorder, conduct disorder, and obsessive-compulsive behavior disorder.
It’s currently estimated in excess of 40 children per 1000 children in the U.S. are being treated for one of the above behavior problem diagnoses using second generation (atypical) antipsychotics. This number has increased dramatically since 1996 at which point only about 9 out of 1000 kids ages 5 to 18 years were exposed to these drugs.
Unfortunately, with increasing use of atypical antipsychotics and antidepressants, significant side effects of these medications are starting to pop up-the most concerning being diabetes mellitus or sugar diabetes.
A new study released in the December issue of the medical journal Pediatrics showed a four-fold increased risk of diabetes… Read the rest among children exposed to atypical antipsychotics and a little less in those treated with antidepressants. While the study doesn’t well-define the exact number of children, who develop diabetes as a result of exposure

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Drugs for Common Head Cold can Cause ADHD Behavior

February 07, 2012   admin

Over the counter antihistamine-decongestant-cough medications can cause worsened ADHD behavior in both children and teens with ADHD and those who are not ADHD.
In the past eight weeks, I’ve seen no fewer than seven ADHD kids and teens with the impulsive-hyperactive type of ADHD whose ADHD medications had suddenly stopped working.  All seven were on non-stimulant ADHD drugs (guanfacine and clonidine) to help decrease their hyperactivity and help them control their impulsivity.
These kid’s and teen’s parents and teachers had noticed they often fell asleep in class in the early morning and later:

Were more fidgety-couldn’t sit still
Interrupted more than usual
Were restless
Didn’t sleep well (in two cases, they were having nightmares)
Were definitely more impulsive (one teen was caught speeding, when he normally drove well)
Were having problems concentrating well enough to get class work and homework done!

So, what caused ADHD children who had “more normal behavior” on prescription ADHD medications, to suddenly show an increase in symptoms of ADHD… Read the rest?
Non-prescription-over-the-counter cold medications…
In each case, we discovered the reason their ADHD medications seemed to stop working or weren’t working as well was due to over-the-counter antihistamine-decongestant-cough medications they were taking for head

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ADHD Treatment-The Danger of ADHD Drug Shortages

January 05, 2012   admin

ADHD children and their parents face many unforeseen dangers  due to shortages of ADHD drugs!
Shortages of drugs used to treat ADHD in children and teens may cause much more risk than just increased behavior problems, poor concentration, and learning difficulties.
During recent shortages of ADHD medications such as Adderall, most parents assumed the biggest problem they could face would be due to the fact that their ADHD child would run out of medication and his or her attention span and impulsive behavior would worsen and they would start making failing grades again.
Unfortunately, as many ADHD experts will tell you, the side effects of not having ADHD drugs probably won’t come close to the other more serious consequences of ADHD drug shortages.
The more serious effects of children and teens not being able to get their ADHD medications lies in the risks of substitution induced side effects and experimentation with other drugs and chemicals to replace those ADHD drugs unavailable.
As ADHD drugs… Read the rest have become unavailable or scarce, parents are often scrambling to buy 12 pills here and 7 pills there, jumping from pharmacy to pharmacy. Many times, these drugs differ by maker, especially if they are generic. That means

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ADHD Teens Impulsivity and Legal Problems during the Holidays

December 23, 2011   admin

An increase in ADHD impulsivity is what gets many teens in legal trouble during the Holidays!
As any parent of a teenager with ADHD will tell you, ADHD teens are more prone to act more impulsively during the holiday season -you know what they mean-before they put their brain into gear.  This often means they are more likely to get into trouble with the law as a result of poorly controlled or uncontrolled impulsive behavior.
ADHD experts think there are several reasons for children and teenagers with ADHD to more often fall prey to their impulsive behavior during holidays:

The excitement of the season with fast moving lights, loud sounds and high expectations overwhelms their normal levels of control
10 to 15% of parents of ADHD teens and children with ADHD will stop their ADHD medications as soon as school lets out-to give them a “drug holiday” or a chance to “go without the medicine”
25 to 40% of teens and kids with ADHD will stop their ADHD drugs… Read the rest on their own without telling anyone and once untreated, their impulsive behavior returns and many times gets worse
When out of school, ADHD teens tend to hang around others like themselves-with similar behaviors-

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