After several days on Methylin (Ritalin) with negligible effect, my doctor has given me the choice to switch to Adderall or Dextroamphetamine. After some research, I chose the Dex, because I heard that, though slightly more effective, the Adderall can cause severe headaches and I am prone to migraines.

Day Four on Methylin (Ritalin) is pretty much the same as Day 1….uneventful. The difference is, I am at the full dosage prescribed me – 20mg daily.

Yeah, I wake up faster, but takes a little longer to go to sleep (even though I take the last dose about 9 hours before bedtime). I feel tired, but my thoughts are still going strong. Saw a slogan yesterday that captures this: “My mind is like a banana tree full of monkeys chattering for attention.”

I have a bit more energy. Enough to get me up and at ‘em. I haven’t had many negative self-talks. Not much depression going on. But certainly there’s not much motivation either. Did the dishes today, but I really thought I would see a bit more in terms of clarity, concentration and motivation.

Maybe it’s time for a check-in with my doctor . . .

After going line by line through the details of my life as if he were yanking a fine-toothed comb through natty hair, Ozawa finally closed his notebook computer and left the interrogation room.

Kuroda replaced him.

The two were like night and day: Ozawa was beefy, tanned, good looking and confident; Kuroda, on the other hand, was thin, unhealthy looking and wan. It begged the question how two utterly different specimens of man could be hired by the same agency.

I asked Kuroda what he had studied at university.

Chemistry, he replied, and it started to make sense: Kuroda wasn’t supposed to be out on the field or sitting face-to-face with the criminals in interrogation rooms. He was supposed to be in a laboratory, wearing a lab coat, doing chemical analysis of the evidence, and generally keeping out of the way. He was as out of his element as a guppy flopping helplessly on the living room floor.

Some thirty minutes later, Ozawa returned with the Custom’s man, Nakata, in tow. What was to follow would make the session up to then seem like a coffee and donuts function at the local parish.

The tone of the questioning up to this point had been quite civil, but now the two of them were all business. It was as if they could turn their “emotions” on or off with a flick of a switch, going from being my friends to being hard-arses. I hadn’t trusted them when they were being pleasant; I trusted them even less when they started busting my chops.

In the same petulant, blustery tone he had used on the morning of the raid Nakata explained that I had been asked to come in for questioning because of an attempt to smuggle amphetamines and psychotropics into Japan.

“Be that as it may, Nakata-san,” I said, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

He stomped out of the room and returned with a folder, a good five inches thick, with my full name written in katakana on the spine. He placed the heavy folder on the desk before me, thud, then started thumbing quickly through the hundreds and hundreds of neatly filed documents. I could catch fleeting glimpses of my life as the pages flew by. There were copies from my homepage, printouts from my hotmail account.

“You’ve been busy,” I said, my throat growing dry.

“This is no time for jokes, Boncoeur!”

“Who’s joking? You really have been quite . . . “

“Boncoeur, this is a very serious matter.”

“I know it is. Yes. I’m sorry.”

Good god, how long have they been watching me? What do they already know?

Nakata found what he was searching for and spun the folder around so that I could have a better look.

“This is what we found: eight capsules of this,” Nakata said, his voice growing agitated. He jabbed his finger, a fat little sausage of a finger, at a picture of a blue and white capsule. Then flipping a page and tapping on another picture of baby blue tablets, he said, “Sixteen of these, here. Both of these contain the same substance: dextroamphetamine. Do you understand what I mean by substance? Shall I look it up for you?”

“I-I know what substance means. It’s the other thing, the dex-dextro-whatsit . . .”

“Dextroamphetamine.”

“Yes, that. I don’t know what that is.”

“It’s an amphetamine, Boncoeur. It’s extremely dangerous stuff and it’s prohibited by the Stimulant Drugs Control Act.”

“You’ve got to be kidding. That’s only Adderall.”

“Adder?”

“Adderall. On the other page there.”

Nakata flipped back a page.

“Yes, that’s Adderall.” I wrote it down on a piece of paper for him. “Children take it in the U.S. Anyways, that’s the brand name of the medicine. And here on this page, these small blue tablets here are the generic version.”

“Zenelikku.”

“Generic.”

“Zene-likku.”

“Not zene-likku,” I said. “Ge-ne-ric. All that means is that it’s a ‘no brand’ version of the medicine. It’s he same thing, the same substance, only this one here, Adderall, is much more expensive.”

“I don’t understand,” Nakata replied.

“Honestly, neither do I,” I said. “But that’s a different issue, altogether. Look, in the U.S. many of prescription drugs come in a variety of types: the brand-name ones which can be quite expensive and these cheaper so-called generic versions that are made by a different company.”

“So you do know what this is, then!” Nakata said triumphantly.

“Did I know the active ingredient was dextro, um, dextro-amphetamine? No, I didn’t. Did I know this was Adderall? Yes.”

“How?”

“Well, for one, ‘Adderall’ is printed right here in small letters.”

“Let me see that,” he said, turning the folder around. “Oh, you’re right. I, uh, didn’t notice that. And the other one called Zene-likku . . . “

Ugh. “It’s not called zene-likku,” I said. I removed my glasses and rubbed my brow. “As far as I know, these two are the same thing, the same substance. My cousin used to take both of these, pretty much everyday, while she was living with me two years ago.”

“Okay,” Nakata said. He scribbled some notes down in a note book, then flipping a page, showed me another picture of a small pinkish white pellet, not much bigger than the head of a pin. “Do you know what this is?”

“No, I’ve never seen that before.”

“It’s methylphenidate. Ring any bells?”

“No.”

“It’s a psychotropic.”

“A psychotropic?”

“Yes, a psychotropic. It’s controlled by the Narcotics and Psychotropic Control Act. There were sixty of these pills found.”

“Sixty!” My god.

“Boncoeur, at nine-thirty-seven a.m. on June twelfth a package sent by Ms. Naila Stern addressed to you, Rémy Boncoeur, arrived at Kansai International Airport in Osaka.” Nakata’s voice was growing shrill. “The package contained, among other items, eight capsules and sixteen tablets of dextro-amphetamine and sixty methylphenidate pills. Again, these two substances are controlled substances. At nine thirty-seven, the moment the package was unloaded from the plane, the law was broken. That’s why the police are involved. Do you understand this, Boncoeur?”

“Y-yes. Yes, I think so.”

That knot that had been in my chest since Thursday tightened, my head reeled.

-

注意：この作品はフィクションです。登場人物、団体等、実在のモノとは一切関係ありません。

© Aonghas Crowe, 2009

It’s not hard to imagine that a kid who’s been taught to “just say no to drugs” might be a little resistant to taking “good” (i.e., socially acceptable) drugs such as Ritalin (even as others follow the opposite tack and take advantage of the easy availability of prescrition drugs). Such a child must be taught or persuaded to embark on a life of pill-popping.

In that case, propaganda does wonders – such as the Swedish brochure we recently saw via Furious Seasons: “Tips and tricks for cool boys and girls with ADHD.”

Yes, it’s a tip sheet for “cool” ways to devour drugs. The whole thing – and an English translation – can be found over at the Bonkers Institute. Here’s just a sample:

Toads catch insects with their tongue and gobble them up.
Swallow the way a lazy toad does. Put the pill on your tongue, take a sip of water and lean your head back. GULP – you swallowed the pill!

Great.

And for more on the normalization of drugs and “The Wholesale Sedation of America’s Youth,” be sure to read Andrew M. Weiss’ fine essay in Skeptical Inquirer.

Night driving has always been problematic for me. The headlights from oncoming traffic not only distract me, they actually hurt my eyes.

After being somewhat discouraged yesterday about not feeling anything from the meds, I gradually upped the dose (within the parameters my doctor set for me for incremental increases). This morning I took 5mg. Usually, I am very groggy in the mornings. In college, anything before 11am was a sure bet for a C or less….Though slightly tired from the busy week this week (all three children were in a theatrical production this weekend, and we’ve had rehearsals, etc.), I “woke up” much faster than usual.

