I do not have children of my own, so I can be objective. I have often wondered WHY my generation never needed these medications and WHY ADHD is an epidemic.
The symptoms they describe seem to describe almost every prepubescent boy and many prepubescent girl's normal behavior.
They are hyperactive, annoying, have a hard time concentrating...because they are CHILDREN.
I think it's widescale poisoning of the young population.....and these young people are usually addicted for life and cannot ever stop without serious counselling and withdrawal.
If I had children of my own, no way I would allow them to be prescribed these drugs.
The teachers are always recommending them(I do have step children who have school aged children and THANK GOD they have not taken the teacher recommendations to medicate for normal behavior)
Why can't kids be allowed to be kids?
They need to run and play and be loud and annoying. They don't need to learn 5 languages by age twelve or delve into anything sexual.....why are we trying to make them into small stature adults?
My mom was so right. She'd be 97 today. Told us, don't ever allow a doctor or teacher tell you, your children need to be on drugs, (medications). What they need is to get outside in the sunshine and burn off their energy. Young people have lots of energy. Help them find their creativity, sports, art, building things. That's our job as parents to allow them with guidance to find what they love to do, and it's not being cooped up all day, even in the rain or blizzards. Allow them to experience it all. She was adamantly against teachers and doctors wanting to drug children and let it be known.
Oh boy, did you hit a nerve with me on this one, so do "opposition-defiant disorder" next, Dr Malone!
I almost lost my son years ago because I refused to allow him to be put on medication for this, simply because he broke a pencil in half and tore a piece of paper in half at the front of the room, and exclaimed to the teacher that he was not going to do the baby work anymore! So, I had him tested for organic cause, EKG, etc...nothing came up, then I took him to 3 PhD's and they all said that he was bored and not to allow the school to put him in the exceptional learning program, where all of the juvenile delinquents will recruit him! So Shands told me that I could get $400/mo for his disability, by labeling him with ODD, and I was shocked, that they had the gall to mislabel and medicate an 8 yr old with a Disorder that was specific to only one environment: his school, and they got mad at me for refusing to play their ugly, evil game and try to threaten to take him away from me! Now, my son is a senior in College, straight A's, because I homeschooled him while working 60 hours/week....and taught a lot of others how to...it's a racket!
Can you give me any advice on homeschooling? My son is 16, has autism, he’s high functioning, in a private Christian school that is not working out. I want to homeschool him but I’m afraid that if I do something wrong, nothing I do will count and he’ll be a high school dropout.
Omygosh, Ronda, there's so much to strategize, as every child is different, has different learning styles, and various preferences, good days/bad days...if I had to put it in a nutshell:
1.) Find out what subject matters he likes/would be motivated to read or study online, so that you can foster his natural love of learning and curiosity...and there's even online tools that he can take to figure out the style, oral, kinetic, etc...but don't put in your real personal info, just make it up so that he can't be tracked! You can also test them online for learning gaps!
2.) Go online and find your school district's requirements for each grade level, and which tests they are required to pass, and then go look up those tests to see what he needs to know.
3.) Match up the goals for each subject, like math, science, english, etc...and list them on paper, or an excel spreadsheet. Then, have him help you find the resources to get him to reach the goals, so that he is engaged/buys into the method, especially the subject matter!
4.) Reverse engineer the whole school year, so, from the middle of May, as if all of the goals were completed and each week, back into the beginning of the year, including skipping a few weeks for spring break and christmas, and holidays, until you get to the beginning of the year in Aug/Sept. I also took him on weekends, (because I worked during the week,) to places that were exploratory, science centers, museums, learning labs, seminars, camping, etc...he even hiked the entire Appalacian Trail when he was 17 by himself for Senior Year, and has traveled the world by himself, and is fluent in 5 languages. I am so glad now that I did that, even though I was mad and scared that I would screw it up...it's just a little extra work, and so much more rewarding, even by slicing a pizza in many more pieces and drilling him on the fractions while he was eating it adds to their learning development. Hope this helps!
P.S. I forgot to mention that I had to also teach him time management skills, and I allowed him to manage his workload for the week, but if it wasn't all done by Friday night when I got home from work, then no TV, no video games, no electronic nothing all weekend! He didn't get it done once...that's all it took, and another time I caught him up at 3am playing video games, and I took the router to work with me, and he called me freaking out that he couldn't get online and I told him that he had to do his work without it today, and read or do workbook pages as punishment, and that ended that! I also got him involved with other homeschooled kids and their outings/activities so he could socialize with them. Really hope you trust yourself enough to make it work out!
Well, I haven't been to a doctor in at least 10 years...after I read the 1,600 page Bill that they said our so-called reps had to pass, in order to see what was in it! When you are homeschooling every weekend, you have the time to read 400 pgs/day! Lol...then, I looked up Dr Mercola and alternative health and have no issues at all, but it took a few years to detox and develop the intuitive health that our bodies were made to have...if anyone is curious, you can find the ugly healthcare issues caused by this bill that you've been seeing manifest these last 3 or 4 years...so sad!
I got a lot of useful info from prodentim. They talked about the microbiome of the mouth and gums causing disease. Made a lot of sense since that was 5th chakra too.
This same article could be written about antidepressants. After 30+ years of telling people serotonin imbalance was the "cause" of depression, a 2022 meta-analysis showed there is no link b/w serotonin and depression demonstrated in the literature. It was all an Rx ad campaign spun as medical reality. So...Depression, ADHD, Alzheimer's, covid. Is there anything the healthcare industry tells the truth about? I don't know what the solution to this problem of lying, manipulating, and over-medicating is, but like everything in America it will likely involve courts and lawyers.
Uhhh…The Framingham Heart Study. Big pharma at its best. Yeah, probably more expensive but let’s look at Apolipoprotein A & B. Any drug that precludes me from drinking grapefruit juice is a red flag and a hard NO!
No one was on these drugs when I grew up in the late 60's and 70's. Schools have failed - kids are bored. They need to get out of the classroom more, field trips, exercise. And be challenged in school.
Look at ballooning obesity rates as a sign of how toxic the foods and drinks have become. Consuming crap impacts the mind as much as it does the body. And then tech was unleashed on developing minds, creating more problems. The problem is wider in scope than just the schools.
I have a crazy theory. Autism rates have skyrocketed with no explanation. A TINY percentage is attributed to the ability to diagnose it but that doesn’t explain the huge increase. So something caused the spike. Recent studies indicate it is Tylenol given to infants & toddlers. Assuming that Tylenol, preservatives in our food, vaccines, something has caused the increase in autism, depression, and ADHD; couldn’t the same be said for transgenderism and homosexuality.
Like autism, they have always existed but, like autism, they were rare. Society is more accepting and that accounts for a TINY percentage but it doesn’t explain the huge increase. Is there something causing homosexuality, trans, depression, ADHD, and God knows what else?
I’m sure we can all point to societal changes that contribute to everything I named. I don’t believe it explains all of it. Partly I don’t because 24 years ago, before it was trendy and before I had ever heard anything like it, my then 3 yr old son, would cry and tell me, “God made a mistake, I’m really a girl” and besides his penis, he was a stereotypical preschool girl. He loved Disney princesses, hot pink and purple, and everything glittery. Give him a toy gun and it was a magic wand and he was a fairy. Give him a Tonka truck and it was Cinderella’s coach. He wanted to cut off his penis. He was not around gay people, we were strict about what we watched, we certainly didn’t push it on him; his room was done in footballs and his dad, a former jock and Marine, was excited to have a boy to roughhouse with. We sought professional help with one of the top
psychiatrist at the Children’s Hospital, in Columbus Ohio. He referred our case to a team of “professionals”. The situation was so rare that there was little known and no help to be given.
I have learned that there are people born with a mix of sex chromosomes; part of a “y” attached to an “x”, or born with a penis but have two “x” chromosomes, and other combinations. There are internal hermaphrodites; for example, ovaries and a penis. These people tend to be transgender or homosexual. These people were very rare. I wonder how rare they are now. I wonder if we looked at the chromosomes and did ultra sounds on the people who want sex change surgeries and are gay, how many would have one of these “rare disorders”. If my theory is right and the disorders are no longer so rare, I wonder if the same thing causing autism, ADHD, and depression, is causing a change in chromosomes. Is it Tylenol, is it vaccines, our food? If it is, is it being done on purpose or is it simply that drug manufacturers don’t care because of the money.
It’s a fact that something has caused an increase in autism. The ADHD increase can be a desire to push more meds for profit. The rise in depression can be societal or a desire to push meds too. Again, I think all of this is part of it, a tiny part but not all. So what is causing the increases? Something to think about.
