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I've always been a cautious skeptic of ADHD in children. On the one hand I know ADHD is a thing and that it legitimately affects some children, but on the other

• corobo 3y ago
  > My wonder is when does it to go from a kid just being a kid to a child actually affected by ADHD The second D - disorder. When it affects the kid's ability to learn, socialise, etc
  • lolinder 3y ago
    The problem is that what is perceived as "disordered" is different across time and space. Behavior patterns that were once totally normal may get in the way of living the kind of life that some parents have come to expect of their kids—running from school to dance to piano to soccer to tutors to therapy to whatever. Are these kids disordered because they can't keep up, or are the demands unreasonable?
    • user_7832 3y ago
      Or counterpoint- in my case I was helped at home a good bit with structure. It wasn’t until I was independent at uni that this facade started to fall off, revealing “issues”.
      • corobo 3y ago
        Aye same - I did great up until I had to make my own structure. Decent enough in school but dropped out of college twice. Fell into an entry level IT job with loads of scripts, processes, and procedures but the more I progressed the more autonomy I was given and the worse I performed. Was mostly terrible but occasionally amazing (enough to keep my job at least) for ~10 years then bumped into the ADHD symptoms at some point, got myself checked out, got the diagnosis. Doing pretty well now (tho never perfect) with medication and a stint of cognitive behavioural therapy to help set up my own structure. Getting there!
        • user_7832 3y ago
          Could you explain what/how the CBT helped? Where I am in Europe the default treatment is only medication which feels inadequate on its own.
          • corobo 3y ago
            I think this is where things diverge depending on what troubles the ADHD brings you. It's kinda like debugging a program except the program is your brain - and yeah in the UK it's medication only by default, had to sort out the CBT side of things myself when I realised the meds were helping but not quite doing enough alone. I originally went for help with low confidence which expanded out to digging into and addressing self-esteem, confidence, social anxiety, procrastination, and perfectionism. If I'd taken one general thing from it though it's "do I have evidence or is this an assumption?" - if I have no evidence (that I'm terrible at my job, I did bad, that guy hates me, etc) then I should reevaluate if it's even accurate before doing anything with the thought Writing things down when things go wrong was a big part of it too - what's the situation, what led to the situation, is it possible to view the situation in a better light, if not how can I fix the situation, if I can't fix things myself is there anyone that can help me with this situation rather than wallowing in it. That sort of thing. As I say I imagine it'll differ from person to person so other people may have an entirely different experience with it, I'm not sure. Definitely worked for my systems/coding flavoured brain though, really was like debugging faults in a program. Figure out the underlying issue, try a fix, did it work? y/n? If no, try another fix. If yes, work on the next problem.
    • corobo 3y ago
      I dunno to be honest, I don't know of any kids diagnosed with ADHD to think of as examples. Looking back on my own life (diagnosed early 30s, but part of the process was looking at how I was in school): I struggled to keep up with the bare basics outside of lessons - getting ready for school on time, remembering books, remembering to tell my parents I/they needed to do stuff on specific dates, doing (small amounts of) homework. On the social front - Billy no mates until college (where I met people who were as weird as me), constantly bullied for reasons I couldn't figure out, could not work out how people managed to make friends. Felt like I'd missed the day of school where they taught everyone how to socialise and be normal. It was also like my prime directive was "don't speak unless spoken to" haha. So damn quiet. Unless someone directly invited me or gave me permission to do an activity that activity was just for other people, not for me. Dancing, sports, and pianos weren't even on the table lol.
  • detourdog 3y ago
    This is where it gets weird for me. I certainly can learn but school was torture. I had no problems socializing. I'm signed up for a neurological exam. I have had a personality exam with nothing jumping out.
• digibeet 3y ago
  No need to be skeptical of children that are diagnosed. It is often (and I am speaking solely about boys, just as you do) quite obvious if you are trained in recognising those markers. This doesn't mean all are found and the current training is severely lacking in recognising symptoms for girls. Regardless, yes it is often described by others and those who are not diagnosed with ADHD as " just not being able to focus". This simplification misses out on a whole scala of symptoms and experiences. As for the medication, it is true that it is sometimes mis/abused by some students. One thing to realize is that for those who have ADHD drugs and the stuff may have completely different effects on the person. Uppers making some people sleepy for example. Lastly children are often not given those drugs you mention but alternative without those side effects.
