I don't have any kids so I don't want to pretend to understand the difficulties in parenting. Having said that, I heard a statistic tonight that was REALLY disturbing to me: Children in America take more behavioral drugs (Ridilin, Prozac, etc) than the entire rest of the world's children and adults combined. My mom is a therapist and even she is really bothered by these numbers. In one report I saw, a woman gave her son behavioral medication because, in her words, he was "immature" and "ran around" too much. He is THREE YEARS OLD! Are we expecting just a tad too much of children? I mean, kids are supposed to be immature, run around to much and even be hyper. I understand when kids have serious problems, but this is a different situation. I have a good friend whose daughter was suffering from fairly serious depression (she's 8) for a number of reasons I won't go into. She had tantrums and even talked openly about killing herself. My friend and his wife opted for therapy over medication. In fact, they said they did not want to give her medication if it was possible. The girl ended up taking some Prozac to control her suicidal thoughts and protect her from herself, but after a couple of months of therapy, she was better and got off the Prozac. According to my friend, she is like a "new kid" after the therapy. Any opinions on this? [This message has been edited by Jeff (edited April 10, 2001).]
My father's a psychiatrist, so the opinions you'll be hearing from me are mostly a reflection of his own, as he's more qualified. My dad believes that drugs are occasionally miss prescribed, but fairly rarely. He views the body as a chemical machine. If your body isn't functioning correctly, the chemicals become out of proportion, and you become mentally ill. Most mental illness is a result of physical problems, mostly in the brain. Drugs simply correct an imbalance that's not truly part of you. I know a great many people are afraid that prozac will "change," them... and I think I would be somewhat hesitant to start for that reason. But the medical answer is that you're not yourself when your body is making mistakes. Chemical problems, chemical solution seems to be the thesis. The key is diagnosis. Some problems ARE psychological and should be treated as therapy. But the only long-term solutions to some problems require drugs. ------------------ I would believe only in a God who could dance. - Friedrich Nietzsche Boston College - NCAA Hockey National Champions 2001
Yes Jeff they are supposed to behave like this and some us still do when they are supposed to have grown up. ------------------ "Repression never did me any harm (I finally ceased to include "stop masturbating" as one of my guilt ridden New Year's resolutions, but that's a different topic)." Achebe - programmer by day, Mrs Palmers Husband by night
I used to work in a hospital when I was younger. It's not just kids. Our society is a pill-popping society. Doctors are often chastised by nurses for prescribing the hell out of psychiatric patients. I used to walk into psychiatric units and see people just turned into zombies to control them. Tragic. I've also seen kids the same way. I've seen kids in children's psychiatric units that don't use Ritalin and you sometimes just want to tie them down and tape their mouths they're so freaking hyperactive; but like Jeff said, isn't that what kids are supposed to be like? I wonder how many kids under Ritalin perscription are just showing a lack of discipline and not some medical malady? ------------------ "So you say you want some intelligent responses? I say give me something intelligent to respond to." -- Dimwits beware, B-Ball freak tells it like it is. Sing it bro!
DoD, Lack of discipline as in self discipline or discipline of some type from a parent figure? Mango ------------------ Get it right or just don't do it! Resistance is futile....you will be assimilated.
Sorry lazy ass parents The same ones that put their kids in front of the TV for 15 hours a day I don't agree with these drugs at all they ar crutches nothing else Rocket River a swat on the butt would do wonders ------------------
With all due respect to your father, studies by well-respected psychiatric and psychological organizations in the US and Europe have shown that therapy is nearly always favorable to medication. In one study my mother and I discussed last year, they found that only 1 in 10 cases of depression or "mental illness" require long-term medication as treatment. In the same study, they found that only about 3 are effectively treated with drugs at all. Most cases can be treated much more effectively with therapy and behavioral modification. The problem I have is that our definitions of what is a problem and what isn't have become blurred. One person's eccentricity is another's mental illness. One kid's creativity is another kid's attention defecit disorder. Who in here EVER wanted to sit in a seat quietly for 8 hours a day listening to a teacher that cared only slightly more than we did? Would you sit there patiently now? I sure wouldn't. My concern is that we managed to raise children without behavioral modification drugs for years and YEARS. I made it through a household with an alcoholic father and an incredibly overbearing mother without a chemical imbalance. I've known tons of people who have gone through much worse problems than I and have learned to lead perfectly normal lives without drugs. Most have gone through some kind of therapy successfully. I don't necessarily blame the doctors. They are just doing their best trying to do what they can for patients, but I just worry that we are creating a society that can't manage itself without drugs. Ok, sorry for the rant. ------------------ And then, depression set in...