Jesus. That number alone tells us this is NOT a disease - it's a personality type. That number means essentially the "condition" they are medicating is a normal part of human behavior which people find inconvenient, in other words yet another naive implementation of quasi-eugenics. Parents want to make their kids "better" so they can compete with their peers. The hubris of the medical community when it comes to defining what they claim is "better" is off the charts. As several other commenters have pointed out, these drugs, anti-depressants, and anti-anxiety drugs all fall prey to this problem. Are there serious cases where the brain gets dangerously out of balance? Absolutely. But serious cases is not 20 percent of the population. That number means we are - by definition - medicating NORMAL people (kids in this case, even worse) because the psychiatric community finds normal psychological variation to be unacceptable. Control freaks making a mess, as they do in all areas.
Something not mentioned here is the reported incidence of some form(s) of cancer associated with Ritalin usage. Knew a case of a young teen who was rxed this stuff for what seemed to us to be very weak reasons and my wife knew from working in a pediatrics dept. of this risk. Sure enough the girl did get lymphoma. Pretty big risk factor for simply controlling a frisky kid.
Chronic consumption by growing children causes hormonal disruption and in one case I know caused over stimulation of long bones. Bobby was a nice looking child, but not as an adult.
There is a general push to medicate these children, and that general push includes many of the people in contact with any given child. Yes. But - in his/her ideal form (never of course obtained) - the physician is the gatekeeper for precisely these kinds of situations. That those in contact with the child may want to change the child's behavior is predictable. The physician is the one who is supposed to put the brakes on that impulse by saying "Yes, BUT..." there are risks to use of these medications, and there are complexities in the human organism which must be accounted for. It appears far too many physicians are willing to ignore the potential for negative "side-effects", thinking only of the purported "cure". To balance the negative potentials of these medications with the positive potentials is the job of the physician, always.
I've commented on this many times over the past few years. "First Do No Harm." It feels to me that far too many physicians in the current generation have lost the powerful urge to caution contained in that saying. The saying means until we are very confident that our treatment will not make the problem worse, DON'T TREAT. Too many physicians now seem to think the precise opposite: "If I don't treat, then I am being negligent." The null hypothesis is regularly thrown out the window in favor of the hoped-for outcome. This is dangerous and is exactly why "First Do No Harm" is so desperately important for physicians to re-engage with.
Essentially all higher education is by spoon feeding. No critical thinking taught or required. This and indoctrination with atheistic leftist ideology creates blind adherence to the “authorities”.
Physician autonomy, once a bedrock principle is now a quaint irrelevant concept. We are producing drones.
Hence the inability to see the malfeasance of the pandemic response.
I'm most concerned about the publication process. The "authorities" for physicians are the journals, and who can argue with that? The problem is that if the "journals" lose their focus on skepticism and become simply another cog in the "drone" machine you are describing, then what's left? How are physicians to know what works and doesn't if the publication process is compromised?
We have been taught to rely on a “peer review” process to validate medical literature. It turns out the peer review process has been corrupted and degraded. And now we see the health authorities are corrupt. We are left with little but common sense. Any many don’t have it.
Big problem I saw w/ peer review was journals allowing you to pick your reviewers. There were obvious cliques formed in some particular areas and not hard to see how that operates re grants and publications
Another adage often ignored by m.d.s (but not by any Osteopaths I know) is "listen to the patient". A whole lot of grief could be avoided if more adhered to that advice.
For me that brings up the issue of who is the patient? As the subject of the visit most times I didn't get listened to. My Mother was the person the Doctors responded to. My Mother sent me to a cardiologist for ongoing care. He kept asking me why I was seeing him. I was perfectly normal. (My dad had a CVA). It took a while before she was convinced there was no issue.
I'm maintaining a more optimistic and charitable view of parents as a general class. There's variation among parenting as in all areas. In my comment, I chose to address parents who are just confused and trying to do the best by their child. There are more narcissistic parents, but I don't believe they represent the bulk of the group. Maybe I'm being naive, but this is where I'm coming from.
Thank you for having a charitable view of parents. I have seem so many "lazy parents" or "it's normal " in the comments. I feel like that is similar to telling the parent of an autistic child that autism is just a different way of thinking or a gift when their child is non-verbal and wearing a helmet and a diaper. I believe now ADHD, at least in part, has a neurological injury root. There are degrees! Certainly a few energetic boys end up on medication, but I have two ADHD boys. One was kicked out of his wonderful Christian outdoor preschool because he needed such intense one on one supervision from the staff, the other I don't even dare to try to send due to his emotional disregulation. Being a parent to them is physically and mentally draining, but we do it everyday.
I have two close friends with ADHD boys and both are actually more severely impacted then my children. I had the condition myself as a child. It was not my parents being lazy, or a variation on normal, I know this because I lived it, and then successfully treated it in myself and the difference in my own mind and ability to think is night and day.
Thank you! My son is on medicine for ADHD (what they use to call ADD before they added the H for all types) He cannot listen to a complete sentence and remember it because his mind wanders. He can’t have a conversation or follow simple instructions, let alone do school work. If he was simply hyper, we could deal with it. I did ask the doctor to take him off of Adderall for something that isn’t a stimulant but I don’t know what Atomoxetine will do to him long term. I don’t know what to do but medicate him and I haven’t found anyone else who knows.
No need to rethink it. Saw it happen with a really nice kid who was always being disparaged by his mom for not age progressing on par with other kids in the community.
ADHD is utter nonsense. Boys have high testosterone in adolescence. It’s by design. Labeling normalcy as a disease, while at the same time labeling “gender dysphoria” as normal is abhorrent.
Fundamentally a normal boy with high energy needs to be drugged and a boy propagandized into thinking they are not a boy needs to be turned into a gargoyle.
I am a mother of an "ADHD" child. He was briefly medicated, despite my concerns about the side effects. After a year, whilst he was definately doing better at school - more concentration and focus, and increased grades, the side effects of Ritalin were horrendous! He became suicidal and when i asked the "experts" for an alternative solution, I was told that there wasn't one and, I was told that, without medication, he would have no job, no prospects and no friends. We ditched the drugs and..... instead of seeing his "issues" as a problem, we worked together, him and I, to concentrate on the positives of his ability to think outside of the box. We generally ignored the things he wasn't very good at. That was over ten years ago. He has become an amazing adult with incredible abilities (mainly to do with engineering) a fantastic group of friends and is one of the most empathic people I know. I dread to think what would have happened if I had listened to the "experts". You are correct Dr Malone, there are much better solutions and absolutely one size does not fit all. Edited to add, I should say that he absolutely acknowledges that he struggles to read body language, and this is down to the way his brain works, but the people who know him love him, encourage him and explain to him when he messes up. They also acknowledge that he has some genius ideas that they would never consider. We are all different and we all have something special to offer the world.
ADHD itself is an invented "syndrome" and "diagnosis" - invented to create a demand for drugs and to provide huge money to schools. Schools get tens of thousands of dollars for each child diagnosed with ADHD - much like hospitals received thousands or tens of thousands for each covid patient. This is the incentive to "diagnose" as many children as possible with ADHD. Then of course there are the billions in profits from the sale of ADHD drugs.
90% or more of "ADHD symptoms" are caused by (1) nutritional deficiencies, (2) too much sugar and food additives, (3) no knowledge of how to study properly, or (4) lack of outdoor activities and exercise.
I recommend books by such doctors as "No More ADHD" by Dr. mary Ann Block and "Is This Your Child" by Dr. Doris Rapp. These doctors cover the ADHD scam in detail.
I apologise in advance that I am about to disagree with your comment. My child was diagnosed with ADHD several years AFTER I had looked at my sons diet and reduced it to a purely organic and sugar free diet. He played in our garden every day and it made no difference. I recommend reading ADHD and the Edison Gene: A Drug-Free Approach to Managing the Unique Qualities of Your Child by Thom Hartmann
I believe that there absolutely are exceptions, of course there are children who truly need something to help them focus and/or for hyper activity but they are few and far between. Your son sounds like he is one of the few and legitimately needs meds. The problem isn’t prescribing meds to those who need it. The problem is prescribing drugs to 20% of kids! Probably about 1% needs it, the rest our parents and doctors looking for a quick fix.
Have a family member who was ridiculously focused as a toddler. Was put on Ritalin as a young/teen and now is diagnosed with autism in 30s. Was always super smart but I believe overmedicated and essentially impaired now for life. Criminal.
Amen. ADHD meds have been pushed by big pharma and yes, docs have gotten pay offs for endorsing them. Sound familiar?
