Quote:
Originally Posted by dd3953
But I have been surrounded with negative information about the pill since they first time I heard of it. I never really thought about all the people it might be helping.
The fact that the pill has the opposite affects on people who don't really have ADD is another reason I will avoid it. I'm hyper enough as it is. But what if my hyperactive behavior is just under that which makes ADD?
Is there a test or something that does not just ask the patient a bunch of questions? How do they know that the person has a dopamine imbalance?
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I'm a father of a girl that has ADD/ADHD (not very common for girls). I had very strong feelings against Ritalin and related drugs. Mostly based on negative information that I had hear. When faced with the decision if my girl should try Ritalin I was lucky to get facts from a doctor (neural specialist) and a pharmachist. Boiled down it comes to that for those that respond to medication it will give them advantage. ADD/ADHD idividuals using Ritalin are less likely to become drug abuser than those that do not take Ritalin (ADD/ADHD increased probability of becoming drug abusive). There are other methods to assist ADD/ADHD idividuals like "Cognitive Behaviour Modification" (I'm not 100% on the translation) that can be used with or without medication. Diet, sleep and exercise are also big factors that are often overlooked.
BUT the scary part that those professionals told us is that the biggest factor for ADD/ADHD probability is genetic. Therefor I decided to take a test and I'm ADD.
That put me in the position to decide if I would use medication or not.
Figureing out if Ritalin will help or not is very simple as the medication will clear out of the system in aprox 4 hours. What I did was that I took 1 tablet 10mg Ritalin and found out that it helps me. For me it was like all enviromental sounds got muted, for me without medication a car passing outside sounds like a jet in take off on medication it is more "normal" I'm told :-). I was also told that the fact that I was consuming 1 Liter or more of Coffee each day and was I able to have coffee right before bed was a good idication that Ritalin could help me. (Ritalin and Coffee don't mix well for many though).
Each and everyone has to make up their own mind about any medication and there is nothing wrong with beeing sceptical about prescriptions.
BUT ADD/ADHD has it's benefits too, you "normal" people don't know what you are missing :-)
Yours
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