Further, I felt more “aware” of my surroundings, not like “zoned out.” For my afternoon dose, I took the remaining half of yesterday’s half-tablet, along with another 5mg. Wow! It was as if the fog lessened at bit. I think I still need to go up to the full 20mg per day total, but driving was finally a treat!

I am usually a terrible driver. I’ve had accidents, ridden over the curb, difficulty gauging parking spaces (as in, depth perception issues, maybe??), lead foot, slamming on the brakes because I didn’t notice the car slowing/stopped in front of me…But none of that happened! And, the oncoming traffic didn’t bother me, either!

Not a huge difference in motivation, but definitely an improvement on a small scale! Though my doctor gave me papers to fill out, I am finding this site much more effective in tracking my progress (and in far more detail).

(Hat tip to ADD Forums for the site recommendation!)

Got the Ritalin today. Read up on it online. Talked to the pharmacist for awhile. Took the lowest possible dose – 1/2 of a 5mg tablet. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Zip. I felt like Hammer: It didn’t touch me.

I told my husband this morning that I thought I might be setting myself up. That even if the meds worked (and at that point I hadn’t tried it yet, so I assumed today’s dose would at least be felt!) I wouldn’t be suddenly cured of ADD. So, I thought maybe I was setting myself up for disappointment……and, I did. Nothing happened.

So I guess we increase the dose to a whole 5mg tab tomorrow morning and see what happens…

In the movie Lost Horizon, Olivia Hussey and Sally Kellerman sing about swapping cultures. One has lived a quiet sedate life,  the other a very busy life. They each list things they will not miss about the life they are leaving behind, as they embrace a new life, in a new culture.

This song, Things I Will Not Miss, has been stuck in my head for the last couple of days and has become a metaphor for the change I feel is to take place.

After a conversation yesterday, my doctor and I decided to try a course of Ritalin to see how I respond. Though I have tried many different medications for the depression that is often “co-morbid” with ADD, I’ve never taken anything for the ADD. In fact, the doctor who diagnosed me 11 years ago, after the birth of my first child, said I was a “high functioning” ADDer. Riiiiight.

Maybe as a female, I “mask” it better, because “we women multi-task” but, just as I am exceptionally creative, I’m also woefully ADDlicious.

So, this thought – this hope – that maybe, finally, I will see what life is like through a “normal brain” is making me create my own list of the Things I Will Not Miss About ADD:

• DWA (Driving While ADD!): I will not miss the accidents, or the night driving with the shiny lights from oncoming traffic distracting and actually hurting my eyes.
• Tuning out my children when they are talking about things that are not interesting to me. Yeah, a lot of parents do that, and some might argue it’s a useful thing to be able to tune that out, but as an ADDer, I feel as though I’ve tuned out a little more than is healthy for building relationships, at times.
• Interrupting: I’m a constant interrupter. I just can’t wait for you to finish. In fact, sometimes you are just not interesting, and I’d really like to get to my point, which is infinitely more interesting! Ugh! I’ve always had such poor social skills. They’ve definitely improved over the Childhood Version of My ADD (ADD 1.0), but still, I list it as something I will not miss.
• Losing track of time: Thinking that and hour is “only a few minutes.” As in, “I’m just going to pop into this bookstore for “a few minutes” and coming out to find I’ve been gone for ages.
• Not waiting until the absolute last second for everything: Dashing out trying to hurry to be on time when you know it’s an impossibility; doing something at the last minute because it was boring and now you’re back is against a wall and you have to (and it’s still boring!!)

There are probably a ton of other things, but those are the main ones on my list of Things I Will Not Miss. I don’t know if I am setting myself up for failure or not. Maybe “normacly” is overrated. Maybe Ritalin won’t work for me. Maybe lots of things….but I’m still excited to try.

I’ll see you on the other side!

I’m feeling slightly unwell today. My Mind Cook has added too much paprika into the soupy mess that I call my Brain Chemistry. That sentence does not make much sense, but it seems to be the only way to describe my state at the moment. I got 4 minutes of sleep last night, and just managed to get a half-hour nap in before I’m off to therapy at 3:30. I don’t know why I bother looking sane for my appointments with her. I think it might be something my mother taught me about going to the doctor’s offices and how you have to keep up appearances. She had me thinking that every time I went to a new doctor, I was going to get some sort of psychiatric evaluation, which they actually do sometimes. But not every time. Anyways. The idea just kind of carried over to the mental health field, and I wonder if it actually hurts my chance of getting the right treatments.

I feel like some sort of cave creature who has not seen the sun in about fifteen years. I look outside from my window and see the sun…it is far too bright, but it really is refreshing to see a beautiful, clear(ish) sunny day in December. I’m too scared to go outside for fear of spiders. I get so mad at myself for that. I’m pretty sure I have true arachnophobia, not just a fear of spiders. I’m avoiding situations where I might see a spider, including situations that would be good for my health and that’s probably not a good thing.

The reason I only got a 30 minute nap is because my thoughts would not slow down. That’s one of the hard parts about mania, when you want it to stop it seems to hold on to your mind in an even tighter grasp than before. I think that I would rather be in the hideous throes of depression—at least I stay in one place. I might be thinking about death all the time, but I’m too depressed to kill myself. My self esteem drops to such a level where I don’t believe that I am worthy of the relief that death could bring to me. Silence is only a fantasy.

When I’m manic, I want change. I want to go out. I don’t care who it’s with. I think of the nastiest things, I even consider them. I’ve done some of them. A lot of the things I do when I am manic go against my moral code to such an extent that I could be a different person. But I’m not. I think everything I do is important. I do a lot of things when I’m manic. For instance, I finished nearly my entire online math course in 2 weeks at the beginning of the fall quarter this year. I also become agitated. I start to feel this urge to make money. I always think that I am a burden on someone’s wallet (which technically I am). Sometimes I do things that put my family in potential danger. I laugh at inappropriate times. I say inappropriate things. I am hypersexual. I am paranoid. I eat too much or not enough. I sleep 3 hours tops…and that’s only if I pass out from exhaustion. My heart, my poor heart, has to deal with me taking Ritalin and Focalin all night long. My cardiologist would throttle me if he knew I did this.

There’s more, but I can’t think very well right now. I currently have at least 3 streams of thought going on at the same time, one of them involving that well known tune “Mary Had A Little Lamb”.

Kill me now, before I lose my head completely.

Well, I went to the rheumatologist today. She felt me up, poked my joints and asked the same questions I’ve been asked over and over again for months.

I had to get some more blood work done (they in fact took half my blood from me… 7 vials) and had half a dozen x-rays done and urine test etc…not sure what they’re looking for anymore.

I mean I wasn’t expecting an answer today by all means I’m just amused because on my way home from there I went to the pharmacy to fill a prescription for a muscle relaxant to take in the mornings when I wake up and can’t move. I also had to ask about a prescription I received yesterday from the sleep doctor for dun dun dun…Ritalin.
Haha, this is the life. I have been prescribed Adderall, Ritalin and now some weird muscle relaxant which I haven’t picked up yet. To me it seems like that defeats the purpose of taking stimulants but whatever.

I haven’t filled the Ritalin yet, I didn’t want to have to fight with the insurance company for approval which usually takes like a week. It’s such B.S. if you ask me.

Anyways, basically the only update I have for now is that I’ve started taking the adderall again and it hasn’t made my heart explode like the last time so i’m gonna stick to that and see how it goes. Also my neurologist is mailing me the orders for an ACTH(?) test and some hormone tests.

I see the family dr again in a week and that rheumatologist again in two weeks.

We’ll see how things go from there I suppose.

Anyways that’s all my health business. On a personal note I’m just trying to get on with life as normally as possible. Partying is my vice…just keeps my mind off the pain really. I’m grateful for those I have though. My best friend is all I could ask for and more, doubt I could live without him.
And that’s about it to be honest. I’m much too lazy to go into detail about how much I hate home and the rest of my social life. I’m just trying not to make too many bad decisions.

Although, a recent reunion with someone and a good talk has helped a lot and I just hope it stays this way, uncomplicated and with everything out in the open there can’t be more silly misunderstandings.