All anyone needs to do to debunk the ADHD crowd is to read the research of Jaak Panksepp. He was the one who found that the brain has 7 emotional systems. One of these systems as described by Panksepp is the "Play" system. What he found in rats was that the use of the ADHD drugs was very effective in muting the play system. It simply slowed down their interest in play. We also know that the play system for boys is instrumental in their psychological development. So by administering these drugs to boys we are literally stopping up their development. Here's a link to Panksepp's book that outlines this in great detail. https://www.amazon.com/Archaeology-Mind-Neuroevolutionary-Interpersonal-Neurobiology-ebook/dp/B007HXFCIS
Hi Ronda - The book is a fascinating read but it is highly technical and not geared to help parents understand their sons. I have been working with men and boys in therapy for many years and can tell you that boys will tend to increase their focus and their openness when they are involved in an activity. I encourage moms to spend time with their sons doing a common activity and this often gives a connection that had been missing prior. Shooting baskets together, even something as simple as taking a walk together shoulder to shoulder. The activity gives the boy an anchor in a way and makes interaction easier since it is not the primary focus. If you must sit and talk throw a koosh ball back and forth. This helps him to focus. Actually, this is very helpful for moms wanting dad to communicate....Get a koosh ball and watch the magic! The more feminine and actually the expected default is to consider talking and interacting as being the primary mode of communication but it works very well for most women but not as well for most men and boys.
There are a boatload of research driven reasons for this and if you are interested I could include some resources.
No, not in Tampa, I am outside of Washington DC. I am semi retired and only see people two days a week and then only online. Probably best to find someone in person but it's not easy finding a conservative, pro-family therapist these days. So many therapists have been taught by the left and it ain't pretty.
I wish I knew someone in Tampa for you. I don't. I would urge you to consider buying a book on this titled "Helping Mothers be Closer to Their Sons." I wrote it a while back after seeing so many single mothers who were clueless about their sons and their unique ways. (Not having fathers around to explain things made it even worse.) I think there are some things in the book that you might find useful. Here's a link https://amzn.to/3CxvgN6
For the record, Rush always said, "ADHD used to be called bad behavior". Who knows, with the ever evolving childhood vaccine information (look at Bobby Kennedy's C.H.D.F. autism charts), ADHD might just be another consequence of unnecessary childhood vaccines.
I am a child psychiatrist who has been in direct care for 41 years. I always ask why symptoms occur.
Currently I have the working hypothesis that most of the autism, depression, psychotic disorders, and mood disorders that I see are due to immune system interactions with the central nervous system. The most likely major antigens include vaccines, food additives, and other environmental pathogens to be named later.
ADHD is real and if left untreated can be severely debilitating. Like any disease it’s imperative to perform a complete psychiatric evaluation, medical evaluation with labs, nutritional evaluation, family evaluation, school and extended family collateral contact interviews , and psychological testing.
Behavioral interventions, OT, and child therapies are implemented before meds.
Medication is given when indicated. Start low and go slow ( dosing) is the mantra. And weekly visits until stable.
Symptoms are followed with objective rating scales from teachers and parents.
The article Dr Malone posted has inaccurate percentages. It quotes 20%. The most recent CDC Data say 9%. Last time I looked was around 2005. It was 6% then.
The takeaway is DO NOT MINIMIZE a serious neurological disability in your child just because big pharma is corrupt and the corporate medical practices have lost major credibility over Covid.
And doctors need to stay in their lanes. I don’t give advice about maladies that I’m not trained in. Neither should Malone.
All children and adults have problems that need to be corrected. How to correct them is the question (drugs, dietary, spiritual...)? In reality, the collapse of religion and specifically Christianity has had a profoundly negative impact on children leaving them emotionally and spiritually as reactive to challenges like toddlers. Give them drugs, yes is what our society says. Teach them the truth of the bible?, sadly no. I hypothesize you see many more secularly raised kids than you do kids that attend sunday school/church every week. I rarely meet kids with attention deficit problems at church, they have learned patience from the truth of the bible.
I agree with the first half. I agree there is a lot of truth in the bible too. I believe a church based upbringing with strong guidelines creates way more stability in children than this freerange purely materalistic "achieve my son" approach.
Church is fine if they later can break away from the church doctrine and become truly free in adulthood. The churches I know provide guidance but there is not much true spiritualiy left in organised religions.
What is true spirituality? The ecstacy of being one with god. Because you are a Christian I feel I need to add on: And god is not a person like celestial being. Just that in itself stoped me from educating my children as Christians - putting a wrong god imagine in their heart.
True spirituality is also non-dual in nature. What does that mean? It means ego disolvement and unity with god. I am god and god is me. Jews, Muslims and Christians, every now and then, produced real mystics and they were usually kicked out if they were lucky, or brutally tortoured and killed if unlucky.
TAlso, the wording of the bible is problematic. Let's not forget - the bible was written about 100 years after Jesus died - by men. I read the bible and i read many other religious scripts and books and practised a number of spiritual practises - including prayer. And the bible and praying and church structure didn't do it for me at all. I found much better ways for myself.
I know a person who did much better in her life and with herself after a joining an alternative new Christian church. So they have their purposes. But true spiritualiy is not part of that.
The problem is, that for many the churches are outdated and not attractive. Like it or not. It's a fact. Everything evolves and grows but Christians hang on to this old way of how spirituality is taucht. I am not questioning the underlying spiritual message here. That is as good and the same as any other form of spirituality. There is only one god.
But the expression and teaching of it vary and develop over time. Unfortunatley, the Christians, Jews and Muslims don't want to let go and evolve in their teachings and will eventually vanish because it becomes irrelevant.
What works for me is non-dual spirituality, or Adveita Vendata. Nisrgadatta Maharaj is my Jesus (which I love too), and other teachers are there. "I am that", by Nisargadatta Mahraj is the most profound and clear spiritual teaching I ever encountered. The bible reads like a children book in comparison.
The human race had to loose this destructive egoitic materalistic way to survive. Going back to outdated religous systems won't work. We need to jump to another spiritual paradigm that fits our new capacity to think and feel. I am convinced it will be non-dualistic in nature. And it won't be organised. As soon it is organised it is captured by men and looses all it's spirtuality. Spirtuality is always new, always in flow, always in the moment, always spontaneous.
The old "I am the specialist, I know best, don't think for yourself" mantra. If you would know anything about life, creation and science, you would realize that you know almost nothing. Do you have any idea or comprehension at all how complex life is? Millions of cause and effect relationships at work in real time. The whole system is an absolute miracle. Everything is connected.
The reductionistic mechanical paradigm of modern medicine is an absolute disaster. You are like a car mechanic that rocks up with his screwdriver and socket box to fix a supercomputer. Your arrogance is boundless. Your brainwashing complete. Don't you realize that the moment you set foot into your medical school you were enslaved to the medical machine?
You have a "working hypothesis" after 41 years? How many of those have we seen coming and going in the medical field over the past 100 years? How big was the colletral damage of trying out all these "working hypothesises" of the medical field? We are not lab animals. And all the things you suggested - how much does that cost per child? Who can afford that and who gets rich on all of it? Just the effort and cost of driving a kid to all these appointments? You need a reality check man. Look how real people with kids live. I have a better solution.
How come kids didn't have ADHD before it became fashionable? They actually were allowed to be kids, no screens, lots of moving around, healthy whole food, less stress. It is that simple. We don't need a doctor and tests to figure that out. We just need good parenting.
And love. ADHD is not a medical problem, it is a social and spiritual problem. Everything is connected.
So tired of hearing from guys like you telling everyone they need a specialist. We don't need specialists, we need to re-discover our common sense, critical thinking, grow some balls and re-find our trust in ourself. We know what to do in all situations. We always did. How else did we get here as a species without that inate knowledge and intuition? We don't need experts and specialist to tell us what to do. How did we survive the last 100,000 years without doctors, universities, bloody face masks and stupid pandemic plans.
We trusted our guts and used our inutition and common sense. But someone took that from us and I know who. So-called studied experts. Science became the new religion, doctors the new high priests. Leave me alone. I don't need you. I wasted enough time and money in my life seeing doctors and get medical trauma on top of it. I haven't seen a doctor for almost a decade except for blood checks. I became my own doctor. Never felt better.
I am not saying they are not needed sometimes. When it comes to emergency procedure they do safe many lifes and they can correct real mechanical issues where their mechanical system applies. Operations, replace organs and bones etc. Like good car mechanics. That's what you are: Glorrified butchers and car mechanics. Your glory is fueld by people's fear and lack of self-confidence. And you are happy to keep them there. You doctors are so so touchy when other people have an opinion about health, their own health, their own bodies. Immediately you feel threatened. Nobody know my body and mind better than I do. If I make the effort to study it. Sadly, most people are brainwashed from day one to hand over their body and mind to a specialist.
