| -sloop- 2003-03-26, 6:23 pm |
| With regards to improving their work at school, have you looked into the
option of montessori education?
"Grant Conrad" <gconrad@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:3f1b01c2f3ea$9b281f70$a50
1280a@phx.gbl...
In regard to the Ritalin we followed up on that and were
told by his doctor that it isn't unusual for it to have
the opposite effect in higher dosages. It is quite common.
David underwent some very thorough testing intact we
surprised at the extent.
When we first spoke to a "doctor" about David's behavior
we sat and talked and he came to the conclusion that David
was "mildly" ADHD probably a 3 on a scale of 1 to 10. 10
being the worst.
We had relocated shortly after that and it was probably
about a year later when we spoke to his new doctor about
the previous doctors statements. She was shocked. She
stated that ADD/ADHD is NOT something a general doctor can
just "label" some one as. She promptly set us up with a
facility that studies and tests for this and other
disorders.
David went through a full 8+ hour day of testing. Where
they placed him in different settings with different
distractions and gave him explicit instructions and then
monitored him through 1-way mirrors. Things like sit here
in this room with toys sitting to the side and do these
math problems. Don't play with the toys and will be back
in a few little while to check on you. The noted things
like his fidgeting in his chair and eventually wonder off
to play with the toys. They give a score based off
statistical research where "normal" children would be at
and where they found David to be. They also evaluated his
intelligence at the same time. Like you pointed out with
Zach, David was in second grade at the time of the tests
and was considered by these tests to be at a 4th grade
level for math. Reading he was a little behind (We had
been working on that. Many thanks go to the school for
that one. He was WAY behind earlier in the year.) And of
course they did the logical tests and well I don't even
remember all that he had to do. We were not allowed to be
present for the tests. I'm sure they went through
the "does your daddy hit you" BS as well. Then they
interviewed us (the parents) as well and during the
interview with us David did some other things that were
added to his chart even when we were the ones be
questioned.
He makes off-the-wall statements that make absolutely no
sense some times, like one hundred thousand seven million
or "I'll be like 10 when the babies are 5" some of this
can be chalked up as just normal "kid talk" but some of it
makes even some of his younger friends stare at him oddly.
In fact this is one of the other tests that he was put
through. A language processing disorder. He has this to a
slight degree as well. Basically and I'm still not sure I
understand this real well yet either, What he hears is not
always interpreted the way we intend it. In fact it is
probably a lot like reading these messages. Sometimes your
not sure if someone is joking or mad. But then there is
another disorder call Central Auditory Processing
Disorder, which a friend of the family who works with the
hearing impaired brought to our attention, which also
creates some of the same symptoms and is often
misdiagnosed as ADD/ADHD. Although this is truly supposed
to be tested by a hearing specialists. The doctors did not
think this was the case with David.
After the initial eval was completed then came the trial
drug analysis. He took the medication for a week and then
went back in to the doctor once a week at the end of the
week for re-evaluation. Although these re-visits were not
as long as the initial ones they were long visits. Plus we
had to have evals from his teachers, daycare and us and
anyone else who had constant contact with him filled out.
This went on for the remaining three weeks for each dose
of medication.
Everyone is pretty sure he is ADHD. Thankfully the doctor
keeps up on this constantly and we are going to be
speaking to her again and filling out more evals. Concerta
does seem to work the best for him and doesn't seem to
have the Moody side effects. Ritalin also does work but in
a little smaller dose.
So we are hopeful we are doing the right thing and that
the doctor's know what they are doing. I think they have
shown real concern and a genuine desire to help. I do know
that there are many children being misdiagnosed with ADHD
but I do not believe David is one of them.
G
>-----Original Message-----
>"Grant Conrad" <gconrad@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:3fdb01c2f3dc$62f540f0$a40
1280a@phx.gbl...
>Actually I am at work right now and should be doing that
>as opposed to this but.... Here I am.
>Since I am at work I am posting these through the HTML
>version of the group. However I haven't been in a lot of
>news groups in the past and have very limited use with the
>newsreaders so I am not sure I would be doing what you
>mentioned. QP But I will look into it. Thanks for the tip.
>What exactly does it do?
>
>Quoted Printable is a format you can use in Outlook
Express that apparently
>does a bit of a different word wrap logic in that you can
post a long URL
>without it breaking. The problem, though, it is is much
like when you are
>posting in HTML, it doesn't allow quoting properly, which
is ironic because
>of its name.