Hmm, I think that’s it! I’ve gotta carry on studying now I guess.

“For decades, scores of doctors, government officials, journalists, and others have extolled the benefits of psychiatric medicines for children.

GENERATION RX presents “the rest of the story” and unveils how this era of unprecedented change in Western culture really occurred -

and what price has been paid by our society.” source: Generation Rx

It’s really a powerful movie – shocking and real, yet we let this abuse of medicine continue.

Maybe one day we’ll return to society’s roots of caring for our children.

Parents need to have second opinions and other options presented to them before giving the green light for

their children to become drug addicts.

Communities need to become better advocates for children in foster care, and those who live in underprivileged environments,

because they become easy targets for powerful drug companies.

With 6 million children in the U.S. on psychiatric medications, society will be on-edge.

And finally, the act of diagnosing a 2-year-old with bi-polar disorder is not only barbaric, but insane!

All see: Frontline: The Medicated Child

]]> http://cqdt.wordpress.com/2009/11/27/doit-on-sinquieter-du-dopage-etudiant/ Fri, 27 Nov 2009 12:00:06 +0000 cqdt http://cqdt.wordpress.com/2009/11/27/doit-on-sinquieter-du-dopage-etudiant/ http://yonkisilustrados.wordpress.com/2009/11/25/rubifen-o-algo-que-hacer-un-domingo-tarde/ Wed, 25 Nov 2009 18:40:32 +0000 yonkisilustrados http://yonkisilustrados.wordpress.com/2009/11/25/rubifen-o-algo-que-hacer-un-domingo-tarde/ http://musictherapyadhd.wordpress.com/2009/11/24/billy/ Wed, 25 Nov 2009 00:37:35 +0000 bobwestfall http://musictherapyadhd.wordpress.com/2009/11/24/billy/

A few days ago I remembered that one of my friends actually has ADHD and uses Ritalin to medicate his problem. This was good news for me because I realized I could interview him and post the results. Another bonus is that he is a musician! What are the odds? To respect his privacy, I will refer to my friend as Billy.

Billy was diagnosed with ADHD as a child and has been using Ritalin for the past 11 years. As a young kid he would take 2 or 3 pills per day, but more recently, he has had to up the dose to 5 or 6 pills daily, as he feels he is starting to become immune to the drug. He says Ritalin makes him feel focused and concentrated, but side effect have included dehydration, lack of energy, and increased aggitation.

Billy has played the guitar, both acoustic and electric, for approximately the past 6 years. He prefers playing classical repertoir. When it comes to listening to music for enjoyment, he ranks 19th Century classical music first, citing composers Berlioz and Rachmaninoff. He prefers piano concertos, guitar concertos, and string quartets, and describes this music as satisfying, aggressive, and boundless. Billy’s second favorite genre of music for listening is old Jazz, stating the feelings of the rhythms as the main aspect of enjoyment. His third choice is Metal music (Toxic Holocaust, High on Fire, Destroyer 666), because it is intense and he feels very relaxed at the end of a listening session.

Billy is in second year of university with a major in classical guitar. He says he cannot study while listening to Metal or Jazz, but can concentrate on studying while listening to certain classical music. He finds it interesting that of all the people he has met who suffer from ADHD, most of them enjoy Metal music the most. He assumes it is the fast driving rhythms that hold attention and maintain focus.

He said music alone would not have the same effects as Ritalin if he were to quit the medication, but that a combination of music and a change of diet (more carbs for energy) may have similar effects to Ritalin, in that he would be more focused and have more energy. He also said if he were to quit taking Ritalin, he would have to drink more coffee or green tea to increase his alertness.

I only has a short amount of time to interview Billy before we each had classes to attend, but I may attain more information from him in the near future.

Here is another film on drugging children!  I can see the sinister aspect of this as a way to damage to brains of children they see as too bright to accept being two legged livestock for the NWO.  For almost frivolous reasons, schools give a child drugs and a label and chemically lower their intelligence.  The “reason” is never the one given.

Did you know the government pays off schools and even low income parents in order for kids to take drugs?  Watch this film.

There is another story of a child dragged off by police and the mother abused and imprisoned  for refusing to give the child drugs.

Ritalin is related to crystal meth.  Why so many meth/crack addicts?  They are used to “being on speed”!

Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold were on psychiatric drugs and their behavior changed AFTER they were put on drugs.  Antidepressants which were seen as a “miracle cure” 20 years ago cause children to be violent.

I was “put on drugs” as a teen and know the nightmare scenario.  I ended up in the state hospital with my parents relinquishing custody to the state (temporarily) after a suicide attempt due to the despondent depression caused by antipsychotic drugs prescribed by an overzealous psychiatrist after consulting her because I was having trouble making friends.  I ended up a high school dropout with a psychiatric label and a sense of underachievement.  Leaving the hospital before I was officially discharged (snerk snerk) may have cause me to be submitted for targetting.  I never liked to “comply” without a reason.

Well-informed parents have long realized that the consumption of food additives causes hyperactivity in their children, but most conventional doctors have dismissed the idea as pure bunk. Of course, far too many doctors dismiss the idea that food choice has any relationship to health in the first place, so the view from conventional medicine doesn’t carry much weight.

The real story here, however, is not that food additives and artificial colorings cause ADHD, but that there are several other dietary substances that heavily influence a child’s mental state and day-to-day behavior.

Let’s face it: the human brain is a flesh and blood organ, and it is strongly influenced by blood chemistry, which is, in turn, dictated almost entirely by diet. What you eat, in other words, determines what your blood composition looks like, and what your blood composition looks like determines the way your brain functions. Of course there are other factors, such as physical exercise and environmental influences, but the largest factor of all is dietary.

So when you eat processed foods containing additives and artificial colors, you are introducing toxic chemicals into your bloodstream. Those chemicals find their way into the brain and alter brain function, and in the case of children who have been diagnosed with ADHD, it alters their behavior to make them restless or to have a shortened attention span. It can also cause children and adults alike to display other problems derived from their mental state. (We’ll discuss the impact of nutritional deficiency on adult society next time.)

But it isn’t just food additives causing detrimental effects — it’s also refined carbohydrates. People who eat large quantities of white bread (or food containing refined white flour) also suffer from mental disorders. These can include depression, aggression and violent behavior, and learning disabilities. Consuming refined carbohydrates also causes people to have brain fog — that is, they can’t concentrate for very long, and they don’t feel like they have clarity of mind.

Drinking soft drinks also causes the same effect, because it is essentially the same macronutrient that’s poisoning your body: refined sugars. As it turns out, these refined sugars also cause behavioral disorders by depleting the body of nutrients that are critical for neurological health. These nutrients include the B vitamins and several notable minerals, including magnesium and zinc. When the human body is deficient in these vitamins and minerals, it will, of course, exhibit both mental and physical disorders. The problem in all of this is that rather than recognizing the true cause of these mental and physical disorders in our children and in our adult population, conventional medicine labels it a disease. Therefore, the treatment becomes a drug rather than changing your diet, and that’s where things get crazy, because now we’re dosing up tens of millions of our children on Ritalin when the true answer to their behavioral problems or lack of focus is to immediately remove soft drinks, cookies, and sugary breakfast cereals from their diets. If you feed your children foods that enhance their health — that is, unprocessed foods like fruits, vegetables, whole grains and superfoods — then they won’t exhibit these behavioral problems.

In fact, the solution to all this is surprisingly simple: we need to change the diets of our children. We need to take vending machines out of our public school systems. We need to reformulate school lunch programs so that they are feeding our children foods that promote learning and mental health. We also need to educate parents about how to feed their children right, so that they aren’t so easily influenced by foods that their children want to eat.

And finally, we need to ban all advertising and marketing of unhealthy products to children. It should be illegal, in a civilized society, for companies that manufacture products that cause obesity and ADHD to promote those products to children, because it only creates a cycle of disease and chronic illness that brings society down, and the long-term effect of all of this is, of course, skyrocketing health care costs.