But when it comes to healing they do more bad than good. And many of them are unethical, greedy butchers or ignorant arrogant fools. I have no patience and sympathy left for them because they abused their power for far too long.
It is not that difficult. Look at yourself first and forget the world. Spiritul self-reflection and guidance creates humblness and puts the mind were it belongs to: Under the guidance of the heart. But where in the world is that still taught? Which culture still embraces spirit over mental over matter? It can't be taught in an intellectual. There are ready accessible mystics available on the Internet. It never has been easier. But wo don't teach our children to look for them. The powers to be never wanted mystics that teach the masses - way too dangerous for the powers to be.
I look at this system wide calamity as if the medical profession has started functioning like an alcoholic family system. The cardinal rules are: keep your mouth shut, do exactly what you are told, and never rock the boat. If a child or non addicted spouse violates these rules , they are scapegoated(canceled). And they are forever seen as “the bad seed”. Now we see this dynamic playing out in the Covid persecutions of heroic doctors. But this dynamic has been around for decades.
Our country suffers from cultural (nation wide) PTSD also. That is another discussion. And another reason why so many of us do what we are told by these corrupt institutions.
The head on attack on the doctor-patient relationship by economic and sociopathic forces started in my medical world in the late 70s or early 80s. The rise of corporate hospital chains whose gods were Wall Street quarterly reports started the process.
Then in the late 80s the rise of managed care companies and medical health insurance companies super charged the fascist descent into medical hell.
The losers were patients and independent thinking physicians. The doctor patient relationship became a liability on corporate balance sheets.
My personal solution was to go to a direct care concierge model in 1994. It works well for me and my patients.
Until corporate entities run by sociopaths are no longer in power , nothing will change.
This is duplicate reply of one I wrote in response to another comment. Your question about behaviors being chemically induced and technology amplifying pathology, goes hand-in-hand with my theory that I already posted. Since I believe we are both questioning what what is being done on purpose, I want you to see my thoughts.
I have a crazy theory. Autism rates have skyrocketed with no explanation. A TINY percentage is attributed to the ability to diagnose it but that doesn’t explain the huge increase. So something caused the spike. Recent studies indicate it is Tylenol given to infants & toddlers. Assuming that Tylenol, preservatives in our food, vaccines, something has caused the increase in autism, depression, and ADHD; couldn’t the same be said for transgenderism and homosexuality. (Are all the above increases chemically induced?)
Like autism, they have always existed but, like autism, they were rare. Society is more accepting and that accounts for a TINY percentage but it doesn’t explain the huge increase. Is there something causing homosexuality, trans, depression, ADHD, and God knows what else? (chemically induced and technology amplified???)
I’m sure we can all point to societal changes that contribute to everything I named. I don’t believe it explains all of it. Partly I don’t because 24 years ago, before it was trendy and before I had ever heard anything like it, my then 3 yr old son, would cry and tell me, “God made a mistake, I’m really a girl” and besides his penis, he was a stereotypical preschool girl. He loved Disney princesses, hot pink and purple, and everything glittery. Give him a toy gun and it was a magic wand and he was a fairy. Give him a Tonka truck and it was Cinderella’s coach. He wanted to cut off his penis. He was not around gay people, we were strict about what we watched, we certainly didn’t push it on him; his room was done in footballs and his dad, a former jock and Marine, was excited to have a boy to roughhouse with. We sought professional help with one of the top
psychiatrist at the Children’s Hospital, in Columbus Ohio. He referred our case to a team of “professionals”. The situation was so rare that there was little known and no help to be given.
I have learned that there are people born with a mix of sex chromosomes; part of a “y” attached to an “x”, or born with a penis but have two “x” chromosomes, and other combinations. There are internal hermaphrodites; for example, ovaries and a penis. These people tend to be transgender or homosexual. These people were very rare. I wonder how rare they are now. (Chemically altered???). I wonder if we looked at the chromosomes and did ultra sounds on the people who want sex change surgeries and are gay, how many would have one of these “rare disorders”. If my theory is right and the disorders are no longer so rare, I wonder if the same thing causing autism, ADHD, and depression, is causing a change in chromosomes. Is it Tylenol, is it vaccines, our food? If it is, is it being done on purpose or is it simply that drug manufacturers don’t care because of the money. (Is technology amplifying the conditions??)
It’s a fact that something has caused an increase in autism. The ADHD increase can be a desire to push more meds for profit. The rise in depression can be societal or a desire to push meds too. Again, I think all of this is part of it, a tiny part but not all. So what is causing the increases? (Chemicals?? Technology??) Something to think about.
Just like the SSRI 's are over prescribed the pharmaceuticals for ADHD are as well. My daughter suffers from depression and is smart enough to refuse to take what was prescibed after extensive research and has focused instead on diet and exercise. Convenience and profit are the primary driver for many of todays SOMA alternatives. My good friend has complained to me often about his nephews who are both on medication for ADHD and tells me they are normal rambunctious boys not defective and worries what these drugs are doing to perfectly healthy boys. Given what has happened with Covid and the constant lies from pharma companies it's a wonder there isn't a CDC mandate for SSRI's for all who disagree. Overcoming the struggles of life is what creates determination, builds charachter and breeds success, There is no free lunch or easy path to success and no Liberty without the sacrifice and inconvience of holding our government accountable.
"Given what has happened with Covid and the constant lies from pharma companies it's a wonder there isn't a CDC mandate for SSRI's for all who disagree. "
We're approaching this point, scarily enough. This is the perfect marriage of Huxley and Orwell, forced medication to "treat difficult personalities". Tragic, given that much of this occurred in the former Soviet Union. But rather than look at that history and the results of this kind of thought (very recent history, I might add, within my lifetime), our own iteration of control freaks are repeating almost precisely the same thought process over again, in complete ignorance. Our society is collapsing (fertility rates are the tell), and those in charge are radically incapable of recognizing that it is the very policies they put in place to "fix" things that are responsible for the collapse itself. "Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose." The scale of this iteration of that old axiom is impressive and depressing.
As a psychiatrist I agree with the general commentary of this article. I have never once initiated stimulant medications in children or adolescents, and I always consider alternative options in all cases. Typically a reasonable case to treat with stimulants would be an adult who doesn't improve with alternatives. I believe stimulants can reasonably be continued in those showing clinically observable academic or occupational improvement. Discontinuation of the stimulant is always a goal.
Articles like this one serve to remind and encourage doctors like me to maintain awareness of the distortions of the industry and to continue minimizing stimulant use.
I must add that some comments here disparaging psychiatrists in general are demonstrably irrational.
"I must add that some comments here disparaging psychiatrists in general are demonstrably irrational."
I appreciate your comment and I agree generalizations are almost always a mistake. That said, given the scale of this problem - the fact that millions of these prescriptions are being dispensed - it appears that far too many of your colleagues are not able to see what you see. That there are responsible practitioners such as you unfortunately may be inadequate to deny the generalization, given the scale of the problem. As the article notes, this has become "standard practice". Just like with the Covid debacle - where the popular wisdom within the medical community also went off the rails - sometimes the entire community needs to be called out to bring attention to a demonstrable problem.
Uhhh…Dear patient, Would you like the SCS or the morpine pump? Going into veterinary medicine…Seen too much in human medicine. The highlight of the end of my medical career was I did not assault the physician. Close call.
Thank you for posting this!!
I do not have children of my own, so I can be objective. I have often wondered WHY my generation never needed these medications and WHY ADHD is an epidemic.
The symptoms they describe seem to describe almost every prepubescent boy and many prepubescent girl's normal behavior.
They are hyperactive, annoying, have a hard time concentrating...because they are CHILDREN.
I think it's widescale poisoning of the young population.....and these young people are usually addicted for life and cannot ever stop without serious counselling and withdrawal.
If I had children of my own, no way I would allow them to be prescribed these drugs.
The teachers are always recommending them(I do have step children who have school aged children and THANK GOD they have not taken the teacher recommendations to medicate for normal behavior)
Why can't kids be allowed to be kids?
They need to run and play and be loud and annoying. They don't need to learn 5 languages by age twelve or delve into anything sexual.....why are we trying to make them into small stature adults?
Let kids be kids!!
Sadly a decent diet and parents who actually engage their children is the solution probably 95% of the time...
And lots of physical activity!!
Get them away from the boob tube and computer screen!
But there's money to be made! Who cares about the welfare of our children when we can dope them into zombies for a lifetime!
