[rkon]

Parents should really take note of the studies and conclusions in this article. As someone diagnosed with ADHD who has tried numerous medications (Adderall regular and XR, Vyvanse, Strattera, Focalin, and Wellbutrin) I have to say I would never ever EVER allow a young child of mine to take any of them. I can't even fathom how confusing and damaging the side effects of these medications could be to the fragile psyche of a child -- anxiety, mood swings, depression, sleep loss, etc. I was diagnosed at the age of 23, so I knew my own personality well enough to tell when it was being altered by the medications, but how would a child know this? The answer is simple: they wouldn't, and in many cases they're prescribed additional medications (usually anti-depressants and/or anti-anxiety pills) to deal with it.

I cannot respect any parent who allows their minor child to take these types of psychotropic drugs in any but the most dire of situations. Reading ADHD forums was an absolutely horrifying experience for me: parents list the multiple drugs their children are taking in their signatures as if they're badges of honor.

After 2.5 years of trying various ADHD medications I gave up on them completely and have never looked back. Yes, most of them did have the benefits they promised, but the types of side effects they're capable of producing can absolutely wreak havoc on your emotional well being even in their most mild forms.

[cullenking]

To get through college, while working, I used adderall and ritalin on and off as needed. I was floored when I first got on it, my doctor tried me on the ritalin patch at the highest dose (32 mg I think). I dropped down and was still amazed with how hard hitting this stuff was. Granted, people have different skin and uptake I am sure, but I couldn't imagine giving a kid a patch which basically made me feel like I had a 12 hour cocaine high. Yes, I plowed through work I couldn't of done in twice the time, but I was HIGH. I was able to understand how I felt, but the 12 year old that gets the same dose wouldn't...Yet their parents might think it's a wonder drug, since that kid would most likely be able to finally do their homework in one sitting.

[deno]

The ‘high’ goes away after two weeks of continuous use, but the cognitive benefits persist. This is exactly why ADHD medications work long term.

> But in fact, the loss of appetite and sleeplessness in children first prescribed attention-deficit drugs do fade (…). They apparently develop a tolerance to the drug, and thus its efficacy disappears.

Those are side effects in the context of treating ADHD.

Here’s a great summary: http://www.reddit.com/r/ADD/comments/no6hp/would_anyone_be_i...

[cullenking]

I know this is another anecdotal response, but, the high definitely didn't go away, I just became more mentally accustomed to it. It's exactly the same for an alcoholic who drinks excessively everyday. After a month, the same amount of alcohol has less effect (to an extent).

I strongly feel that if the parents of children on ADD meds actually used the meds themselves, many of them would decide on alternative treatments.

[deno]

You’re not supposed to use the medication “on and off,” if you want to avoid such side effects.

[cullenking]

"on and off" for a period of 4 years can mean anything from every other day to 3 months on and 3 months off. I've experimented with them all, and for something which isn't built up systemically, like many antidepressants, as needed is 100% the way to go.

[kpennell]

My mom accidentally took one of my Adderalls one night (mixed it up with one her pills). She said the experience was quite enlightening to what I was experiencing every morning.

[danneu]

I take a low dose of Vyvanse and I agree. Diagnosed in my 20s.

Always dreaded school. The 8-hour-day stagnant, unchallenging classroom model never compelled me. Maybe it's time to accept that if a kid isn't compelled by our education system we might have a systemic problem that can't be fixed by prescribing kids speed until they can make it through 8 hours without having a wayward thought.

A low dose of amphetamine helped me focus on my ambitions after I'd spent my entire life scavenging for freetime to chase them outside of school. But frankly, I couldn't tell you what came first: my "ADD" or my contempt for the education system.

[greenyoda]

I'm glad someone brought up the possibility that the problem is in an educational system which makes demands on children, such as sitting still for hours at a time, that evolution just didn't prepare us for. Unfortunately, it's a lot easier to "fix" the children than it is to fix the school system. And since pharmaceutical companies make huge profits from selling drugs to kids, there's a vested interest in the current approach.

[kpennell]

I was given a slew of ADD drugs from ages 8-16 and finally quit them cold turkey after I realized what they were doing to me. It was pulling me up and down throughout the day. I was high and awkward in the morning and depressed as hell come every afternoon. This experience ended up changing me in good ways but it was very painful at the time.

I just wrote about it on Quora. http://www.quora.com/Attention-Deficit-Disorder/What-does-it...

My mom regrets putting me on meds and felt unsure about it at the time, but it was all the rage in the 90s. I think a young person with focus problems would get a lot more out of meditation, yoga, and being outdoors that they would out of these drugs, but I don't have studies to back that claim.

I just hope we look back on what we're doing and shake our heads, wondering how we could be so stupid to put millions of kids on amphetamines. Just like how we look back and laugh that we used to give children a bit of mercury to play with (with bare hands) in science class in the 50s.

[nerfhammer]

You may have been more sensitive to the side effects than most.

[rkon]

I didn't personally experience all of those side effects, they just seem to be the most common based on dozens of other users of those medications I spoke with after beginning them myself. There are some other very common side effects I didn't mention as well, such as headaches/bouts of anger/crashing when the medication is wearing off each day, dehydration/drymouth, and heart palpitations or racing heartbeat.

The side effect that most annoyed me was actually loss of appetite, which is basically accepted as 'normal' when taking stimulants. Anxiety was probably a bigger issue with Adderall, though. I don't recall ever talking to someone who felt zero side effects from any these medications.

[nerfhammer]

You know that anecdotal interviews are a fairly bad way to collection information, right? This is why humanity developed double-blind studies, statistics etc. We can actually quantify the probabilities of these side effects.

[xenophanes]

You know that you can't do double blind studies of stuff with such obvious effects, right? Anyone taking it instead of a sugar pill knows which pill they got.

[Jach]

If you read some self-blinding studies for things like modafinil et al. you'll see this isn't always the case. (They get surprised when they find out at the end of the experiment cycle that a particular pill on a particular day was just a sugar pill.) Placebo effects are weird. In any case while the plural of anecdotes is not "data" I still think anecdotes are valuable.

[nerfhammer]

Let's discard all statistical approaches to research then

Gut reactions and vague impressions will get us by, just like they always have

[xenophanes]

Let's find applicable ones that work for our research, instead of always saying "double blind" without thinking about it.