Once again, the answer to all of this is simply to change the foods and drinks that we feed our nation’s children. The answer is certainly not to be dosing our children with powerful narcotics such as Ritalin, because right now in this country we are raising a generation of brain-numbed children through our public school system and through the reckless, widespread pharmaceutical prescribing habits of many doctors and psychiatrists.

 - Endelig en artikkel som gir oss svar og løsninger, sier hunden.

Han har kraumet seg under et teppe  i sofaen med fredagens utgave av Dagens Næringslivs glossy magasin D2.  Ønskekonserten spiller gode, gamle plater ut av radiohøyttalerne, og ute er et mørkt. Hunden har en utpreget døsig søndag.

- Jeg tror lutefisken i går sitter lenge i kroppen, sier han.

- Kanskje tilbehøret du skuffet innpå, også bidrar, svarer jeg.- Men nå vet jeg hva du skal ordne til meg: Medisin mot søvforstyrrelser, Alzheimer og ADHD.

- Lider du av sånt?

- Nei, men den store nye trenden nå er å ta sånne piller selv om man er frisk. Det gjør oss smartere, raskere og våknere, og setter hjernene våre i høygear, sier hunden, og leser fra artikkelen i DN:

“Thorbjørn” er student i Trondheim. Han har diagnosen ADHD og blir behandlet med det reseptbelagte medikamentet Ritalin.  For dem med diagnosen ADHD virker Ritalin beroligende, for andre er virkningene helt annerledes. ”Thorbjørn”  tjener gode kroner på å selge piller til venner og kjente som ønsker å være ekstra våkne, energiske og konsentrerte over lang tid. Pris: 200 kroner per pille.

- En del kjøper når de er slitne etter en lang uke på studiet, og trenger krefte til å feste. Andre bruker det når de er slitne etter mye festing og trenger kreftene til å studere – når de har store oppgaver eller eksamener foran seg, sier “Thorbjørn” til DN. Sju prosent av amerikanske studenter oppga i 2005 at de tyr til ikke-medisinsk bruk av medikamenter for å prestere bedre, og nevrobiologer spår at dette bare er begynnelsen.

- Typisk amerikansk, slår jeg fast.

Hunden slenger magasinet bort til meg. Peker der det står at en av seks norske medisinerstudenter vet om noen som har prøvd prestasjonsfremmende medisiner.

Jeg leser videre i artikkelen, og mot slutten finner jeg det jeg leter etter, og nå er det jeg som leser høyt for hunden – det en avdelingsoverlege i Statens legemiddelinstitutt sier:

 - Det er en grunn til at medisinene er reseptbelagt. De har alle et avhengighets- og misbrukspotensial. Man kan tenke seg at hvis man begynner å  bruke disse medikamentene før man er 20 år, vil man ende opp med å bruke dem så lenge at hjernen kan bli påvirket og forandret. Hjernen kan gå i stå når du blir 50 på grunn av slitasje.

 - Betyr det at du nekter meg superpillene, spør hunden.

- Det gjør nok det.

- Hva vil du foreslå i stedet?

- Jeg kan strekke meg til omega 3 og ginseng, og så tror jeg vi går en tur. Ingenting er mer oppkvikkende enn det.

- Sant nok, men helst litt fart, takk, sier hunden. Han er allerede på beina og klar.

In our weekly staff meetings, everyone is required to bring something to take notes. But we rarely need to write stuff down, so a lot of people only bring post-its. For today’s impromptu meeting, we were all required to bring entire notebooks because our fearless leader had some “very important things to say.”

This is what I took away from it all:

~ Raj has weak ankles, so hold his elbow whenever you go down steps together
~ Something about hockey pucks being on a conveyor belt and how we should never put a baseball on it because it would mess everything up
~ Amy is a lady and will not participate in paint balling
~ Don’t be liked. Be respected.
~ In case there was any confusion, Raj and Andy I are business partners, not domestic partners
~ Liz will not be wearing a cocktail dress to the holiday party
~ Jordana cannot force us to bring dates to formal work events
~ Instead of handing out M&M’s, we should hand out Ritalin because then maybe we’d stay focused (wait, who’s giving out M&M’s?)

Yep. Real glad I brought my notebook.

JB

I was walking around today, and the thought occurred to me … why the heck do we treat already hyperactive children with stimulant medication? Wouldn’t this result in strung out, superlatively hyper children who will bounce from the walls to the ceiling, and straight into space?

One reason that I once heard (not from a researched source) was that the brains of children with ADD/ADHD are actually working at a slightly depressed frequency, and that this stimulation can work to provide them with more focus, thereby diminishing their symptoms. A second reason that is a bit more researched is that the stimulant class of drugs acts on the neurotransmitter DOPAMINE, and that this neurotransmitter is connected with motion, emotion and attention.

You ask what this has to do about music … well, I was just getting to that.

When I went to the library and was looking through books about ADHD, I came across one called “ADD/ADHD Behavior Change Resource Kit” by Dr. Grad L. Flick. In it, he suggests using music to help kids with ADHD. He even says, “Some ADD/ADHD students may benefit from background music, or from “white noise” … for some students a more highly rhythmic rock music may be of better help.”

My point is that it is often considered that relaxing, calming music is better to center a hyperactive child (bringing them down). However, like using stimulant medication to treat a child with ADHD, might using highly rhythmic, pulsing, complex music be just as, if not more beneficial for children with attention difficulties? Just some thoughts.

Originally Written by: DeMarco, Carolyn, M.D.

Dr. Carolyn DeMarco is a consultant in holistic medicine from British Columbia who specializes in women’s health issues and alternative medicine. She is a well-known author and journalist, and her latest book, Doctor DeMarco Answers Your Questions and an innovative CD-ROM have recently been released.

I DEPRESSION AND ALTERNATIVES TO PROZAC

TYPES There are many different types of depression. Depression which is cyclical where there are manic and depressive episodes is called bipolar depression. In unipolar depression, the common type of depression, there is just depression without the manic state. It is just the down state, and it can be mild, moderate or severe. It is characterized by changes in appetite and weight, disturbed sleep, fatigue, loss of energy, difficulty concentrating, feelings of worthlessness and suicidal thoughts or attempts. Reactive depression may be brought on by an identifiable event like the death of a parent, or loss of a job, but this is not true depression. Dysthymia means “bad mood” and refers to mild to moderate depression. There is also seasonal affective disorder, which many people in Canada are subject to.

Many factors affect depression including diet, excess sugar, sugar substitutes, coffee, alcohol and junk food, which can all create mental state abnormalities.

Depression can be a very serious illness and drugs can be a godsend for people with severe depression, especially those who are suicidal and unable to function in any way. There is a place for psychiatric drugs. I would never deny that. However, they are very much subject to overuse. There is less necessity for tranquilizers because there are excellent effective natural remedies.

ST. JOHN’S WORT However, there is a great role, in depression, for St. John’s wort (Hypericum perforatum). I have endorsed one specific kind of St. John’s wort because I have had a very good experience with it, and that is Flora’s St. John’s wort which comes from Greece and it is completely wild. They pick it on the hills, put it in vats of extra-virgin olive oil, let it sit in the sun for 1,000 hours, then take that oil and put it into capsules. It is not a so-called standardized extract, but I have found that it always works well in doses of three or four capsules from two to four times a day, depending on the severity of the depression. All herbs are better taken without food, because they will have an increased effect. Don’t take it with food unless you are having a lot of nausea. Take it between meals if you can. So take one dose at bedtime, one first thing in the morning and then just place your other doses sometime during the day.

Michael Murray surveyed all the St. John’s wort in the U.S. and found out there was much more being sold than there was actually plant material available. So, there are a lot of very weak or ineffective St. John’s wort products. So we will have to investigate that. At the very least, if you don’t want to try the Flora, try a St. John’s wort that is standardized to contain .3% hypericin. There are many good ones out there. Natural Factors and many other companies make some good standardized extracts of St. John’s wort. So we still use that 0.3% hypericin as a marker for quality.