My mom was so right. She'd be 97 today. Told us, don't ever allow a doctor or teacher tell you, your children need to be on drugs, (medications). What they need is to get outside in the sunshine and burn off their energy. Young people have lots of energy. Help them find their creativity, sports, art, building things. That's our job as parents to allow them with guidance to find what they love to do, and it's not being cooped up all day, even in the rain or blizzards. Allow them to experience it all. She was adamantly against teachers and doctors wanting to drug children and let it be known.
Yes, yes, yes.
I am so happy I grew up when we were like wild little animals all day.
We slept so soundly at night.
We didn't get fat, even though we ate Twinkies and white bread.
When societies evolve, why can't they learn to keep the good parts and only throw out the bad?
Oh boy, did you hit a nerve with me on this one, so do "opposition-defiant disorder" next, Dr Malone!
I almost lost my son years ago because I refused to allow him to be put on medication for this, simply because he broke a pencil in half and tore a piece of paper in half at the front of the room, and exclaimed to the teacher that he was not going to do the baby work anymore! So, I had him tested for organic cause, EKG, etc...nothing came up, then I took him to 3 PhD's and they all said that he was bored and not to allow the school to put him in the exceptional learning program, where all of the juvenile delinquents will recruit him! So Shands told me that I could get $400/mo for his disability, by labeling him with ODD, and I was shocked, that they had the gall to mislabel and medicate an 8 yr old with a Disorder that was specific to only one environment: his school, and they got mad at me for refusing to play their ugly, evil game and try to threaten to take him away from me! Now, my son is a senior in College, straight A's, because I homeschooled him while working 60 hours/week....and taught a lot of others how to...it's a racket!
Can you give me any advice on homeschooling? My son is 16, has autism, he’s high functioning, in a private Christian school that is not working out. I want to homeschool him but I’m afraid that if I do something wrong, nothing I do will count and he’ll be a high school dropout.
Omygosh, Ronda, there's so much to strategize, as every child is different, has different learning styles, and various preferences, good days/bad days...if I had to put it in a nutshell:
1.) Find out what subject matters he likes/would be motivated to read or study online, so that you can foster his natural love of learning and curiosity...and there's even online tools that he can take to figure out the style, oral, kinetic, etc...but don't put in your real personal info, just make it up so that he can't be tracked! You can also test them online for learning gaps!
2.) Go online and find your school district's requirements for each grade level, and which tests they are required to pass, and then go look up those tests to see what he needs to know.
3.) Match up the goals for each subject, like math, science, english, etc...and list them on paper, or an excel spreadsheet. Then, have him help you find the resources to get him to reach the goals, so that he is engaged/buys into the method, especially the subject matter!
4.) Reverse engineer the whole school year, so, from the middle of May, as if all of the goals were completed and each week, back into the beginning of the year, including skipping a few weeks for spring break and christmas, and holidays, until you get to the beginning of the year in Aug/Sept. I also took him on weekends, (because I worked during the week,) to places that were exploratory, science centers, museums, learning labs, seminars, camping, etc...he even hiked the entire Appalacian Trail when he was 17 by himself for Senior Year, and has traveled the world by himself, and is fluent in 5 languages. I am so glad now that I did that, even though I was mad and scared that I would screw it up...it's just a little extra work, and so much more rewarding, even by slicing a pizza in many more pieces and drilling him on the fractions while he was eating it adds to their learning development. Hope this helps!
P.S. I forgot to mention that I had to also teach him time management skills, and I allowed him to manage his workload for the week, but if it wasn't all done by Friday night when I got home from work, then no TV, no video games, no electronic nothing all weekend! He didn't get it done once...that's all it took, and another time I caught him up at 3am playing video games, and I took the router to work with me, and he called me freaking out that he couldn't get online and I told him that he had to do his work without it today, and read or do workbook pages as punishment, and that ended that! I also got him involved with other homeschooled kids and their outings/activities so he could socialize with them. Really hope you trust yourself enough to make it work out!
Stanford HS Online
Well, I haven't been to a doctor in at least 10 years...after I read the 1,600 page Bill that they said our so-called reps had to pass, in order to see what was in it! When you are homeschooling every weekend, you have the time to read 400 pgs/day! Lol...then, I looked up Dr Mercola and alternative health and have no issues at all, but it took a few years to detox and develop the intuitive health that our bodies were made to have...if anyone is curious, you can find the ugly healthcare issues caused by this bill that you've been seeing manifest these last 3 or 4 years...so sad!
https://www.congress.gov/bill/111th-congress/house-bill/3590
Coincidently, just today, I was talking with two other ladies about many of the harms caused by Obamacare.
I got a lot of useful info from prodentim. They talked about the microbiome of the mouth and gums causing disease. Made a lot of sense since that was 5th chakra too.
This same article could be written about antidepressants. After 30+ years of telling people serotonin imbalance was the "cause" of depression, a 2022 meta-analysis showed there is no link b/w serotonin and depression demonstrated in the literature. It was all an Rx ad campaign spun as medical reality. So...Depression, ADHD, Alzheimer's, covid. Is there anything the healthcare industry tells the truth about? I don't know what the solution to this problem of lying, manipulating, and over-medicating is, but like everything in America it will likely involve courts and lawyers.
Uhhh…The Framingham Heart Study. Big pharma at its best. Yeah, probably more expensive but let’s look at Apolipoprotein A & B. Any drug that precludes me from drinking grapefruit juice is a red flag and a hard NO!
One of the big lessons of covid insanity is to question everything big pharma produces.
Foxes have been guarding the henhouse for too long.
No one was on these drugs when I grew up in the late 60's and 70's. Schools have failed - kids are bored. They need to get out of the classroom more, field trips, exercise. And be challenged in school.
Look at ballooning obesity rates as a sign of how toxic the foods and drinks have become. Consuming crap impacts the mind as much as it does the body. And then tech was unleashed on developing minds, creating more problems. The problem is wider in scope than just the schools.
I have a crazy theory. Autism rates have skyrocketed with no explanation. A TINY percentage is attributed to the ability to diagnose it but that doesn’t explain the huge increase. So something caused the spike. Recent studies indicate it is Tylenol given to infants & toddlers. Assuming that Tylenol, preservatives in our food, vaccines, something has caused the increase in autism, depression, and ADHD; couldn’t the same be said for transgenderism and homosexuality.
Like autism, they have always existed but, like autism, they were rare. Society is more accepting and that accounts for a TINY percentage but it doesn’t explain the huge increase. Is there something causing homosexuality, trans, depression, ADHD, and God knows what else?
I’m sure we can all point to societal changes that contribute to everything I named. I don’t believe it explains all of it. Partly I don’t because 24 years ago, before it was trendy and before I had ever heard anything like it, my then 3 yr old son, would cry and tell me, “God made a mistake, I’m really a girl” and besides his penis, he was a stereotypical preschool girl. He loved Disney princesses, hot pink and purple, and everything glittery. Give him a toy gun and it was a magic wand and he was a fairy. Give him a Tonka truck and it was Cinderella’s coach. He wanted to cut off his penis. He was not around gay people, we were strict about what we watched, we certainly didn’t push it on him; his room was done in footballs and his dad, a former jock and Marine, was excited to have a boy to roughhouse with. We sought professional help with one of the top
psychiatrist at the Children’s Hospital, in Columbus Ohio. He referred our case to a team of “professionals”. The situation was so rare that there was little known and no help to be given.
I have learned that there are people born with a mix of sex chromosomes; part of a “y” attached to an “x”, or born with a penis but have two “x” chromosomes, and other combinations. There are internal hermaphrodites; for example, ovaries and a penis. These people tend to be transgender or homosexual. These people were very rare. I wonder how rare they are now. I wonder if we looked at the chromosomes and did ultra sounds on the people who want sex change surgeries and are gay, how many would have one of these “rare disorders”. If my theory is right and the disorders are no longer so rare, I wonder if the same thing causing autism, ADHD, and depression, is causing a change in chromosomes. Is it Tylenol, is it vaccines, our food? If it is, is it being done on purpose or is it simply that drug manufacturers don’t care because of the money.
It’s a fact that something has caused an increase in autism. The ADHD increase can be a desire to push more meds for profit. The rise in depression can be societal or a desire to push meds too. Again, I think all of this is part of it, a tiny part but not all. So what is causing the increases? Something to think about.