>
>We went through trials with David they had us get three
>different dosages 1 for each week. One week was a low
>dosage of Ritalin another was a high dosage of it and the
>other was a placebo. We were unaware of what dosage he was
>on for what week. Boy, we were surprised what we learned.
>Naturally we tried to guess what dosage he was on based on
>our expectations of what we thought the medication does. I
>mean we were under the same impression much of the
>uninformed world is under that he would be a zombie.
>Little did we know that Ritalin is basically a derivative
>of speed (stimulant as you stated) Well obviously the
>placebo changed nothing. The low dosage didn't seem to do
>much either, in fact he received the low dosage first and
>we were sure it was the placebo. Then came the high dose.
>WOW! It was like watching someone whose feet were on fire.
>I almost had to peel him off the ceiling. Complete
>opposite of what we expected. So after the results were in
>we tried Adderol this proved to be ineffective and created
>mood swings. Yuck, suddenly my son had mood swings about
>everything.
>
>It sounds like your son may not have ADD or ADHD at all
if that was the
>result of his taking Ritalin. I'm no doctor (but I play
one on USENET) but
>while Ritalin is a stimulant, it has the opposite effect
on people with
>ADD/ADHD, it calms them down. I don't know how much
research you've done on
>ADD but without medication, their minds are just running
in fast-forward.
>Their brains are not getting enough stimulation
chemically, so they have to
>stimulate themselves in other ways, usually in harmful or
annoying ways.
>The chemical allows them to finally relax, yet at the
same time, it
>interferes with sleep, so go figure. While Zach would
agree that being on
>the drug doesn't make him feel like "himself", he would
often want to take
>it anyway because he doesn't like being unmedicated any
more than the people
>around him like it when he's that way.
>
>He is now on Concerta 27mg which he (if we remind him 20-
>30 times) in the morning before school. This is supposed
>to be a once a day drug/dose. Now we know it is supposed
>to only last for maybe 8 hrs but the teacher reports that
>on some days it seems that it has worn off by noon. We
>have also been given a 10mg dosage of Ritalin to give him
>in the evenings. We try to avoid using this mainly because
>I do hate giving my son a bunch of drugs. I save it for
>when "I" am ready to blow up. He has an extremely high
>metabolism (no duh) but I truly think I could give him
>this dose a couple of hours before bed and he would still
>be able to fall asleep. This stuff is in and out of his
>system so fast.
>
>Zach had a high metabolism early on, too. Actually,
since he's been off the
>medication, he's gained a bit of weight. The kid eats
like a horse. He
>also drinks fluids almost non-stop. If I drank as much
soda as he did, I'd
>have to spend all day in the bathroom, I don't know how
he does it. I think
>his leg is hollow or something.
>
>One other big concern I have is "Drugs" in general. I have
>watched several documentary type shows on this subject and
>one of the problems is first the kids stop taking their
>meds because the don't like the way they make them feel
>then they turn to other drugs. Supposedly they are more
>prone to take other drugs. Now I don't mean to pry so you
>don't have to answer but has this become an issue you have
>had to deal with? Believe it or not my wife and I have
>NEVER taken any drugs, well we have both drank I mean lets
>not get stupid, but illegal drugs, NEVER. David is going
>to have a difficult enough time in life that he doesn't
>need the added problem drugs will cause.
>
>I tried drugs (pot) when I was in the USAF. Had one bad
experience, nothing
>major, but it was a wakeup call. I don't care for the
taste of alcohol, but
>forced myself to drink with friends in the military, just
so I could "fit
>in" My wife has never used any kind of drugs at all, but
enjoys beer,
>mostly because of the time she spent in Germany with her
ex-husband. She'll
>enjoy the occaisional beer these days is all. I do
smoke, have for half my
>life. Zach was caught at school a few months ago with
cigarettes. He
>wasn't actually caught, some kid heard Zach bragging
about smoking and
>turned him in. Funny because the boy rags on me
constantly for smoking
>(even today) and always swore he'd never smoke.
>
>OK! Break time over time to get back to work.
>
>Got any openings?
>
>I got a decent job offer just last week but had to turn
it down. Would have
>meant a huge raise in pay and benefits, but the location
sucked.
>
>
>--
>Fris "Professional Poster" beeŽ MCNGP #13
>
>http://www.mcngp.tk
>The MCNGP Team - We're here to help
>
>.
>
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