Diagnosing ADHD

[BrokenQuill92]

https://youtu.be/7XsZjgrcNPU

What do you guys think of ADHD? Is it over diagnosed? Under diagnosed? Misdiagnosed? Or bullshit?

[vorlon13]

I got in trouble on another forum for voicing an opinion on this topic.

Maybe the thread needs to be neutered ?

[rexbeccarox]

It's probably overdiagnosed, but it definitely exists. As a 38 year old with pretty severe ADHD, believe me: I know of what I speak. The most productive months of my life were on Concerta, but it saps my creativity, so I don't take it anymore.

[Lemonvariable72]

As someone that was misdiagnosed, yes over diagnosis is horrid and rampant. Especially because treatment usually means Ritalin is Dexatrin. I would argue that these treatments are hardly treatments at all and are really just a pathetic attempt to make kids behave "normally". What's more is that a number of other neurological differences can manifest similar symptoms at a young age.
I will use anecdotal evidence here, but I am a person with high functioning autism that was misdiagnosed as adhd at the age of 5 in 1996. I am still recovering from the detrimental effects of Ritalin treatment that ended when I was 16. I was lucky enough that I was allowed to be normal for the summers but while in school my head was a cloud that led to horrible emotional ups and downs as the drug left my system. Every summer the withdrawal would begin about a few days after school and would last at a week. During this I was would go into a total meltdown and at one point even locked myself in the bathroom at my aunts cabin, screaming, and drew apocalypic symbols on the windows. But after that week I got to be a normal kid.
What people need to understand is that ritalin loses most of it effectiveness on adults with adhd where it often affects adults in way much worse than it does kids. Also people with ADHD tend to statistically skew towards higher intelligence levels. So instead of "treating" them, they need environments where they use their own abilities and flourish.

[rexbeccarox]

As someone that was misdiagnosed, yes over diagnosis is horrid and rampant. Especially because treatment usually means Ritalin is Dexatrin. I would argue that these treatments are hardly treatments at all and are really just a pathetic attempt to make kids behave "normally". What's more is that a number of other neurological differences can manifest similar symptoms at a young age.
I will use anecdotal evidence here, but I am a person with high functioning autism that was misdiagnosed as adhd at the age of 5 in 1996. I am still recovering from the detrimental effects of Ritalin treatment that ended when I was 16. I was lucky enough that I was allowed to be normal for the summers but while in school my head was a cloud that led to horrible emotional ups and downs as the drug left my system. Every summer the withdrawal would begin about a few days after school and would last at a week. During this I was would go into a total meltdown and at one point even locked myself in the bathroom at my aunts cabin, screaming, and drew apocalypic symbols on the windows. But after that week I got to be a normal kid.
What people need to understand is that ritalin loses most of it effectiveness on adults with adhd where it often affects adults in way much worse than it does kids. Also people with ADHD tend to statistically skew towards higher intelligence levels. So instead of "treating" them, they need environments where they use their own abilities and flourish.

That's how I've attempted to treat mine over the years. I do like to think of it as having a gift of sorts, rather than a disability, but it's hard to think of it that way when you can't accomplish things "normal" people do every day. Just riding a bus or train is difficult, for example, because I have to hyper-focus, which saps me mentally, or I'll more often than not miss my stop.

[BrokenQuill92]

I'm wavering between over diagnosed and poopy. Somehow I doubt adhd in anyone under 7. But I definitely think it's WAY over diagnosed. Between people being sucky parents, small children being natural loonies, and profit incentives for big pharma you can't throw a stone without hitting someone with adhd. That's just ridiculous. They should definitely come up with a more narrow and less vague set of symptoms and a better way to root out human error.

[Lemonvariable72]

I'm wavering between over diagnosed and poopy. Somehow I doubt adhd in anyone under 7. But I definitely think it's WAY over diagnosed. Between people being sucky parents, small children being natural loonies, and profit incentives for big pharma you can't throw a stone without hitting someone with adhd. That's just ridiculous. They should definitely come up with a more narrow and less vague set of symptoms and a better way to root out human error.