20 PERCENT?!?!
Jesus. That number alone tells us this is NOT a disease - it's a personality type. That number means essentially the "condition" they are medicating is a normal part of human behavior which people find inconvenient, in other words yet another naive implementation of quasi-eugenics. Parents want to make their kids "better" so they can compete with their peers. The hubris of the medical community when it comes to defining what they claim is "better" is off the charts. As several other commenters have pointed out, these drugs, anti-depressants, and anti-anxiety drugs all fall prey to this problem. Are there serious cases where the brain gets dangerously out of balance? Absolutely. But serious cases is not 20 percent of the population. That number means we are - by definition - medicating NORMAL people (kids in this case, even worse) because the psychiatric community finds normal psychological variation to be unacceptable. Control freaks making a mess, as they do in all areas.
Something not mentioned here is the reported incidence of some form(s) of cancer associated with Ritalin usage. Knew a case of a young teen who was rxed this stuff for what seemed to us to be very weak reasons and my wife knew from working in a pediatrics dept. of this risk. Sure enough the girl did get lymphoma. Pretty big risk factor for simply controlling a frisky kid.
Chronic consumption by growing children causes hormonal disruption and in one case I know caused over stimulation of long bones. Bobby was a nice looking child, but not as an adult.
Wow!
Shouldn't we add school teachers and parents to the mix of those finding boisterous children unacceptable?
There is a general push to medicate these children, and that general push includes many of the people in contact with any given child. Yes. But - in his/her ideal form (never of course obtained) - the physician is the gatekeeper for precisely these kinds of situations. That those in contact with the child may want to change the child's behavior is predictable. The physician is the one who is supposed to put the brakes on that impulse by saying "Yes, BUT..." there are risks to use of these medications, and there are complexities in the human organism which must be accounted for. It appears far too many physicians are willing to ignore the potential for negative "side-effects", thinking only of the purported "cure". To balance the negative potentials of these medications with the positive potentials is the job of the physician, always.
I've commented on this many times over the past few years. "First Do No Harm." It feels to me that far too many physicians in the current generation have lost the powerful urge to caution contained in that saying. The saying means until we are very confident that our treatment will not make the problem worse, DON'T TREAT. Too many physicians now seem to think the precise opposite: "If I don't treat, then I am being negligent." The null hypothesis is regularly thrown out the window in favor of the hoped-for outcome. This is dangerous and is exactly why "First Do No Harm" is so desperately important for physicians to re-engage with.
Essentially all higher education is by spoon feeding. No critical thinking taught or required. This and indoctrination with atheistic leftist ideology creates blind adherence to the “authorities”.
Physician autonomy, once a bedrock principle is now a quaint irrelevant concept. We are producing drones.
Hence the inability to see the malfeasance of the pandemic response.
I'm most concerned about the publication process. The "authorities" for physicians are the journals, and who can argue with that? The problem is that if the "journals" lose their focus on skepticism and become simply another cog in the "drone" machine you are describing, then what's left? How are physicians to know what works and doesn't if the publication process is compromised?
We have been taught to rely on a “peer review” process to validate medical literature. It turns out the peer review process has been corrupted and degraded. And now we see the health authorities are corrupt. We are left with little but common sense. Any many don’t have it.
Big problem I saw w/ peer review was journals allowing you to pick your reviewers. There were obvious cliques formed in some particular areas and not hard to see how that operates re grants and publications
Peer review is where your rivals get to decide whether u get to publish a paper that makes them all look obsolete
Another adage often ignored by m.d.s (but not by any Osteopaths I know) is "listen to the patient". A whole lot of grief could be avoided if more adhered to that advice.
For me that brings up the issue of who is the patient? As the subject of the visit most times I didn't get listened to. My Mother was the person the Doctors responded to. My Mother sent me to a cardiologist for ongoing care. He kept asking me why I was seeing him. I was perfectly normal. (My dad had a CVA). It took a while before she was convinced there was no issue.
Do no harm was removed from most western medical schools. These are poisoners pretending to hiopocrates, aka hypocritrs
I'm maintaining a more optimistic and charitable view of parents as a general class. There's variation among parenting as in all areas. In my comment, I chose to address parents who are just confused and trying to do the best by their child. There are more narcissistic parents, but I don't believe they represent the bulk of the group. Maybe I'm being naive, but this is where I'm coming from.
Thank you for having a charitable view of parents. I have seem so many "lazy parents" or "it's normal " in the comments. I feel like that is similar to telling the parent of an autistic child that autism is just a different way of thinking or a gift when their child is non-verbal and wearing a helmet and a diaper. I believe now ADHD, at least in part, has a neurological injury root. There are degrees! Certainly a few energetic boys end up on medication, but I have two ADHD boys. One was kicked out of his wonderful Christian outdoor preschool because he needed such intense one on one supervision from the staff, the other I don't even dare to try to send due to his emotional disregulation. Being a parent to them is physically and mentally draining, but we do it everyday.
I have two close friends with ADHD boys and both are actually more severely impacted then my children. I had the condition myself as a child. It was not my parents being lazy, or a variation on normal, I know this because I lived it, and then successfully treated it in myself and the difference in my own mind and ability to think is night and day.
Thank you! My son is on medicine for ADHD (what they use to call ADD before they added the H for all types) He cannot listen to a complete sentence and remember it because his mind wanders. He can’t have a conversation or follow simple instructions, let alone do school work. If he was simply hyper, we could deal with it. I did ask the doctor to take him off of Adderall for something that isn’t a stimulant but I don’t know what Atomoxetine will do to him long term. I don’t know what to do but medicate him and I haven’t found anyone else who knows.
No need to rethink it. Saw it happen with a really nice kid who was always being disparaged by his mom for not age progressing on par with other kids in the community.
Deborah the stack made it look like you were commenting on a. comment I made elsewhere. But I stand by it here. This was family
Don't, it was my error
ADHD is utter nonsense. Boys have high testosterone in adolescence. It’s by design. Labeling normalcy as a disease, while at the same time labeling “gender dysphoria” as normal is abhorrent.
Fundamentally a normal boy with high energy needs to be drugged and a boy propagandized into thinking they are not a boy needs to be turned into a gargoyle.
The madness continues unabated.
I am a mother of an "ADHD" child. He was briefly medicated, despite my concerns about the side effects. After a year, whilst he was definately doing better at school - more concentration and focus, and increased grades, the side effects of Ritalin were horrendous! He became suicidal and when i asked the "experts" for an alternative solution, I was told that there wasn't one and, I was told that, without medication, he would have no job, no prospects and no friends. We ditched the drugs and..... instead of seeing his "issues" as a problem, we worked together, him and I, to concentrate on the positives of his ability to think outside of the box. We generally ignored the things he wasn't very good at. That was over ten years ago. He has become an amazing adult with incredible abilities (mainly to do with engineering) a fantastic group of friends and is one of the most empathic people I know. I dread to think what would have happened if I had listened to the "experts". You are correct Dr Malone, there are much better solutions and absolutely one size does not fit all. Edited to add, I should say that he absolutely acknowledges that he struggles to read body language, and this is down to the way his brain works, but the people who know him love him, encourage him and explain to him when he messes up. They also acknowledge that he has some genius ideas that they would never consider. We are all different and we all have something special to offer the world.
ADHD itself is an invented "syndrome" and "diagnosis" - invented to create a demand for drugs and to provide huge money to schools. Schools get tens of thousands of dollars for each child diagnosed with ADHD - much like hospitals received thousands or tens of thousands for each covid patient. This is the incentive to "diagnose" as many children as possible with ADHD. Then of course there are the billions in profits from the sale of ADHD drugs.
90% or more of "ADHD symptoms" are caused by (1) nutritional deficiencies, (2) too much sugar and food additives, (3) no knowledge of how to study properly, or (4) lack of outdoor activities and exercise.
I recommend books by such doctors as "No More ADHD" by Dr. mary Ann Block and "Is This Your Child" by Dr. Doris Rapp. These doctors cover the ADHD scam in detail.
I apologise in advance that I am about to disagree with your comment. My child was diagnosed with ADHD several years AFTER I had looked at my sons diet and reduced it to a purely organic and sugar free diet. He played in our garden every day and it made no difference. I recommend reading ADHD and the Edison Gene: A Drug-Free Approach to Managing the Unique Qualities of Your Child by Thom Hartmann
I believe that there absolutely are exceptions, of course there are children who truly need something to help them focus and/or for hyper activity but they are few and far between. Your son sounds like he is one of the few and legitimately needs meds. The problem isn’t prescribing meds to those who need it. The problem is prescribing drugs to 20% of kids! Probably about 1% needs it, the rest our parents and doctors looking for a quick fix.
How about families spending real time together. How about attention being paid to our beautiful children?
