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The Selling of Attention Deficit Disorder

nytimes.com

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Re: The Selling of Attention Deficit Disorder

#21

Post by md224 »

bonemachine wrote: post #2

As someone with deep experience in this field once explained to me, "The big drug companies don't sell cures. They sell diseases ." By which he of course meant they sell the idea of the disease, for which -- if whipped up to be scary and believable enough -- the consumer won't hesitate to reach out to "cure."

"As late as 1975, nursing textbooks did not include herpes as it was considered no worse than a common cold. After the development of acyclovir in the 1970s, the drug company Burroughs Wellcome launched an extensive marketing campaign that publicized the illness, including creating victim's support groups."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herpes_genitalis#History

Re: The Selling of Attention Deficit Disorder

#22

Post by negativity »

tibbon wrote: post #19

As a person with ADHD, that article was too long to hold my attention (no, I'm not making a joke here). Also, as a person with ADHD who takes Adderall I don't see what the big fuss about it as a drug/medicine is. It works. I don't (personally) note any side effects, and don't see any reason that I'd stop taking it. Before taking Adderall I was essentially self-medicating my ADHD with copious amounts of coffee on a da…

I think it's exactly the same thing as coffee, and it's not a medical condition at all.

Coding really IS naturally boring and mind numbing. That's neither your imagination nor subjective experience. No one ever steps through a series of break-points in a debugger, or skims through 1,000 lines of log output, and thinks: "YEAH, MAN! THIS IS REALLY LIVING!" It pretty much requires an altered state to enjoy this stuff.

I think the truth is that modern society measures "success" in radically different and totally unnatural ways now.

Look back at history, and there's a famous correlation between the introduction of coffee, tea and chocolate to Europe, and the age of enlightenment. (https://encrypted.google.com/#q=caffeine+enlightenment+histo...)

The reason pills are used on kids is because they won't reliably drink coffee on their own. Meanwhile, many parents won't subject their kids to substances other than normal, healthy food, unless they're comforted by rational, selfless purpose. Without an appeal to authority, in the form of a soliciting a qualified doctor's auspicious opinion, parents would just let their kids be kids.

The industrialized world is obsessed with abstract achievements, and rigid behavioral norms. Most people have a hard time resisting the trend, and sometimes do so at their own risk. All of it is artificially tied to quality of life (more than survival) by social pressures, so it's not so much survival instinct, so much as it is envy or maybe a desire for inclusion that drives the behavior.

It's not the drug that's demonized, but the fact that it has become a prerequisite for staying competitive and Keeping Up With The Joneses, so to speak.

Re: The Selling of Attention Deficit Disorder

#23

Post by sd8f9iu »

tibbon wrote: post #19

As a person with ADHD, that article was too long to hold my attention (no, I'm not making a joke here). Also, as a person with ADHD who takes Adderall I don't see what the big fuss about it as a drug/medicine is. It works. I don't (personally) note any side effects, and don't see any reason that I'd stop taking it. Before taking Adderall I was essentially self-medicating my ADHD with copious amounts of coffee on a da…

The article states that most doctors and researchers acknowledge that ADHD is a legitimate disease (as yours seems to be), and that some people should take medication. But they are protesting the vast over-diagnosis of the condition, and the push for medication to fix symptoms that are common in most people.

Also, though you might not notice any side effects, the article discusses that the side effects can be substantial (trouble sleeping, loss of appetite, sometimes suicidal thoughts), and that they are typically vastly understated in advertisements. The drug can be addictive too.

This sounds like something to make a big fuss about. If the opposition is to be believed (and I think it is), children are being vastly over-medicated with strong drugs based on bad science and misleading advertising.

