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Newsletter #9 |
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for Parents and Teachers of ADD/ADHD Children IMPORTANT: Use this information at your own risk. This information is not to be used in place of appropriate medical advice. If there are problems, always consult your physician. Welcome to our Newsletter! Feel free to tell your friends about this service, or to forward this to them! Links to this Newsletter are sent to you via our auto-responder, so they will come to you automatically. If you have any problems with the service, please let us know right away by email. To subscribe, send an email to addnewsletter@webmailstation.com, and the link code to your first issue will arrive immediately via autoresponder, with following issues arriving about every five days. Please only subscribe once to our robot autoresponder. For more information on ADD or ADHD, visit the web's most comprehensive ADD ADHD Information Library for parents, teachers, and professionals, at NewIdeas.Net. |
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Medications When it comes to the treatment of ADD, or with problems of Attention, Impulse Control, Over-Activity, and/or Learning Problems in "the real world," there are a number of approaches to treatment that may work well. In this issue we will discuss the benefits of medications. The information provided has either been gleaned from research on ADD/ADHD treatment interventions, or it is from our experience in a clinical setting treating ADD/ADHD kids and adults. Every child is different. For unknown reasons, some children respond very well to diet, and some do not. Some respond very well to medicine, and some do not. Every child is different. Another disclaimer: We are not medical doctors. All of the following information is from our observations of treatment interventions given to our patients over the past eight to ten years. Don't be afraid to talk with your physician, psychologist, etc., about our observations. This information is for the sake of education and discussion. We are not prescribing treatment across the internet. The stimulants have been around for about 50 years. Overall, they work very well. Cylert works for about 50% of those who try it. Ritalin and Dexedrine help 65-75% of all who try them, depending on the symptom profile, or the underlying causes which result in the specific symptom profile. There is an unbelievable amount of research done on children and Ritalin. Less with Dexedrine and Cylert. We have heard that Ritalin is the most widely studied medication prescribed to children in the world, and we would not dispute that claim. It seems that every doctoral student writing a dissertation for psychology does something with Ritalin. Here's what we have observed: Ritalin is a good medication. Short acting is better than Slow Release. Brand name is superior to generic. Always begin your "trial" with the real stuff. If that works, then see if the generic will work as well. Ritalin peaks at 1.5 to 2.5 hours and lasts about 3.5 to 4.5 hours. Some kids have "withdrawals" from coming off of the dose. The best remedy for this that we've found is a 12 oz. Mountain Dew at about the 3.0 hour mark. The caffeine "deflects" or "flattens out" the angle of withdrawal. Works well. We have seen hundreds of kids benefit greatly from Ritalin. But the doctors and the parents must be observant and conservative. Dexedrine is not prescribed much here in Central California, but those patients that we've seen on it have done well. Typically it is prescribed to patients who have not responded to Ritalin very well. It has the advantage of having a very nice long-lasting product (one dose per day). Usually it will not be prescribed to teenagers, as it can have retail value in the high school parking lot. |
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Cylert seems to be prescribed most by neurologists and the few pediatricians who are afraid of Ritalin. We don't recommend Cylert. It works about half the time only. We have been told that it causes hepatitis in 1/1000 of patients. We cannot verify this, but it's good enough for us to not recommend it to patients anyway. Even the manufacturer recommends against it as the first medication tried in treating ADD/ADHD. Besides, the Attend Amino Acids from VAXA work as well or better without the side effects. Adderall is a fairly new drug in the treatment of ADD/ADHD. The doctors that we know who have tried it really have come to like it. It is a "cocktail" drug, or a mixture of four drugs, all from the amphetamine family. As a result it has a broad spectrum of symptom coverage. It also tends to last for about six hours per dose, so it can cover the entire school day. The doctors also say that it can be less "harsh" than Ritalin. So Adderall might be worth talking to your doctor about as either the first or second medication to try. Either Ritalin or Dexedrine or Adderall can be expected to work very well for the "space cadet" ADD kids. Stimulants (including caffeine) are great for "inattention" or "brain fog" symptoms. We would estimate that 75%-80% of ADD Inattentive Type kids would respond to low doses of Ritalin very nicely. For them, Ritalin is a very easy treatment intervention. (Before trying Ritalin, we'd recommend that you consider trying both our diet program, including caffeine, and the Attend from VAXA www.newideas.net/attend2.htm for details). Hyperactive-Impulsive kids also respond to the stimulants. Maybe 60-65%. Kids with impulsivity or temper outbursts may do very well, or they may do very poorly. These kids may also need something like Extress (from VAXA) or Clonadine for the outbursts. We recommend the Extress first (from VAXA). We have seen that work very well in reducing temper outbursts. You can buy it directly from VAXA. Use the Attend ordering instructions. The Clonadine is like a "sledgehammer," but use it if you need to. The main drawbacks of stimulants that we have observed are loss of appetite (feed a protein shake twice/day to help keep weight up), some irritability or anger (as when you have had too much caffeine), possible short term growth inhibition (though long-term this may not be a problem). Remember, every medication has possible bad side effects, so always closely monitor your child when taking medications! If there is a problem, don't give the next dose, and call your doctor right away. For more information on treatment options, including EEG Biofeedback Training, Amino Acids (Attend and Extress), Diet and Nutrition, and more, visit the Attention Deficit Disorder Information Library at www.newideas.net |