Have a family member who was ridiculously focused as a toddler. Was put on Ritalin as a young/teen and now is diagnosed with autism in 30s. Was always super smart but I believe overmedicated and essentially impaired now for life. Criminal.
Amen. ADHD meds have been pushed by big pharma and yes, docs have gotten pay offs for endorsing them. Sound familiar?
All anyone needs to do to debunk the ADHD crowd is to read the research of Jaak Panksepp. He was the one who found that the brain has 7 emotional systems. One of these systems as described by Panksepp is the "Play" system. What he found in rats was that the use of the ADHD drugs was very effective in muting the play system. It simply slowed down their interest in play. We also know that the play system for boys is instrumental in their psychological development. So by administering these drugs to boys we are literally stopping up their development. Here's a link to Panksepp's book that outlines this in great detail. https://www.amazon.com/Archaeology-Mind-Neuroevolutionary-Interpersonal-Neurobiology-ebook/dp/B007HXFCIS
Thank you. I look forward to reading his book. My son cannot focus, no hyperactivity. I hope the book can give me insight to helping him focus.
Hi Ronda - The book is a fascinating read but it is highly technical and not geared to help parents understand their sons. I have been working with men and boys in therapy for many years and can tell you that boys will tend to increase their focus and their openness when they are involved in an activity. I encourage moms to spend time with their sons doing a common activity and this often gives a connection that had been missing prior. Shooting baskets together, even something as simple as taking a walk together shoulder to shoulder. The activity gives the boy an anchor in a way and makes interaction easier since it is not the primary focus. If you must sit and talk throw a koosh ball back and forth. This helps him to focus. Actually, this is very helpful for moms wanting dad to communicate....Get a koosh ball and watch the magic! The more feminine and actually the expected default is to consider talking and interacting as being the primary mode of communication but it works very well for most women but not as well for most men and boys.
There are a boatload of research driven reasons for this and if you are interested I could include some resources.
Therapy? You don’t happen to live near Tampa Florida, do you? We need a therapist.
No, not in Tampa, I am outside of Washington DC. I am semi retired and only see people two days a week and then only online. Probably best to find someone in person but it's not easy finding a conservative, pro-family therapist these days. So many therapists have been taught by the left and it ain't pretty.
I wish I knew someone in Tampa for you. I don't. I would urge you to consider buying a book on this titled "Helping Mothers be Closer to Their Sons." I wrote it a while back after seeing so many single mothers who were clueless about their sons and their unique ways. (Not having fathers around to explain things made it even worse.) I think there are some things in the book that you might find useful. Here's a link https://amzn.to/3CxvgN6
Let me know if you have questions.
Thank you. I am very interested!!
Thank you, Dr. Malone, for another eye-opening post.
For the record, Rush always said, "ADHD used to be called bad behavior". Who knows, with the ever evolving childhood vaccine information (look at Bobby Kennedy's C.H.D.F. autism charts), ADHD might just be another consequence of unnecessary childhood vaccines.
I am a child psychiatrist who has been in direct care for 41 years. I always ask why symptoms occur.
Currently I have the working hypothesis that most of the autism, depression, psychotic disorders, and mood disorders that I see are due to immune system interactions with the central nervous system. The most likely major antigens include vaccines, food additives, and other environmental pathogens to be named later.
ADHD is real and if left untreated can be severely debilitating. Like any disease it’s imperative to perform a complete psychiatric evaluation, medical evaluation with labs, nutritional evaluation, family evaluation, school and extended family collateral contact interviews , and psychological testing.
Behavioral interventions, OT, and child therapies are implemented before meds.
Medication is given when indicated. Start low and go slow ( dosing) is the mantra. And weekly visits until stable.
Symptoms are followed with objective rating scales from teachers and parents.
The article Dr Malone posted has inaccurate percentages. It quotes 20%. The most recent CDC Data say 9%. Last time I looked was around 2005. It was 6% then.
The takeaway is DO NOT MINIMIZE a serious neurological disability in your child just because big pharma is corrupt and the corporate medical practices have lost major credibility over Covid.
And doctors need to stay in their lanes. I don’t give advice about maladies that I’m not trained in. Neither should Malone.
All children and adults have problems that need to be corrected. How to correct them is the question (drugs, dietary, spiritual...)? In reality, the collapse of religion and specifically Christianity has had a profoundly negative impact on children leaving them emotionally and spiritually as reactive to challenges like toddlers. Give them drugs, yes is what our society says. Teach them the truth of the bible?, sadly no. I hypothesize you see many more secularly raised kids than you do kids that attend sunday school/church every week. I rarely meet kids with attention deficit problems at church, they have learned patience from the truth of the bible.
I agree with the first half. I agree there is a lot of truth in the bible too. I believe a church based upbringing with strong guidelines creates way more stability in children than this freerange purely materalistic "achieve my son" approach.
Church is fine if they later can break away from the church doctrine and become truly free in adulthood. The churches I know provide guidance but there is not much true spiritualiy left in organised religions.
What is true spirituality? The ecstacy of being one with god. Because you are a Christian I feel I need to add on: And god is not a person like celestial being. Just that in itself stoped me from educating my children as Christians - putting a wrong god imagine in their heart.
True spirituality is also non-dual in nature. What does that mean? It means ego disolvement and unity with god. I am god and god is me. Jews, Muslims and Christians, every now and then, produced real mystics and they were usually kicked out if they were lucky, or brutally tortoured and killed if unlucky.
TAlso, the wording of the bible is problematic. Let's not forget - the bible was written about 100 years after Jesus died - by men. I read the bible and i read many other religious scripts and books and practised a number of spiritual practises - including prayer. And the bible and praying and church structure didn't do it for me at all. I found much better ways for myself.
I know a person who did much better in her life and with herself after a joining an alternative new Christian church. So they have their purposes. But true spiritualiy is not part of that.
The problem is, that for many the churches are outdated and not attractive. Like it or not. It's a fact. Everything evolves and grows but Christians hang on to this old way of how spirituality is taucht. I am not questioning the underlying spiritual message here. That is as good and the same as any other form of spirituality. There is only one god.
But the expression and teaching of it vary and develop over time. Unfortunatley, the Christians, Jews and Muslims don't want to let go and evolve in their teachings and will eventually vanish because it becomes irrelevant.
What works for me is non-dual spirituality, or Adveita Vendata. Nisrgadatta Maharaj is my Jesus (which I love too), and other teachers are there. "I am that", by Nisargadatta Mahraj is the most profound and clear spiritual teaching I ever encountered. The bible reads like a children book in comparison.
The human race had to loose this destructive egoitic materalistic way to survive. Going back to outdated religous systems won't work. We need to jump to another spiritual paradigm that fits our new capacity to think and feel. I am convinced it will be non-dualistic in nature. And it won't be organised. As soon it is organised it is captured by men and looses all it's spirtuality. Spirtuality is always new, always in flow, always in the moment, always spontaneous.
Sounds like, to your credit Doc, that you take the time to do it right the first time.
Sadly many of the mental health professionals, specialists, what have you, do not.
The old "I am the specialist, I know best, don't think for yourself" mantra. If you would know anything about life, creation and science, you would realize that you know almost nothing. Do you have any idea or comprehension at all how complex life is? Millions of cause and effect relationships at work in real time. The whole system is an absolute miracle. Everything is connected.
The reductionistic mechanical paradigm of modern medicine is an absolute disaster. You are like a car mechanic that rocks up with his screwdriver and socket box to fix a supercomputer. Your arrogance is boundless. Your brainwashing complete. Don't you realize that the moment you set foot into your medical school you were enslaved to the medical machine?
You have a "working hypothesis" after 41 years? How many of those have we seen coming and going in the medical field over the past 100 years? How big was the colletral damage of trying out all these "working hypothesises" of the medical field? We are not lab animals. And all the things you suggested - how much does that cost per child? Who can afford that and who gets rich on all of it? Just the effort and cost of driving a kid to all these appointments? You need a reality check man. Look how real people with kids live. I have a better solution.
How come kids didn't have ADHD before it became fashionable? They actually were allowed to be kids, no screens, lots of moving around, healthy whole food, less stress. It is that simple. We don't need a doctor and tests to figure that out. We just need good parenting.
And love. ADHD is not a medical problem, it is a social and spiritual problem. Everything is connected.
So tired of hearing from guys like you telling everyone they need a specialist. We don't need specialists, we need to re-discover our common sense, critical thinking, grow some balls and re-find our trust in ourself. We know what to do in all situations. We always did. How else did we get here as a species without that inate knowledge and intuition? We don't need experts and specialist to tell us what to do. How did we survive the last 100,000 years without doctors, universities, bloody face masks and stupid pandemic plans.