It grows everywhere in the countryside of Ontario and is also very common in B.C. It is actually considered a noxious weed because it grows so well. St. John’s wort has a balsam-like smell. It has yellow flowers and there are little dots on the leaves which contain hypericin, one of the active ingredients. Nobody knew exactly how St. John’s wort worked in the beginning; they thought the action was due to the hypericin. Now they have found that St. John’s wort affects almost every neurotransmitter in the brain. It affects serotonin, dopamine, GABA and norepine-phrine. Some of you may know about the drug Effexor (used for depression) which targets two receptors: norepinephrine and serotonin. The new trend in antidepressants is to target specific neuroreceptors in the brain. However, St. John’s wort actually acts on all the receptors. So it has a complex action, much more complex than they thought at the beginning. There are ten active ingredients of which hypericin is only one. And that is why I still feel there is a place for whole plant extracts. Otherwise the hypericin is a good marker of quality control. And usually St. John’s wort is standardized to contain .3% hypericin.

STUDIES St. John’s wort became accepted in the medical profession when a study was published in The British Medical Journal in August, 1996 which reviewed all the highest quality trials on St. John’s wort. The authors concluded that St. John’s wort was a very effective treatment for mild to moderate depression. They were careful to investigate all the trials and choose only the best-designed and highest quality. So they were very stringent. Of the 37 studies reviewed, only 23 were accepted. A total of 1,757 patients with mild to moderate depression were surveyed, and St. John’s wort was found to be significantly superior to a placebo or a dummy pill. It was also determined that St. John’s wort effects were equal to a series of standard antidepressant drugs such as imipramine and amitriptyline, but there were far less side effects. It really was very good news. The studies used products in which the hypericin was standardized to .3%. In three other studies, St. John’s wort was compared to standard antidepressants. Basically, they found that the reduction in depression was 63% for St. John’s wort and 58% for standard antidepressants.
The medical community is very cautious, and they suggest that longer-term studies of St. John’s wort are required. Recently, a widely published long-term study performed by the makers of Zoloft comparing St. John’s wort with standard antidepressants was inconclusive because the St. John’s wort used in the study was not properly standardized.

SAFETY You may have seen information in the news lately about the safety of St. John’s wort, because if you are an AIDS patient, St. John’s wort will actually increase the excretion of drugs through the liver, and you may have to change your dosage. So it is not considered appropriate to take with AIDS drugs. But basically, it has a very wide safety margin. In one study, they monitored over 3,000 patients (and by the way, most drug studies don’t monitor such a large number). Over 600 private general practitioners participated in this study, and they found that 80% of individuals with mild to moderate depression showed an improvement. Side effects were rare and mild. So the experience of general practitioners using St. John’s wort was that it was both safe and effective.

SIDE EFFECTS The documented side effects of St. John’s wort are very low, 2.43% overall. The main side effects are nausea, stomach upset, and occasional allergic reactions. The remaining side effects were almost negligible: .4% fatigue and a few incidents of anxiety. There has been some discussion about photosensitivity with St. John’s wort, but it is not a major problem. If you want to improve your tanning, it will help, but fair skinned, blue-eyed people should be somewhat cautious; they tend to occasionally experience an allergic reaction. If you know anything about drug profiles (e.g. Prozac), the side effects and contra-indications go on for about four to five pages, and this is true of almost every antidepressant. These are very powerful drugs. Prozac has a lot of side effects and one of them is complete sexual dysfunction. The average Prozac prescription is given after an interview of about three to five minutes, so a lot of Prozac is given out without an adequate history of the patient.

If you are taking Prozac for any of the milder problems such as mild to moderate depression, moderately severe PMS, menopause, or other ailments for which Prozac is now being prescribed, you shouldn’t go suddenly off your drugs. If you are on the SSRIs (Prozac, Paxil or Zoloft) or tricyclic antidepressants like Elavil (amitriptyline) or Tofranil (imipramine), you must gradually reduce them over four weeks until the St. John’s wort starts to kick in. Some antidepressants like Paxil have a serious rebound so that you will feel seriously worse when you go off them suddenly, and you can have a severe crash. Even missing a dose of Paxil can result in a severe emotional crash. Ideally, you should only go off your drugs under a doctor’s supervision. As you gradually decrease your anti-depressants, add one St. John’s wort the first week, two the second week, three the third, and then the fourth week you are off. The book by psychiatrist Hyla Cass called St. John’s Wort: A Common Sense Guide to Understanding and Using St. John’s Wort (Avery, 1998) provides a practical guide to using St. John’s wort including how to make the switch from drug treatments.

SEVERE DEPRESSION Study: Currently, the general consensus of the medical community is that you cannot use St. John’s wort for severe depression. However, in a study of severely depressed patients, high doses of St. John’s wort produced equivalent results to the standard antidepressants. This was a randomized controlled multi-center test, which means they had divided two groups into two parts: one group received a high dose (kind of a double dosage) of St. John’s wort, the other received a high dose antidepressant which was Elavil. This was only one study and it hasn’t been widely published, but it is very interesting because the results showed that both treatment regimens were equally effective, except that there were almost no side effects, of course, in the St. John’s wort group. There were more side effects with the exceptionally high doses, but compared to the antidepressant group in which 41% (four out of every ten patients) had dry mouth, stomach upset, sweating, constipation – only 23% of the St. John’s wort group had side effects and these were a lot milder.

SEASONAL AFFECTIVE DISORDER (SAD) You can also use St. John’s wort for seasonal affective disorder. Many people suffer from seasonal affective disorder in the winter when the light diminishes, and crave food, eat a lot, sleep a lot and become depressed. That is seasonal affective disorder in a nutshell. St. John’s wort works like a dream. Four capsules of St. John’s wort at night is very effective in preventing that decline in mood. There are studies showing that the results of St. John’s wort for seasonal affective disorder are comparable to Prozac. There is no problem with long-term usage. For SAD, of course, you don’t have to take it in the summer. It is very, very safe.

LABOUR AND CHILDBIRTH We also use a tincture of St. John’s wort during labour to lessen the pains of contraction, and for uterine contractions after labour, there is nothing like St. John’s wort tincture. Midwives have always used it. Historically, they didn’t use it for depression. Maybe they didn’t have the amount of depression we have now.

HERBAL TINTURES AND OILS You can also make your own St. John’s wort in an alcoholic tincture and it is very easy to make. You won’t know exactly how to adjust the dosage, but you can use it for mild depression. To extract the active ingredients you need alcohol. You just grind it up with vodka or brandy or some other alcohol, let it sit for about eight weeks and then strain and discard the herb. It is very simple. You are making a herbal tincture. St. John’s wort also makes a lovely oil. You put the flowers and the plants in olive oil, which will then turn red, and it is very good for joint aches and pains. In homeopathy, we use it for nerve injuries and head and spine trauma.

ATTENTION DEFICIT DISORDER St. John’s wort can also be very helpful for children with ADD and ADHD. It is very safe to use. It helps calm them down.

THYROID SUPPLEMENTS There are several natural products that can augment an antidepressant. The thyroid supplements T3 and T4 have been used for treatment-resistant depression.

TRYPTOPHAN Another thing that you can use is tryptophan, which is an amino acid, one of the building blocks of protein. I am a big fan of tryptophan. Tryptophan is very good for insomnia and you usually use 2000 mg. at night. It is a great sleep aid; it is totally natural and has no side effects. It is also good for the sleep disorders of chronic fatigue syndrome, grief and menopause. In Canada, it is only available by prescription because a batch of Japanese genetically-engineered tryptophan caused serious health problems and it was taken off the market in the US.

5-HTP (5-hydroxy-tryptophan) can be used instead of tryptophan. 5-HTP is available without a prescription in health food stores. But where you would use 1000 mg of tryptophan, you need only 100 mg of 5-HTP. and that is the ratio, ten to one.