I don't there is a neurological basis. Also the APA guidlines for diagnosing ADHD are not all that bad, it just a lot of pediatricians don't follow them closely enough.

http://www.technologyreview.com/news/408...-for-adhd/

ADHD is one of the most common childhood disorders in the United States, affecting about three to five percent of school-aged kids. Scientists have already uncovered several genetic variations that raise risk for ADHD, which is likely caused by a complex combination of genetic and other factors. The biggest genetic culprit identified to date is a variation in a receptor for dopamine–one of the brain’s signaling molecules–which increases risk for the disorder by 20 to 30 percent.
To try to understand how this variation influences attention, Shaw and colleagues scanned the brains of 105 children with ADHD and 103 healthy controls between 8 and 16 years old, repeating the scans in a subset of children through their teen years. They also determined how many copies, if any, the children carried of the target variation.
Scientists found that ADHD-afflicted children with the high-risk genetic variation seemed to be worst off at younger ages–parts of the cortex crucial for attention were thinner in this group than in both their normal counterparts and in children with ADHD lacking that variation. However, the high-risk variant group also showed the best chance of recovery. In contrast to other children with ADHD, the cortices of these children naturally normalized by age 16. Like gangly teenagers growing into their too-long limbs, they were also most likely to have grown out of their ADHD symptoms. “People who have the risk gene have a distinctive pattern of brain growth that normalizes with age,” says Shaw. “That might be what’s driving the good clinical outcome they have.” The findings were published this week in the.
Scientists don’t yet know exactly how this genetic marker contributes to differences in brain size or in behavior. But previous research has shown that receptors with the variation don’t respond to dopamine as effectively as other forms of the gene. “That biological action of the brain may help to explain why in this study, the cortical thickness was thinner in the people who carried this variant,” says, professor of psychiatry at the University of Toronto. “The reasoning would be that people with that allele would have a bit less nerve transmission activity in areas of their brain where this is located.” Kennedy likens grey matter in the brain to muscle, which gets bigger with exercise. “The more you use it, the more synapses are formed and the more volume is created.”

[Lemonvariable72]

As someone that was misdiagnosed, yes over diagnosis is horrid and rampant. Especially because treatment usually means Ritalin is Dexatrin. I would argue that these treatments are hardly treatments at all and are really just a pathetic attempt to make kids behave "normally". What's more is that a number of other neurological differences can manifest similar symptoms at a young age.
I will use anecdotal evidence here, but I am a person with high functioning autism that was misdiagnosed as adhd at the age of 5 in 1996. I am still recovering from the detrimental effects of Ritalin treatment that ended when I was 16. I was lucky enough that I was allowed to be normal for the summers but while in school my head was a cloud that led to horrible emotional ups and downs as the drug left my system. Every summer the withdrawal would begin about a few days after school and would last at a week. During this I was would go into a total meltdown and at one point even locked myself in the bathroom at my aunts cabin, screaming, and drew apocalypic symbols on the windows. But after that week I got to be a normal kid.
What people need to understand is that ritalin loses most of it effectiveness on adults with adhd where it often affects adults in way much worse than it does kids. Also people with ADHD tend to statistically skew towards higher intelligence levels. So instead of "treating" them, they need environments where they use their own abilities and flourish.

That's how I've attempted to treat mine over the years. I do like to think of it as having a gift of sorts, rather than a disability, but it's hard to think of it that way when you can't accomplish things "normal" people do every day. Just riding a bus or train is difficult, for example, because I have to hyper-focus, which saps me mentally, or I'll more often than not miss my stop.

Yes, but it will enable you to do things that others couldnt dream of. I suggest come up with ways of coping without hyperfocusing (I am sure youve attempted before). Human are great because we use tools to adapt the environment to us, so think on it. Also for when you get a little down, here is something I use to motivate me. Note I have high functioning autism not ADHD, but this might help you too http://listverse.com/2011/12/05/top-10-a...n-history/

[rexbeccarox]

Thanks, Lemon