We trusted our guts and used our inutition and common sense. But someone took that from us and I know who. So-called studied experts. Science became the new religion, doctors the new high priests. Leave me alone. I don't need you. I wasted enough time and money in my life seeing doctors and get medical trauma on top of it. I haven't seen a doctor for almost a decade except for blood checks. I became my own doctor. Never felt better.
I am not saying they are not needed sometimes. When it comes to emergency procedure they do safe many lifes and they can correct real mechanical issues where their mechanical system applies. Operations, replace organs and bones etc. Like good car mechanics. That's what you are: Glorrified butchers and car mechanics. Your glory is fueld by people's fear and lack of self-confidence. And you are happy to keep them there. You doctors are so so touchy when other people have an opinion about health, their own health, their own bodies. Immediately you feel threatened. Nobody know my body and mind better than I do. If I make the effort to study it. Sadly, most people are brainwashed from day one to hand over their body and mind to a specialist.
But when it comes to healing they do more bad than good. And many of them are unethical, greedy butchers or ignorant arrogant fools. I have no patience and sympathy left for them because they abused their power for far too long.
It is not that difficult. Look at yourself first and forget the world. Spiritul self-reflection and guidance creates humblness and puts the mind were it belongs to: Under the guidance of the heart. But where in the world is that still taught? Which culture still embraces spirit over mental over matter? It can't be taught in an intellectual. There are ready accessible mystics available on the Internet. It never has been easier. But wo don't teach our children to look for them. The powers to be never wanted mystics that teach the masses - way too dangerous for the powers to be.
Yes. I agree with all that you said.
I look at this system wide calamity as if the medical profession has started functioning like an alcoholic family system. The cardinal rules are: keep your mouth shut, do exactly what you are told, and never rock the boat. If a child or non addicted spouse violates these rules , they are scapegoated(canceled). And they are forever seen as “the bad seed”. Now we see this dynamic playing out in the Covid persecutions of heroic doctors. But this dynamic has been around for decades.
Our country suffers from cultural (nation wide) PTSD also. That is another discussion. And another reason why so many of us do what we are told by these corrupt institutions.
You hit the nail on the head.
The head on attack on the doctor-patient relationship by economic and sociopathic forces started in my medical world in the late 70s or early 80s. The rise of corporate hospital chains whose gods were Wall Street quarterly reports started the process.
Then in the late 80s the rise of managed care companies and medical health insurance companies super charged the fascist descent into medical hell.
The losers were patients and independent thinking physicians. The doctor patient relationship became a liability on corporate balance sheets.
My personal solution was to go to a direct care concierge model in 1994. It works well for me and my patients.
Until corporate entities run by sociopaths are no longer in power , nothing will change.
This is duplicate reply of one I wrote in response to another comment. Your question about behaviors being chemically induced and technology amplifying pathology, goes hand-in-hand with my theory that I already posted. Since I believe we are both questioning what what is being done on purpose, I want you to see my thoughts.
I have a crazy theory. Autism rates have skyrocketed with no explanation. A TINY percentage is attributed to the ability to diagnose it but that doesn’t explain the huge increase. So something caused the spike. Recent studies indicate it is Tylenol given to infants & toddlers. Assuming that Tylenol, preservatives in our food, vaccines, something has caused the increase in autism, depression, and ADHD; couldn’t the same be said for transgenderism and homosexuality. (Are all the above increases chemically induced?)
Like autism, they have always existed but, like autism, they were rare. Society is more accepting and that accounts for a TINY percentage but it doesn’t explain the huge increase. Is there something causing homosexuality, trans, depression, ADHD, and God knows what else? (chemically induced and technology amplified???)
I’m sure we can all point to societal changes that contribute to everything I named. I don’t believe it explains all of it. Partly I don’t because 24 years ago, before it was trendy and before I had ever heard anything like it, my then 3 yr old son, would cry and tell me, “God made a mistake, I’m really a girl” and besides his penis, he was a stereotypical preschool girl. He loved Disney princesses, hot pink and purple, and everything glittery. Give him a toy gun and it was a magic wand and he was a fairy. Give him a Tonka truck and it was Cinderella’s coach. He wanted to cut off his penis. He was not around gay people, we were strict about what we watched, we certainly didn’t push it on him; his room was done in footballs and his dad, a former jock and Marine, was excited to have a boy to roughhouse with. We sought professional help with one of the top
psychiatrist at the Children’s Hospital, in Columbus Ohio. He referred our case to a team of “professionals”. The situation was so rare that there was little known and no help to be given.
I have learned that there are people born with a mix of sex chromosomes; part of a “y” attached to an “x”, or born with a penis but have two “x” chromosomes, and other combinations. There are internal hermaphrodites; for example, ovaries and a penis. These people tend to be transgender or homosexual. These people were very rare. I wonder how rare they are now. (Chemically altered???). I wonder if we looked at the chromosomes and did ultra sounds on the people who want sex change surgeries and are gay, how many would have one of these “rare disorders”. If my theory is right and the disorders are no longer so rare, I wonder if the same thing causing autism, ADHD, and depression, is causing a change in chromosomes. Is it Tylenol, is it vaccines, our food? If it is, is it being done on purpose or is it simply that drug manufacturers don’t care because of the money. (Is technology amplifying the conditions??)
It’s a fact that something has caused an increase in autism. The ADHD increase can be a desire to push more meds for profit. The rise in depression can be societal or a desire to push meds too. Again, I think all of this is part of it, a tiny part but not all. So what is causing the increases? (Chemicals?? Technology??) Something to think about.
Just like the SSRI 's are over prescribed the pharmaceuticals for ADHD are as well. My daughter suffers from depression and is smart enough to refuse to take what was prescibed after extensive research and has focused instead on diet and exercise. Convenience and profit are the primary driver for many of todays SOMA alternatives. My good friend has complained to me often about his nephews who are both on medication for ADHD and tells me they are normal rambunctious boys not defective and worries what these drugs are doing to perfectly healthy boys. Given what has happened with Covid and the constant lies from pharma companies it's a wonder there isn't a CDC mandate for SSRI's for all who disagree. Overcoming the struggles of life is what creates determination, builds charachter and breeds success, There is no free lunch or easy path to success and no Liberty without the sacrifice and inconvience of holding our government accountable.
"Given what has happened with Covid and the constant lies from pharma companies it's a wonder there isn't a CDC mandate for SSRI's for all who disagree. "
We're approaching this point, scarily enough. This is the perfect marriage of Huxley and Orwell, forced medication to "treat difficult personalities". Tragic, given that much of this occurred in the former Soviet Union. But rather than look at that history and the results of this kind of thought (very recent history, I might add, within my lifetime), our own iteration of control freaks are repeating almost precisely the same thought process over again, in complete ignorance. Our society is collapsing (fertility rates are the tell), and those in charge are radically incapable of recognizing that it is the very policies they put in place to "fix" things that are responsible for the collapse itself. "Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose." The scale of this iteration of that old axiom is impressive and depressing.
“Those in charge” know what they are doing. The weaker society is, the more control they have. Things are exactly as those in charge, want them to be.
As a psychiatrist I agree with the general commentary of this article. I have never once initiated stimulant medications in children or adolescents, and I always consider alternative options in all cases. Typically a reasonable case to treat with stimulants would be an adult who doesn't improve with alternatives. I believe stimulants can reasonably be continued in those showing clinically observable academic or occupational improvement. Discontinuation of the stimulant is always a goal.
Articles like this one serve to remind and encourage doctors like me to maintain awareness of the distortions of the industry and to continue minimizing stimulant use.
I must add that some comments here disparaging psychiatrists in general are demonstrably irrational.
"I must add that some comments here disparaging psychiatrists in general are demonstrably irrational."
I appreciate your comment and I agree generalizations are almost always a mistake. That said, given the scale of this problem - the fact that millions of these prescriptions are being dispensed - it appears that far too many of your colleagues are not able to see what you see. That there are responsible practitioners such as you unfortunately may be inadequate to deny the generalization, given the scale of the problem. As the article notes, this has become "standard practice". Just like with the Covid debacle - where the popular wisdom within the medical community also went off the rails - sometimes the entire community needs to be called out to bring attention to a demonstrable problem.
Your comments are reasonable and true.
Uhhh…Dear patient, Would you like the SCS or the morpine pump? Going into veterinary medicine…Seen too much in human medicine. The highlight of the end of my medical career was I did not assault the physician. Close call.
Delusional or injured?
You seem to be addressing my comment, but your reply is not articulated as a complete thought.
I think it requires two neurons to have a synapse. 😂