COGNITIVE THERAPY This is an inexpensive therapy which has a very good track record. Studies have demonstrated that it not only relieves depression, but it has a much lower relapse rate than any drug, or even herb, because it deals with some of the root causes of depression. Over two dozen controlled studies have demonstrated that by the end of 12 to 20 weeks there is a 70% reduction in depression. So this is a really great therapy. It is hard to find a cognitive practitioner, but you can do it yourself. Some of the books that instruct you how to do it yourself are, Feeling Good Again, The New Mood Therapy, and Feeling Good Again Handbook by David Burns, psychiatrist. It is based on the premise that all thoughts are created by beliefs, attitudes and interpretations. Since your thought interpretations cause your emotional reaction, you can change your original thoughts. Depressed thoughts are dominated by pervasive negativity, thoughts like, “nothing ever goes right in my life; bad things always happen to me; life isn’t fair.” Other thought patterns that can lead to depression are: “I should be perfect; other people should be perfect; life should always be smooth,” things like that.

NEGATIVITY If you analyze the thoughts of a depressed person, it seems to be the interpretation that causes the problem. For instance, if a car runs over your foot, an appropriate response would be, “This is terrible, and I will be more careful in the future”. An inappropriate interpretation would be: “This type of thing always happens to me; nothing ever goes right.” In other words, generalizing from the specific to the general. When you look at your depressed thoughts, they are a repetitive cycle that go over and over in your head, and they can be summarized as Louise Hay says by three phrases: “My body doesn’t work; my life doesn’t work; my relationships don’t work.” I think that covers everything. “Something is not working and it never works for me.” You can’t be positive all the time; but you don’t want to dwell in this negativity and live there. When you catch yourself repeating the same negative thought to yourself over and over again in a repetitive manner, this causes depression. By the way, almost everybody’s tapes are similar, although you may think that you are the only one who has them. So these books teach you how to reprogram your thinking. They are based on excellent studies and they are teaching general practitioners how to do it. But you can do it yourself. That is the great thing. It is very cheap.

GINGKO BILOBA has a natural antidepressant effect, and is a great memory herb. It is very good for treatment-resistant depression. If you are not having good results with your antidepressant, you can add the gingko and it will augment the results. Over forty double-blind studies showed that it increases circulation to the brain. So it is very useful for stroke and for stabilization of Alzheimer’s disease. It doesn’t reverse Alzeimer’s, but it improves the circulation; it improves the memory. It is a fantastic herb and has a frequent antidepressant effect. You can increase the dose; even tripling or quadrupling the dosage has been done because there are no side effects. However, its full effect can take up to 12 weeks to develop. The gingko biloba leaf extract should be standardized to at least 24% gingko flavone glycosides. You have to look very carefully on the package and see if you can find this. Sisu, Genestra, Gaia, St. Francis Herb and Thorne are high quality brands. Genestra and Thorne are not always easy to find because they are professional brands (try Supplements Plus stores). Shawla Herbs are very good too. Gingko biloba is very well researched. In over 44 studies involving 9,772 patients, there were virtually no side effects. Twenty-one subjects had some stomach upset, seven had headache, and six had dizziness. You will never see a drug with a profile like that. Another study of elderly patients (aged 51 to 78) who had depression unresponsive to any drug found that when gingko biloba was added, they had a 50% decrease in their depression score, a dramatic response. The placebo group had a 10 % decrease.

AROMATHERAPY is wonderful for depression because it goes right to the limbic system. Lavender is a great antidepressant, but it has to be a high quality lavender. I do prefer the Young Living Oils because I know the quality has been certified. There are other high quality oils from France; they aren’t the only high quality oils, but you won’t pay anything less that $25 for a good bottle of lavender. It should be certified. Most of the lavender in the stores is low quality. If you paid $5 or $10 for a bottle of lavender you are getting something that is synthetic or has chemicals added to it, and it can actually burn your skin. You can apply good lavender to your skin; you can breathe it. We use a number of oils. Clary sage is another oil that has a hormonal balancing effect and it also is a natural euphoric. It is a very nice oil also. And there are blends in Young Living like Peace and Calming which are very good. They have a lovely combination called Joy which is very uplifting. Aromatherapy is actually very complex and there are a lot of studies which demonstrate its effectiveness.

II ANXIETY AND ALTERNATIVES TO VALIUM

KAVA KAVA Kava kava is a wonderful herb from the South Seas and is harvested when it grows to six to eight feet in height. It acts on various parts of the brain, and it may even have an anti-convulsive effect. It could be an anti-epileptic as well, though that hasn’t been proven. Again, these herbs don’t just act on one part of the brain; they have multiple actions. Kava kava has wonderful qualities. It induces tranquility, sociability and a deep restful sleep with no side effects. What could be more pleasant? This is the perfect baby boomer herb with all the great sociable effects, no side effects and no addiction. It is excellent. And although the studies haven’t been too extensive, it compares to Valium in its effect. The active ingredients are kava lactones. The label should specify that the kava lactones are between 30 and 70%.
One study, which compared kava kava to oxazepam (a cousin of Valium) found that they both reduced anxiety equivalently, but there were no side effects with the kava kava. And as you know, Valium (diazepam), oxazepam and that whole family of drugs are addictive, as well as having drowsiness as the main side effect. In another study a group of subjects taking kava kava was compared to a group who took a placebo (a dummy pill). After four weeks the kava kava had produced an improved sense of well being, a marked reduction in anxiety and no side effects. In one well-designed study, it is described as the perfect herb for menopause because it reduced menopausal symptoms like anxiety and depression, as well as reducing hot flashes and other menopausal symptoms.
Kava kava is an excellent herb, but it must be of good quality. Seventy percent kava lactones is ideal, but you will find that not many brands have that concentration. You take 100 mg. of the kava kava standardized to 70% kava lactones. Natural Factors and many other companies have standardized extracts, but some of them are only 30%. If the active ingredients are only 30%, then you would have to double the dosage. There are a number of excellent companies like Thorne and Seroyal, which have very high quality supplements. Gaia is very good. Genestra is excellent. But some companies’ products are totally useless. There is a lot of crappy kava kava which is not standardized and may only contain 10% kava lactones. You will not notice much effect with that, and people will think it is not effective.

VALERIAN You can try valerian. I don’t find valerian is strong enough for a lot of the anxiety that we are facing today, even in combination with other herbs.

MELATONIN There is no doubt that we are not getting enough rest and one of the things you can do to help your anxiety is to sleep in a room that is completely dark with no light coming in at all. That is very, very important for proper regeneration. So blacken out your windows and make sure there is no light coming in your room at night. That will increase your secretion of melatonin. By the way, melatonin is very helpful for sleep and for people who are working shift work. Melatonin is a very useful supplement in doses of one to three mg one hour before bedtime, and it is very, very safe.

Many tranquilizers are so addictive that you must decrease them very slowly over a one to two month period. You would never do it suddenly. If you don’t, you won’t go off the drugs successfully. And at the same time increase your herbs and increase your nutritional supplements.

III ATTENTION DEFICIT DISORDER AND ALTERNATIVES TO RITALIN

As you know, Ritalin is over-prescribed, and ADD is over diagnosed. The National Institutes of Health are actually conducting an investigation on the over-prescription of Ritalin. Sometimes it is prescribed to keep a child sedated and in line, and a very creative and bright child can be well sedated with Ritalin often without adequate testing. There was one area in B.C. where 10% of the children were being given Ritalin. That is a lot of kids, and there is no evidence that it actually improves long-term school performance.

If a teacher recommends it, and the parents don’t want to give it to the child, the child can be removed from school. Dr. Peter Breggin, a psychiatrist who wrote Talking Back to Ritalin states that the diagnostic criteria focus on behaviours which parents find frustrating and disruptive, and conflicts between children and adults are redefined as diseases or disorders within the children. He believes that Ritalin suppresses creative, spontaneous and autonomous activity in children making them more docile and obedient, and more willing to comply with boring tasks in the classroom.

There are children who have severe ADD who cannot survive in the school system, but so many more can easily be helped through natural alternatives. First of all the proper diagnosis must be secured. Secondly, natural alternatives must always be tried first and drugs only as a last resort, not the first approach to ADD.