Re: The Selling of Attention Deficit Disorder

#24

Post by duaneb »

maratd wrote: post #18
invalidOrTaken wrote: post #3

I don't know. I just don't know. I earned a perfect score on the SAT and was voted "Class Genius" in the yearbook, but barely graduated from high school. I was dismissed from university. I went to work for a machine learning company, where we (self included!) did some really neat stuff, including some heroic pre-sales-meeting coding that saved the day in a minor way. But I was fired six months in for low productivity…

> Was it brain chemistry? ADD? Millenial entitlement? The Bipolar Lisp personality? Depression? SAD? A once-seen-impossible-to-unsee glimpse of the Gervais Principle? Oh please, enough with the drama. I've led the same life. So has everyone else here. I had the foresight to realize my ailment early on. I'm lazy and bored easily, which is really the same thing. > But I was fired six months in for low productivity and…

Here's a brilliant idea—help a person by framing their issues as personal and moral failures. That's sure to be a positive catalyst for change.

EDIT: For some reason I can't respond to the comment below.

My point was, it's easy to frame problems with terms like "weak", "irresponsible", and "lazy". It's hard to actually attempt to communicate, identify a problem in a way that you can talk about the same thing, and find a solution.

Re: The Selling of Attention Deficit Disorder

#25

Post by crusso »

DanBC wrote: post #12
derefr wrote: post #9

I don't know if I really have ADD. There's no real physiological test for it, just self-assessments and the rejection of the null hypothesis upon the introduction of various drugs. What I do know: until I started treatment for ADD, the entire concept of "willpower" or "motivation" just didn't make sense to me. It was something other people had, maybe; or perhaps they were lying. But with treatment, "motivating myself…

It would be great if we could experiment upon you. Every three months we'd start you on a new regime of pills. You wouldn't know if they were meds or placebo. The people giving them to you wouldn't know either. The people writing the report wouldn't know, until after they'd written the report. Obviously we can't do this. But I dearly love to know what the results would be. For what it's worth: I suspect you would tel…

While I applaud applications of the Scientific Method, you write as though you have some doubt that the effects are real.

I took Vyvanse for a couple of months to try to help my concentration... holy cow. When it took effect 40 minutes after taking it, I felt like a jackhammer. It was no slight effect that you could dismiss as placebo, my blood pressure went up and I was on task for ten hours of the day, no problem. All the cobwebs that happen after that big pasta lunch? Gone. My mind was sharp, focused, and my friends all noticed that I was noticeably more aggressive in conversation.

The down side was that sleeping became very difficult. I'd wake up over and over during the night with way-too-vivid dreams. Worse, my heart started feeling like it was fluttering and my blood pressure machine, which told me that it was a bit higher, also indicated that I had an irregular heartbeat.

Re: The Selling of Attention Deficit Disorder

#26

Post by maratd »

duaneb wrote: post #24
maratd wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Was it brain chemistry? ADD? Millenial entitlement? The Bipolar Lisp personality? Depression? SAD? A once-seen-impossible-to-unsee glimpse of the Gervais Principle? Oh please, enough with the drama. I've led the same life. So has everyone else here. I had the foresight to realize my ailment early on. I'm lazy and bored easily, which is really the same thing. > But I was fired six months in for low productivity and…

Here's a brilliant idea—help a person by framing their issues as personal and moral failures. That's sure to be a positive catalyst for change. EDIT: For some reason I can't respond to the comment below. My point was, it's easy to frame problems with terms like "weak", "irresponsible", and "lazy". It's hard to actually attempt to communicate, identify a problem in a way that you can talk about the same thing, and fin…

> Here's a brilliant idea—help a person by framing their issues as personal and moral failures. That's sure to be a positive catalyst for change.

You're being sarcastic, but it actually IS. We live in a culture where everything is a disorder. How convenient, that all of your failures can be blamed on something you don't control.

Here's an idea.

Everything you don't take responsibility for. Everything you don't see as your own failing ... you have no control over and are destined to suffer under its yoke for the rest of your life. And no drug or doctor will fix it for you.