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EEG Biofeedback Training as a Treatment Option? The popularity of EEG Biofeedback Training continues to grow both in the USA and around the world. Many parents are searching for treatment options for ADD/ADHD other than medications, and as a results are exploring this high tech approach to treatment. Here are some things that I think you should know about Neurofeedback or EEG Biofeedback training if you are considering it for your ADDer: First, I believe it to be a good option for treatment. This is based on my five years of personal experience as a provider of this option in my practice. I have treated over 200 ADD/ADHD kids and adults using excellent equipment from EEG Spectrum in Encino, CA. I have found that about 70% of my clients have received either -good- or -excellent- results from the training. I am often surprised by the results, and sometimes disappointed. For example, I am just completing treatment with a 20 year old college student with ADD (space-cadet type) who is very bright and highly motivated. His brother had been through treatment in the past and had done remarkably well, as had his step-sister. Yet he has had - fair- improvement at best. He has received most of his benefit from taking -Attend- on a regular basis, and at much less cost. Yet I am also treating a 13 year old girl with ADHD, panic disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and HUGE temper tantrums. This young person has been on several medications with little or not benefit. We have done three sessions - yes, three sessions - and there have been zero tantrums (used to be one per day on average) and the parents are so excited they can hardly contain themselves. I cannot explain why some do so well, and sometimes quickly, while others barely benefit. But I cannot explain why some benefit from medications, diet, Attend, therapy, essential fatty acids, pycnogenol, or whatever, and others do not. Treatment: Following diagnosis and baseline testing. Typically the subject wears one or two electrodes on the scalp to monitor the EEG activity of the brain. The brainwaves are amplified and displayed on the therapist*s computer screen, both in raw wave-form and broken into various frequency bands. The subject sees a representation of this electrical activity in the form of animation on his computer monitor. The training involves learning to increase the activity in specific frequency bands and decreasing the activity in other specific frequency bands. Various computer animation and games are used for the feedback to the subject. Yes, subjects can learn to change and control their brainwave activity. Realistic Expectations for treatment: If your child has never been on medication, you might be able to get good enough results to never have to use meds. If your child is currently using medications, you might be able to discontinue meds altogether. Maybe. Mostly what we see, however, is that kids will use both the training and a small dose of medication. I am usually happy if we can cut the dosage of the medication by half or more and still get the same level of performance from the child. Controversy: The mainline ADDers tend to be opposed to EEG training on the grounds that there are only clinical studies, no -double-blind- studies on the effectiveness of the treatment. Yes, this is true. And there will not be any either. Why? Because a double-blind study means that the subject does not know whether he is using the experimental treatment or just a placebo treatment which is assumed to have no effect on the subject. Double-blind studies are great when you are talking about pills, but they are not useful for much of anything else. For example think of weight-lifting. Could you prove that weight- lifting made subject stronger with a double-blind study? Never. Could you prove that reading a book increased the reader's knowledge with a double-blind study. Never. Most things cannot be tested with double-blind studies because the subject has to participate in the treatment actively. So the criticism about biofeedback lacking double-blind studies is a hallow argument, and they know it, but the press always prints it without question and many people assume it is a valid criticism. Are there clinical studies? Yes, dozens, maybe hundreds at this point. EEG Spectrum has collected data on over 2,000 subject to date. That is just one provider. There are about 800 providers in the USA at this time. HOWEVER: Choose only providers who know what they are doing. There is no substitute for experience or for good equipment. Slow feedback from the equipment is not helpful. Typically the more expensive the equipment the better, because the software is able to deliver the feedback to the subject very very quickly. Ask around for a good provider. Avoid people who treat this like a religion. It is a very good tool, but there are several good tools available. The best information on the web is at EEG Spectrum's web site. |
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Products, Books, Web Sites . . . Non-Ritalin approach to ADD/ADHD treatments discussed at these sites . . . For data from our study on the effectiveness of the ATTEND nutraceutical medicine, and for a comparison between ATTEND, and Ritalin, and EEG Biofeedback training, visit our new site at ADD-Products.com and then visit the RESEARCH section. Attend and Extress. Amino acid based nutraceutical medicines. Good products. For an in-depth discussion and product information...
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