• thfuran 3y ago
  Are you also skeptical of obesity in teens because eating a lot is just the general nature of teens, especially boys? Are you appalled that diabetics take insulin every day because you once injected yourself with insulin you didn't need and experienced severe side effects?
  • lolinder 3y ago
    These comparisons feel like bad faith. This is what they actually said: > I've always been a cautious skeptic of ADHD in children. On the one hand I know ADHD is a thing and that it legitimately affects some children ... They explicitly say that they know it affects some children, but they're concerned that it's overdiagnosed because the symptoms have overlap with normal child development. This isn't some kind of uninformed conspiracy theory, it's a legitimate concern shared by experts in the field [0]. My fear isn't that experts get confused and mix up real ADHD with normal childhood, my fear is that parents expect too much of their kids and convince their family doctor (who isn't an expert) to diagnose the child and prescribe Adderall. That fear is totally compatible with ADHD also being a real thing that actually needs treatment in other children. [0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8042533/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8042533/
    • remotefonts 3y ago
      Wait... Which barbaric country is that where a simple family doctor can prescribe amphetamines like that? Not in my EU country. It's a controlled medication and can only be prescribed by psychiatrists.
      • nick__m 3y ago
        Canada is one of them, my family doctor put me on Vyvanse, after seing me for the second time for an unrelated problem, because he noted that I was alternating between hyperfocus and zoning out when he talked to me. It positively changed my life and I am quite happy that a "simple family doctor" can prescribe amphetamines if he thinks that it's appropriate.
• fsociety 3y ago
  I guarantee that you took Adderall IR, and a higher dose than those typically prescribed by a doctor. It’s like slamming back 10 cups of espresso instead of sipping one over a day. And then judging people who drink a coffee a day. Slow release and a therapeutic dose is significantly different than slamming back meds in school like that. Therapeutic dose means you can’t even tell you took the med, until you either stop or look back at the day and record how much you were able to achieve. Yes, some doctors are bad and calculate a dosage based on weight or other arbitrary means. Good doctors and psychiatrists start you on the lowest dose and slowly titrate you up based on DSM guidelines. Lastly, medication for ADHD is something that makes all the actual effective treatments do-able. It’s a first step not a crux.
  • samtho 3y ago
    > Lastly, medication for ADHD is something that makes all the actual effective treatments do-able. It’s a first step not a crux. This is a nuance that is lost on a lot of people. Medication needs to be taken in conjunction with re-learning how to study/organize/prioritize. This actually allows for new neuro-pathways to be forged and reinforced in the brain, which actually fixes many of the negative effects of ADHD, lessening the need for medication over time for many people. This effect is easy to observe in children because their brains are still extremely very plastic, but it also causes people to question why we need to prescribe medication if kids just end up “growing out of it”.
    • jstarfish 3y ago
      [dead]
• mirsadm 3y ago
  If you have a child with ADHD you will know. They are different.
  • kypro 3y ago
    Even if true, the problem is those who don't but think they do. I suspect you might also have parents who kinda like the idea that there child's behaviour can be explained by ADHD. My sister's kid often gets in trouble at school for example, and whenever this happens she will try to excuse it by saying she has ADHD. I'm not at all convinced given that imo it's far easier to explain the misbehaviour with bad parenting.
    • mirsadm 3y ago
      I don't think you understand. "Bad" behavior is one aspect of it but there are many others. Girls also have different symptoms (and are severely under diagnosed compared to boys). This is not a situation of excusing behavior you need to live and deal with a child every single day to understand.
  • weweersdfsd 3y ago
    The problem is that often a child with ADHD may also have autism, or various other difficulties (learning disabilities, anxiety disoder) that may mask, or have similar symptoms. And then you can also have such disorders without having ADHD. The same structural differences in brain can cause lots of things.
  • teamonkey 3y ago
    Especially clear if you have one who does and one who doesn't.