Re: The Selling of Attention Deficit Disorder

#27

Post by duaneb »

negativity wrote: post #10

I don't suffer from ADD/ADHD but I grew up during the 90's, when lots of kids in school, around me, were being put on all kinds of prescription medication, but most prevalent were the ADD/ADHD prescriptions. Of the roughly 20 names I can remember, who I know for a fact were prescribed ADD/ADHD medications, AND who I knew growing up both before the medication and after, there was only one guy that obviously had proble…

> weak-willed

Can you provide a definition for this? I'm fucking sick of people going through this process:

1. Struggle to understand someone's problem.

2. Give up.

3. Blame the victim.

If you see a problem, fix it. But nothing in your comment was at all helpful for the same people you were criticizing. This may come as a shock to you, but people struggle from different problems than you do. Some of them may seem easier to you because you don't experience the same thing.

Re: The Selling of Attention Deficit Disorder

#28

Post by derefr »

maratd wrote: post #26
duaneb wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's a brilliant idea—help a person by framing their issues as personal and moral failures. That's sure to be a positive catalyst for change. EDIT: For some reason I can't respond to the comment below. My point was, it's easy to frame problems with terms like "weak", "irresponsible", and "lazy". It's hard to actually attempt to communicate, identify a problem in a way that you can talk about the same thing, and fin…

> Here's a brilliant idea—help a person by framing their issues as personal and moral failures. That's sure to be a positive catalyst for change. You're being sarcastic, but it actually IS. We live in a culture where everything is a disorder. How convenient, that all of your failures can be blamed on something you don't control. Here's an idea. Everything you don't take responsibility for. Everything you don't see as…

But diseases are something you control. With drugs.

Re: The Selling of Attention Deficit Disorder

#29

Post by modfodder »

maratd wrote: post #18
invalidOrTaken wrote: post #3

I don't know. I just don't know. I earned a perfect score on the SAT and was voted "Class Genius" in the yearbook, but barely graduated from high school. I was dismissed from university. I went to work for a machine learning company, where we (self included!) did some really neat stuff, including some heroic pre-sales-meeting coding that saved the day in a minor way. But I was fired six months in for low productivity…

> Was it brain chemistry? ADD? Millenial entitlement? The Bipolar Lisp personality? Depression? SAD? A once-seen-impossible-to-unsee glimpse of the Gervais Principle? Oh please, enough with the drama. I've led the same life. So has everyone else here. I had the foresight to realize my ailment early on. I'm lazy and bored easily, which is really the same thing. > But I was fired six months in for low productivity and…

Oh please, stop with the bullshit. Not everyone has the same exact physiology and the same past personal experiences. Both of these will affect how each and everyone us reacts to daily life. Just because you're lazy and bored doesn't mean that he is (or I am or anyone else on this forum is). Or do you assume everyone here wears the same 10.5 shoe size as well?

Re: The Selling of Attention Deficit Disorder

#30

Post by afterburner »

derefr wrote: post #20
DanBC wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be great if we could experiment upon you. Every three months we'd start you on a new regime of pills. You wouldn't know if they were meds or placebo. The people giving them to you wouldn't know either. The people writing the report wouldn't know, until after they'd written the report. Obviously we can't do this. But I dearly love to know what the results would be. For what it's worth: I suspect you would tel…

It is a lovely idea. I would go even further; I wish for a world where everyone is given a "neuropharmapseutical chemistry kit" for their 13th birthdays (along with RISUG for boys, and a few other things) and told to play with their own brains (using a paired mobile app that gives them things like daily dual n-back tests) until they find a happy optimum. Fill the kit with agonists, reuptake inhibitors, and antagonist…

Interesting, but above all else it would require enough testing technology to be able to say you have stabilized back to your regular levels (or stabilized at all) before trying out the next new thing. Otherwise you are simply wildly screwing around with your chemistry and hormones to an extent that you may not be able to accurately measure the effects of any one specific drug on its own, because the effects are fluctuating and your body is constantly trying to adapt.
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