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Doctor: ADHD, as currently defined, does not exist

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Re: Doctor: ADHD, as currently defined, does not exist

#51

Post by darkarmani »

chimeracoder wrote: post #30
JohnBooty wrote: post #15

This article is so potentially harmful, even if it's more nuanced than the hyperbolic "ADHD Doesn't Exist" title would suggest. The reality is that -- whatever the underlying cause -- a lot of people struggle with attention span issues, and that these issues cause a lot of pain and unfulfilled potential. Even if ADHD medications are overprescribed Band-Aids, people benefit from them. We should try and find better dia…

> After four years in college, which were a mix of promise and opportunities torpedoed by procrastination, I worked 10, 12, 14-hour days to finish work that I was more than talented enough to finish in 5 or 6 hours. My happiness suffered, health suffered, and relationships died. > Then I finally admitted that maybe it was a little more than a willpower issue. If it a matter of lacking willpower, why was I at the damn…

> I think the only real problem is that ADHD has always been improperly named[0]. The actual condition itself has very little to do with attention.

I think it should be called "executive function disorder."

Re: Doctor: ADHD, as currently defined, does not exist

#52

Post by JimboOmega »

trillium wrote: post #41
JimboOmega wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So I agree this article is kind of a mess, the title misleading. This is the nature of ADHD. It's a magnet for people wanting to cry "overdiagnosed"! However, tolerance is a big question. Taking an ADHD medicine for the first week or so after not taking any for months prior is a pretty profound experience. But that tapers off. And leaves one to wonder... is my condition still improved? I have seen very few studies (t…

I've written a book on ADHD (Adult ADHD: What You Need to Know). I specifically looked into the tolerance questions. The doctors I found who are experts in the field and have treated a very large amount of patients say developing tolerance is unusual. *Minor edit

What in unusual? Any sort of tolerance?

Re: Doctor: ADHD, as currently defined, does not exist

#53

Post by spacedmountain »

visarga wrote: post #40
chimeracoder wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> After four years in college, which were a mix of promise and opportunities torpedoed by procrastination, I worked 10, 12, 14-hour days to finish work that I was more than talented enough to finish in 5 or 6 hours. My happiness suffered, health suffered, and relationships died. > Then I finally admitted that maybe it was a little more than a willpower issue. If it a matter of lacking willpower, why was I at the damn…

I don't like that it's classified as a disorder. It's a different style of cognitive activity, with its advantages and disadvantages.

What are the advantages?

Re: Doctor: ADHD, as currently defined, does not exist

#55

Post by trillium »

JimboOmega wrote: post #52
trillium wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've written a book on ADHD (Adult ADHD: What You Need to Know). I specifically looked into the tolerance questions. The doctors I found who are experts in the field and have treated a very large amount of patients say developing tolerance is unusual. *Minor edit

What in unusual? Any sort of tolerance?

Edited to make more clear, thanks!

Re: Doctor: ADHD, as currently defined, does not exist

#56

Post by conradfr »

richardlblair wrote: post #34

Some folks are missing the point. Both the definition of ADHD and the treatment plan for it (in North America) are broken. In France, just 0.5% of children suffer from ADHD (opposed to ~5% in North America), and with those children they find the root cause of the issue and deal with that. They tend to shy away from medication. This is, more often than not, the proper treatment option for behavioural issues. People ne…

I'm French, have ADHD and had to discover by my own at 28 years old that it was an existing condition. I guess (hope) it's better recognized nowadays but still I suspect it's underdiagnosed and also you only have access to Ritalin and Concerta as possible medication with many restrictions to fulfill a prescription.

Yet it's often presented in the media as "the obey pill that Americans give to their children".

As a coincidence there is currently a shortage of Concerta until mid-April ... great.

Re: Doctor: ADHD, as currently defined, does not exist

#57

Post by bpm140 »

The author could have just as easily written "Cancer, as currently defined, does not exist" or "Arthritis, as currently defined, does not exist".

In all of these cases, the the catch-all phrase is used to describe a handful of similar symptoms that stem from a wild variety of causes.

This is why we won't be curing cancer any time soon. We may cure a specific type of cancer, but we're going to have to cure each type of cancer in a specific a relevant way.

If the author wanted to say "ADHD is actually a catch-all term for a variety of root causes that would be better treated with specificity" I would be all over that. But, hey, page views.

Re: Doctor: ADHD, as currently defined, does not exist

#58

Post by watwut »

trillium wrote: post #46
richardlblair wrote: post #34

Some folks are missing the point. Both the definition of ADHD and the treatment plan for it (in North America) are broken. In France, just 0.5% of children suffer from ADHD (opposed to ~5% in North America), and with those children they find the root cause of the issue and deal with that. They tend to shy away from medication. This is, more often than not, the proper treatment option for behavioural issues. People ne…

Off the top of my head, roughly 7% of kids in the US have ADHD and roughly 4-5% of adults have ADHD. 20% of boys of a certain age have currently been diagnosed with ADHD.

If the definition of ADHD includes 20% of all boys, then I'm inclined to believe the definition takes in too many kids. If 1 in 5 kids has it, then it is normal behavior in that age range.

Re: Doctor: ADHD, as currently defined, does not exist

#60

Post by Xylakant »

trillium wrote: post #44
Xylakant wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Unless you have a better idea how to treat it Actually, if you read the article until the end, it proposes a better idea to treat it: Do not lump together all the conditions that lead to the symptoms together. Treat them as individual conditions with different causes and administer appropriate treatment - don't just hand them pills because it's simple. I sincerely doubt that stimulants are the best treatment we can…

I've personally known someone who has taken Ritalin type meds for 20+ years and did extremely well on it. In addition, my research indicates that tolerance to ADHD meds is uncommon and typically a person can be kept on one dose for years.

See, I'm under long-term medication myself, for an incurable, but treatable condition. Long term medication is a last-ditch remedy and that's for a reason. It's generally speaking a PITA. Where ever you go, you need to take your medication with you. Depending on what you get, you might have to take it on schedule. Depending on what you get, the pharmacy round the corner needs to order it and the stuff needs a prescription. Most stuff has side-effects, mine is mildly liver-toxic which means that I need to go have blood tests about every 8 weeks. I need to go to the doctor every 4 weeks for the prescription. When I travel longer than 4 weeks I need to jump through several hoops to get a larger amount. It's much better than without treatment, so if a friend asks me how I'm doing with the medication, I'd say "extremely well", but mainly because without medication it's extremely bad.

Yes, medication helps and it's sometimes the last remedy when nothing else helps. But I think that not labeling all conditions that lead to ADHD-like symptoms as ADHD and rather try and find a more nuanced understanding of the problem is helpful, especially in a case where a condition is often diagnosed on children where parents read stuff on the internet and run from doctor to doctor to doctor trying to get a prescription for ritalin, since they're certain that the kid matches those 5 relatively generic symptoms.

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