  • permalac 3y ago
    Absolutely. Take my two kids, they are wildly different,and so equal. One can focus a bit the other is impossible to get focused. He gets distracted when doing a wee, is astonishing, sometimes I'm speechless.
• user_7832 3y ago
  Iirc adhd is a neurodevelopmental condition. So if a 5 year old has similar executive function as the average 5yo he’s probably fine. But if a 10 yo has a 7yo’s levels it’s worth looking at. And if this same person has this even later to the point where it affects life in multiple situations it’s a disorder, medically speaking. Also, some people (not all) grow out of adhd in their adulthood as the brain develops.
  • mtlmtlmtlmtl 3y ago
    Many of the people who grew out of it did it not naturally but because they were on medication. Medication during childhood has been well proven in longitudinal studies to reduce the incidence of adult ADHD.
• 2four2 3y ago
  > The drugs also scare me... The idea of giving something like that to a child profoundly scares me. It works differently in people with the disorder. I took Adderall as a child and as an adult for adhd. It didn't get me wired nor did I have withdrawal symptoms, I simply felt more centered and capable of starting tasks. I know that we can only draw on our own experiences to judge things, but understand that people with this disorder experience the drug completely differently than you did.
  • tstrimple 3y ago
    This was pretty much my experience as well. I didn’t feel high or up when taking adderall. It was almost unnoticed while on it, but reflecting back on what I was able to accomplish during the day it clearly had an impact. After taking it for close to a year, I just stopped cold turkey and had zero issues with any withdrawal symptoms. My brother has been known to take adderall recreationally. Apparently he would crush it up and snort it. He definitely gets a high from it. I’m not sure how much the difference in our experience is due to the delivery method versus differences in how our bodies processed it.
  • habinero 3y ago
    Yeah, same. I don't feel wired at all. It's pleasantly calming and it's like everything is possible again. I've literally taken a nap after it hits.
  • Auracle 3y ago
    I take stimulants for idiopathic hypersomnia and ironically they give me ADHD like symptoms. It’s much harder to concentrate on a single task when I’m on them.
    • viraptor 3y ago
      There's a range where they seem to work for ADHD. (When/if they work for you) Higher dose and you're back to being all over the place.
• faeriechangling 3y ago
  Hmm, I’ve become less and less sceptical over time simply because I’ve seen the research on how medicating those with ADHD drops all cause mortality enough to extend lifespan by several years. It’s possible there’s overdiagnosis even still but I think people overestimate the potential scale of it, 25% overdiagnosis seems plausible to me but people act like ADHD is just all made up and a way to drug children into being study zombies because they act too much like typical children. It’s profound how often people diagnosed with ADHD, when off medication, will just kill themselves accidentally in car accidents and drug overdoses far more than the general population. ADHD is not just labelling children with being disordered for being children. It’s labelling like the most inattentive, dysregulated, and hyperactive 5% or so of children. Children that act like 5 year olds when their peers act like 7 year olds. ADHD has been observed for centuries as well. ADHD in women tends to be diagnosed later in life and if you study certain subpopulations of women like teen mothers you will trip over ADHD and the diagnostic gap narrows with age. There’s also evidence like.. from the OP where we can observe neurological differences. I think my main problem with ADHD is labelling something that’s probably evolutionarily adaptive (People with ADHD love having unprotected sex early in life) as a disorder and deficit, but this gets into the philosophy of medicine. Dr. Russell Barkley is a good source of information and champion of the scientific mainstream view of ADHD.
• pornel 3y ago
  There is a huge difference between the common stereotype of ADHD (just rowdy children who can't sit still), and actual symptoms and diagnostic criteria. The difference is almost as comically warped as an image of a "hacker" in media vs actual hackers. ADHD includes many other things like weak short-term memory, defunct perception of time, hard to control hyperfocus, overwhelming inner monologue, and executive dysfunction that makes some tasks physically impossible to start even when the person wants to do them. And it comes with a bunch of other comorbidities. Doctors diagnosing ADHD also have obligation to exclude other causes of the symptoms, like bipolar. The stimulant medication does not actually cause stimulation in people with ADHD. When people have a deficit/insensitivity to the neurotransmitters, the meds merely bring them up from a dysfunctional level where the brain lacked ability to function properly to the normal-ish level.