ALLERGIES Frequently, diet is absolutely crucial. It is important to anyone with any kind of mental disorder. Children should go off all sugar immediately and should be examined for food allergies. Studies have found certain food allergies common to children with ADD. Sugar is number one. Common allergens are sugar, wheat, dairy, food additives, egg, corn and citrus. You can use the elimination diet to find out what your kids are allergic to. The first day, you must take them off all food except rice and chicken, then daily you add back foods one at a time and watch for the allergic reaction. Kids can also be allergic to dust, pollen, moulds, animal dander and chemicals.

Dr. Doris Rapp is a pediatrician who filmed children before and after ingesting sugar. Beforehand, children who had been behaving very well, after being given a dose of sugar, started attacking their mothers, actually hitting their mothers and their handwriting deteriorated completely. It is a very dramatic video. She wrote a book called, Is This Your Child? which describes common allergic reactions of children. They may have circles under their eyes, and I have seen young children about a year old with a severe reactions to certain foods just arch their head back and scream. These allergic reactions are sometimes almost immediate and sometimes delayed.

NUTRITIONAL DEFICIENCIES Children also have multiple nutritional deficiencies. It is shocking what kids are eating. They are eating a lot of fried food and sugar and very little real nutrition. Sugar is constantly being pushed on these kids. Of course, now we have MacDonalds in the schools and it is a nightmare. And often the parents are reluctant to get them off the junk food because you have to go through at least a week or two of terrible trauma as you wean them off all the junk food and sugar. But it is more than worth it.

NUTRITIONAL TESTING There is a wonderful pharmacy in Ottawa called Nutri-Chem Pharmacy who do detailed nutritional testing with children. They work with Down’s Syndrome children, but they can test any child for nutritional deficiencies. Then they will formulate vitamins in a liquid specific to that child’s deficiency. They are very good, and can be reached at 1-888-384-7855 or www.nutrichem.com.

NUTRITIONAL SUPPLEMENTS Hyperactive children are commonly deficient in zinc, iron and B-vitamins. Studies show that zinc supplementation improves memory, thinking and I.Q. Super green drinks like Greens Plus, Barley Plus, blue green algae or spirulina provide trace minerals that are very important for children. I highly recommend them for ADD. All the green drinks are very useful.

Children also need omega-3 fatty acids, flaxseed oil or fish oil for learning. They cannot learn without it. Gingko biloba can be used with ADD and calcium and magnesium are very important for ADD children because magnesium has a calming effect. I am using St. John’s wort with ADD kids and it is also very helpful.
We can also use herbs like valerian, passionflower and lemon balm. These are calming herbs; they are very, very mild and can be also used for sleeping.

TOXIC METALS Accumulation of lead, cadmium and other heavy metals can also cause ADD in some children.

AROMATHERAPY is wonderful for ADD. Dr. Freedman has been studying children and found that breathing in lavender, orange or citrus oils can actually change the brainwaves and calm the children down. Nick Begich mentioned that you can teach children to change their brainwaves by using biofeedback. This is a relatively new technology for ADD. They look at their waves on the screen and they change them to a calmer brainwave. Brain Gym is another thing, an extract which unites the right and the left brain.

A wonderful doctor in Vancouver, Gabor Mate, MD, feels that ADD is a symptom of our speeded up age and overstimulation (e.g. television images which change every few seconds). He has written a book called Scattered Minds: A New Look at the Origins and Healing of Attention Deficit Disorder (for more info see www.scatteredminds.com). He feels that ADD may result from early childhood parental and environmental issues that “morph into a biochemical one”. There is an excellent book called Ritalin Free Kids by Judith and Robert Ullman who treated 400 ADHD kids with homeopathy. The other book that I really like is called Natural Treatments for ADD and Hyperactivity by naturopathic doctor, Skye Weintraub.

“People who advocate medication as the first way to make children behave, without exploring their life situation and real needs might as well treat unhappiness with cocaine!” (Psychiatrist Dr. Felix Yarochevsky & psychotherapist David Schatzky in Globe & Mail editorial). A lot of these children have very complex family situations and we should at least consider that there are other factors going on before we just sedate them as fast as possible.

Also refer to Michael Lyon’s book, Healing the Hyperactive Brain and his website www.pureliving.com. Dr. Lyon advocates the gingko product AD-FX and Memory-FX by Herb Tech. Also see his article on ADD on the Consumer Health website www.consumerhealth.org.

* * *

Dr. DeMarco’s new book Dr. DeMarco Answers Your Questions contains special sections outlining alternative treatments for schizophrenia, depression, anxiety and A.D.D. Her book is available at Consumer Health for $19.95 plus GST. Her CD-ROM contains the contents of both her books. Dr. DeMarco’s website is www.demarcomd.com

http://www.thorne.com/media/alternative_medicine_review/2000/Volume_5/Number_5/Attention_Deficit.pdf  Click on the web link to view a paper by Paris M. Kidd, PhD, titled ADHD in Children: Rationale for its Integrative Management.

The following is quoted from the paper and it gives a general idea of the ongoing arguements for different treatments of ADHD.

“An intense debate has developed around the diagnosis, etiology, and medical managment of ADHD. Parent groups, consumer advocacy organizations, and progressive physicians are calling for alternatives to methylphenidate and the many other potent stimulants used to treat ADHD, while pharmaceutical interests and physicians particularily oriented to prescribing pharmaceuticals attempt to defend the status quo (currently in the United States, between 1.5 million and 3 million ADHD children are likely taking methylphenidate).”

Methylphenidate is the technical term for Ritalin, which acts on the central nervous system much like cocaine and has a potential for severe side effects and addictive abuse. As the above excerpt voices, ADHD has become a lightening rod for controversy.

Gestern Abend konnte man in Sat 1 bei Kerner das geballte UnWissen über Methylphenidat bewundern.

http://www.sat1.de/kerner/sendung/themen/41599/

Dass Doping am Arbeitsplatz bei unserer momentanen Wirtschaftslage und dem Druck auf die Arbeitnehmer zunehmend ein Thema ist, und auch dass Methylphenidat dort missbraucht wird, kann ich mir gut vorstellen. Ich finde das auch alles andere als gut, gesundheitsschädlich und für Betroffene von ADHS kontraproduktiv, weil das Medikament, dass vielen erst ein normales Leben ermöglicht so wieder durch den Schmutz gezogen wird.

Leider waren die eingeladenen Experten keine (meiner Meinung nach) und Seitenhiebe, sogar von Kerner gab es für Eltern die ihren Kindern mit ADHS MPH geben. Der Zukunftsforscher, der was Medikamente betrifft wohl recht ahnungslos ist, wartet darauf, dass es ein Leistungssteigerndes Präparat ohne Nebenwirkungen gibt (der sollte sich mal schlau machen, was Nebenwikrungen eigentlich sind), die Psychologin findet Methylphenidat nimmt den Kindern ihre Kreativität, und zum guten Schluss wirft man das Benzodiazepin Lorazepam mit Methylphenidat in einen Topf!

Gratulation Herr Kerner, TOLLE SENDUNG!!!!

Edit: Gute Recherche kann sich Kerner im Moment aber wohl nicht leisten, es muss wohl gerade reißerich und nach der schon bereits vorgefassten Meinung der Mehrheit sein: Kein Schwein möchte Kerner sehen, wen wunderts?

From “Young Frankenstein”
Dr. Frederick Frankenstein: [to Igor] Now that brain that you gave me. Was it Hans Delbruck’s?
Igor: [pause, then] No.
Dr. Frederick Frankenstein: Ah! Very good. Would you mind telling me whose brain I DID put in?
Igor: Then you won’t be angry?
Dr. Frederick Frankenstein: I will NOT be angry.
Igor: Abby Someone.
Dr. Frederick Frankenstein: [pause, then] Abby Someone. Abby who?
Igor: Abby Normal.
Dr. Frederick Frankenstein: [pause, then] Abby Normal?
Igor: I’m almost sure that was the name.
Dr. Frederick Frankenstein: [chuckles, then] Are you saying that I put an abnormal brain into a seven and a half foot long, fifty-four inch wide GORILLA?
[grabs Igor and starts throttling him]
Dr. Frederick Frankenstein: Is that what you’re telling me?”