  • bluefirebrand 3y ago
    I really like that you list a whole lot of things that ADHD includes that most people are unaware of, but I wanted to call attention to the two that probably had the largest negative impact on my own life Rejection Sensitivity and Emotional Disregulation I have always been paralyzed by being afraid of failure (rejection), and that has kept me from pursuing a lot of things in the past And I've always been prone to anger outbursts, even over seemingly trivial silly things. It has damaged so many of my relationships and overall left me pretty lonely throughout my life. And when the dust settles I'm sitting there thinking "Why was I so angry about that thing. I don't even care that much about it" My ADHD diagnosis and medication, starting in my early 30s, has almost entirely turned my life around
    • weweersdfsd 3y ago
      I wonder if the symptoms you described can be also explained by being on autism spectrum. And then there's generalized anxiety disorder - a common comorbidity with ADHD, which could also cause worrying about failure. I fairly certain I have either ADHD, autism, or probably both, and have existing diagnosis pointing to being "neuroatypical". But coming up with exact diagnosis seems to be pretty difficult, because many other diagnosis can explain specific symptoms.
• deleted 3y ago
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• lawlessone 3y ago
  I have started on Ritalin in my 30's. I have to say the first time I took I suddenly felt very calm. Noises from neighboring apartments, dogs barking, children outside playing ceased to be annoying distractions. I took 5mg to be precautious. And spent hours doing an overdue cleaning my room / apartment. And i felt ok doing it when normally i'd feel irritated. Normally i'd have trouble deciding where to start this, but with this i just started. I started properly paying bills. To be clear i had the money to pay these bills. But i would always tend to leave them until I was getting notices to remind me. Vyvanse was interesting though. It made me a lot more assertive, when most people would describe me as the opposite. I liked that but it was double edged sword. I stopped because I was working as sales assistant in a shop and I found I was getting just a bit too angry at belligerent customers.
• rayiner 3y ago
  We’ve been prescribing amphetamine salts since the 1950s, and Adderall specifically since the 1990s. It’s extremely well studied at this point. Obviously we don’t give kids the doses college students might take for cramming. Stimulant sensitivity varies quite widely in the population—a dosage that might be appropriate for a particular child may make an adult feel “wired.” But there’s a lot of science showing that Adderall in appropriate doses is neither habit forming nor do people develop a resistance to it (which is what typically causes escalating usage).
• fatnoah 3y ago
  > My wonder is when does it to go from a kid just being a kid to a child actually affected by ADHD That's the multi-billion dollar question. From grades K-3, my son got straight A's and was a typical "boy" in the classroom. Occasionally not the best at paying attention, but no big deal. Fourth grade was another story. He'd come home exhausted, and cry himself into a nap nearly every day. Not coincidentally, that's what the academics shifted from pure memory, associative reasoning, and recall to tasks that also required planning and executive function. That, plus the expectations of better ability to sit still and pay attention were just too much. We eventually paid the big $$$ for a full, two-day neuro-psych evaluation. It was eye-opening for both my wife and I. For me, it showed how differently my son's brain was working, and for my wife it shined a light on her undiagnosed ADHD. We did resist giving our son medication, and waited until he decided that he wanted to try it (16 years). It made an amazing difference in his ability to study and stay on task, but it did come with the weight loss and a serious 4-6pm crash every day, though those effects seemed to mitigate over time.
  • faeriechangling 3y ago
    >We did resist giving our son medication, and waited until he decided that he wanted to try it (16 years) I sincerely think this is a good thing to do and gives people a healthier relationship to mental health than being coerced into taking drugs with harsh side-effects.
    • TalEs 3y ago
      What are the harsh side effects you speak of?
      • faeriechangling 3y ago
        Insomnia, fatigue, appetite loss, anxiety, irritability, paranoia. Side-effects for amphetamines being stronger than for methylphenidate.
        • TalEs 3y ago