It is, somewhere in the fantasy world of Beaver Cleaver and black and white television, embedded in Americana that “normal” is definable. It is not that easy. Frankly, normal is defined only by what one’s surroundings are, and what one wants normal to be. My brain, thank you very much, is not normal and what a blessing that is.

So to say that someone is not “normal” is a way of, quite simply, dismissing them as less than you. Of course, I am not normal. Many of you reading this would be considered by others and even by your self not “normal” becaus eyou may be creative, or overly energetic, bouncy and hard to pin down. Like the horse Spirit or Pooh’s Tigger, others are always asking “what’s wrong with you” or “if you could only settle down”. But why?

I like being “Abby Normal”. Even then, the singing, dancing Peter Boyle (RIP) was the most lovable and admirable character in the film, I believe. (sure, there was that part about the brain/body part transplant but let’s not get off the subject here…)

I was with friends discussing this very issue yesterday and was reminded that words, no matter how intelligent the people are (or perhaps directly related to the high IQ of those using them), can carry powerful, deep-seeded blocking mechanisms. Tell someone they are not “normal” and you may lose them. Say it to me and I will laugh at you, and tell you “why in the world would I want to be “normal”?” But others will attach that to a hurtful  place, one where they will regress, fight back, even shut down. Which is where talking about these types of things, the root of one’s own roadblocks, really helps me. I’ve seen it help others. It’s just a natural thing: face an overgrown root and trim it back so that the pathway is clear. Pick up some trash that’s piled up, so I can walk in that direction… remove the shrapnel so the blood flows naturally (note I did not say ‘normally’!)… set aside the rubble  (or designate it a monument if you must) so that you may make room for new, and wonderful personal architecture. Do not do this? Your life will become cluttered, the pressure will mount, the doors will blow off and you will find your self in a world of self-abuse, repetitive self-medication or simple pain.

A dear friend and I discussed the issue of medication, for example, and how difficult it is to throw a diagnosis, a blanket catch all on what is happening in someone’s neuropathways, and expect it to be the answer. It’s just too complicated. A broken arm, simple. A misfiring brain with ADD symptoms or heavy mood swings, or one connected to drugs or alcohol in an addictive way, not so simple. The doctor must listen, the person must communicate, they must change, they must try new things. they must try nothing. the science is so new, so changing, so intertwined with holistic needs and organic circumstances that i agree with her in that (our opinions only) 80 per cent of the medications given to create a “normal” brain function are probably just “thrown out there” first instead of way down the line of self-discovery when the ability to understand what is happening with someone’s “feelings”, “emotions” and “thoughts” has matured to a point of cognitive enlightenment.

For example, I did not take any medication for the ‘order’ (sted ‘disorder’) they call ADD until I was in my 40’s. And it took a long time and a proactive set of doctors and discussions,  to settle on what I do today to feel like my “self” and function in a manner that is akin to what feels natural to me. And I am not certain this is what i will do for ever… As I contiunually read, research and discuss ways to become my complete, unblocked self. But I must be healthy, and my body clean and coherent, and so there are other important things i do to keep the pathways clear  so my brain (as abnormal as it is) can do it’s thing. I recommend three books here in these areas if they interest you, “Driven To Distraction” and “Delivered From Distraction” more of which you can find on the author’s web-site which I will link here. I recommend the books only, as they have been helpful to me and others in my family. I also recommend another i have been reading by James Hollis, “Finding meaning In The Second Half of Life” even if you are not yet in the second half of your life. Again, these are authors I have enjoyed, I am not espousing nor recommending them as doctors or individuals philosophically. That is your choice. I also like German Chocolate cake and peanut butter sandwiches at 3 am, so clearly you are on your own with anything I say.

I want to feel like myself. That is what  I work towards daily and what I wish for my loved ones searching for a place to stand still, while they seek a  direction in which to walk slowly.  (or quickly, if that is their nature!)   And I do not wish  it to be alone for any of us, for isolation is the dark-side of connectivity, a nurturing and healthy stnadard of human existence. Yet the universe holds that key… a thought for another day on this journey. Where rain drops but does not fall,  lest the semanticist in me see that nurturing natural occurence as something negative, rather than positive.

I leave you with one more thought from one of Hollywood’s great musical moments. Feel free to sing along to the Monster’s great debut…

Dr. Frederick Frankenstein: [singing] If you’re blue, and you don’t know where to go to, why don’t you go where fashion sits…
The Monster: ‘UTTIN’ ON THE ‘IIIIIIIIIIHHHHTTTSSSSS”!

(The photo attached was an attention getter; yours truly playing the bi-polar role of “Brenda Gale/Abe Drangle” in the world premiere musical “Murder on the high C’s” back in 2007; below you’lll find brenda’s “better half” and my preferred role.)

"Let me introduce my self, Abraham Drangle, used car salesman."

Einmal mehr zeigt sich am Beispiel  Robert Enke, wie perfekt die landesweite Inszenierung und Indokrinierung der Massen mittlerweile funktioniert.

Waren es bisher Prinzessinnen (Diana) oder Zombies (Reste von Michael Jackson), die in einem gigantischen Medienrummel zu Grabe getragen wurden, so reicht heute ein depressiver Selbstmörder aus , um einen erneuten Probelauf  zu veranstalten, wie schnell man die Massen auf Trab und in eine Richtung bringen kann.

Dabei war Robert Enke – gesellschaftlich und in seiner Bedeutung für die Menschheit gesehen, ein Nichts. Außer Bälle halten und eine Kleinfamilie ernähren war da nichts, was man anführen könnte, um Life-Übetragungen in der ARD und anderen Fernsehsendern zu rechtfertigen und die gedruckten Medien mit ellenlangen Schlagzeilen und Artikeln zuzukleistern.

Oder fällt Ihnen ein, mit was Robert Enke die Welt zum Besseren verändert hätte?

Er war einer der völlig überbezahlten Gladiatioren des Profifußballs, wie sie weltweit zu zehntausenden mittlerweile wochenends in die Stadien einziehen, beklatscht und ausgebuht, aber immer wohlhabend,  Symbole eines Sports, der Nationalismus transportiert und organisiert und es hundertausenden ermöglicht, DOITSCHLAND dumpf zu brüllen statt sich für eine bessere Zukunft und eine menschlichere Welt einzusetzen.  Daß er daran zerbrochen ist, tut mir leid, aber die Trauerhysterie verfolgt andere Zwecke.

Nicht nur der Zwang der letzten Wochen, Freude über den Mauerfall und das Ende des besseren Deutschlands, durch Politik und Medien verordnet und propagiert, empfinden zu müssen, muß jeden, der gelernt hat, einfachen Antworten zu misstrauen, bedenklich stimmen.

Auch der Trauerzwang, der prima direkt danach wie am Schnürchen funktioniert und erneut Millionen erreicht, ist – distanziert betrachtet – ein Albtraum.

Sicher – es sind – bedingt durch Mangel an Bildung und Ruhigstellung durch Ritalin, zunehmend weniger, die sich der medial verordneten Freude und Trauer entziehen (können), aber es ist zu fragen, wem nützt das Ganze?

Die Antwort darauf kann ich (noch) nicht geben, vermutlich aber liegt sie in der Ankündigung, deutlich mehr Soldaten nach Afghanistan zu schicken und deutlich mehr tote Jungs und Mädels zurück zu bekommen, ebenso wie in der Funktion solcher Kampagnen, von wahren Problemen effektiv abzulenken.

Und es ist für die, die hier die Macht in Wirtschaft, Politik und Medien innehaben, allemal beruhigend zu wissen, daß Mauerfall, Schweinegrippe und ein toter Torwart ausreichen, um die Leute von Fragen nach Umwelt, Krieg, Armut, Arbeit und Bildung etc. abzuhalten.

Fangen Sie an oder fahren Sie fort, Fragen zu stellen, wenn die nächste Kampagne anrollt…

Die Antworten werden zunehmend beunruhigend sein.