One of the facts I've seen regarding Ritalin that distrubed me was the number of diagnoses being made by people like teachers (while a teacher should be able to describe behavior, he/she shouldn't be recommending a medical treatment) or prescriptions being written by GPs or Pediatricians rather than Psychiatrists (something almost akin to letting an OB perform brain surgery.) There are most certainly people in the world who truly need Prozac or Ritalin simply to function in society. Those drugs should be accompanied by therapy, as well when possible and appropriate. But physicians are often too quick to go to the drugs to treat kids with minor behavioral problems (or no behavioral problems at all). And we've got too many people without the proper training making these diagnoses and prescribing these medicines. Any diagnosis of ADD or ADHD should be made by a specialist, and that often isn't done, resulting in kids being prescribed drugs when they probably shouldn't be. If American kids aren't being overdrugged, we should ask ourselved what is making our kids so chemically imbalanced compared with the rest of the world (80% of all Ritalin produced is sold in the U.S.) and compared with kids of our own past. The number of kids prescribed Ritalin and other behavior modifying drugs has skyrocketed in the past few years. Since the number of kids thought to have behavioral problems was not any higher in the past, we've either had a massive change in the biological make-up of our children over the past few years requiring significant increases in the number of kids needing medication, or we've greatly expanded our definition of who we think needs to be medicated. We should also ask why many kids who supposedly have ADD or ADHD lose the symptoms over summer vacation, or lose the syptoms when they are being engaged, given interesting things to do or being paid attention to. In many cases, kids are being given drugs because they are just bored or ignored, not because they actually have any of these diorders. People recommending Ritalin are also often ignoring environmental factors that could be causing the behavior. Things as simple as changing the child's diet could cure the kid's symptoms. And sometimes kids act the way they do because of things that are happening in their home. Changing their home life would solve their problems, but that's not often looked at as a possible factor. The thing is that many physicians and teachers see any kind of impulsivity and inattention as needing medication. But only in the more extreme cases should the child be medicated, and only then when a specialist has diagnosed the problem and recommended the medication. Because nearly every drug has side effects, and Ritalin has some whoppers, including OCD, Social Anxiety Disorders, etc. (Which can lead to the prescribing of more drugs. A child experiencing a social anxiety disorder side effect from Ritalin may well then be given a drug like Paxil, a side effect of which can be psychosis and isn't even specifically approved for use in children), these drugs should be more carefully controlled. These drugs can cause disfiguring tics, they can supress growth and can potentially cause brain deformities and other brain abnormalities. Ritalin and other behavior modifying drugs are also addictive, making it harder to take the kids off the drugs and causing withdrawal when kids are taken off. And there should never be any three year-old taking Ritalin. Messing with brain chemistry at such an early age has the potential to cause serious problems for the child later in life. And there is no way to know whether the child really has ADD or ADHD symptoms at that age. Personally, I would be very wary of putting either of my children on speed. There would have to be significant behavior disorders for me to consider such medications. ------------------ Houston Sports Board [This message has been edited by mrpaige (edited April 10, 2001).]
mrpaige: Every post of yours I read, I am humbled even more. You rule times 10!!! ------------------ And then, depression set in...
Jeff: I actually disagree from personal experience, to an extent. My roommate sophomore year went home because of depression. Living with him, towards the end, became absolute hell. He slept almost all day, didn't go to class, and was completely listless. My best friend in freshman year became a complete zombie. The entire semester, he was taking therapy from a Harvard psychiatrist... it didn't do any good. That summer, he began taking prozac. The changes were almost immediate, and now he's only a semester behind schedule towards graduation. As long as he was chemically imbalanced, he had problems. That medical imbalance was corrected, and he became himself again. He didn't have any true problems. There were no reasons for him to be depressed: he came from a happy home, he was intelligent, he had a terrific girlfriend, and no social problems. Yet something made him take a leave of absence from school, and left him close to committing suicide. Perhaps it was just ennui... maybe it would have fixed itself in time. But after he started taking prozac, he felt better and felt like himself again. I know anecdotal evidence can be used to prove anything... I'm sure that you've had different experiences. But I don't want a stigma to be attached to taking drugs, because I've seen drugs work. As for European doctors... there's a reason that rich Europeans often fly to the US for treatment ;P. ------------------ I would believe only in a God who could dance. - Friedrich Nietzsche Boston College - NCAA Hockey National Champions 2001
There are people who simply cannot function without drugs like Prozac. But those are extreme cases. Sometimes the issue of whether to prescribe drugs or not is pretty well black and white and few would disagree with using the drugs in those situations. Like in the anecdote Jeff gave, the drugs used temporarily in conjunction with therapy worked for that girl. In more extreme cases, the patient may well need to take the drug for a much longer time, possibly forever. The problem comes from all those cases that don't fall into the obvious, black-or-white category and when these drugs are used when the need for them is questionable or even when therapy without drugs would be a viable (though often harder) option. For your friend, Haven, taking Prozac probably was the best course of action for him. (And I have a friend who was in a similar situation. She was severely depressed and often never got out of bed. She attempted suicide multiple times. They put her on Prozac, and she was able to function in society. She's now progressed to the point that she's off drugs entirely and is still doing very well. But a few years ago, drugs were the best option for her). I would never say that drugs don't have a place in mental health care. I just maintain that there is an overuse of drugs in America today, especially with children and drugs like Ritalin. ------------------ Houston Sports Board
What about asthma and the prescribing of ventolin?????? ------------------ "Repression never did me any harm (I finally ceased to include "stop masturbating" as one of my guilt ridden New Year's resolutions, but that's a different topic)." Achebe - programmer by day, Mrs Palmers Husband by night
Well, since I don't know anything about that drug (or about asthma in general), I don't really have an opinion on it. I've not heard of any overprescribing of asthma medications (not to say that such things aren't going on. I just haven't heard about it). And I don't know anything about any controversy in that area. ------------------ Houston Sports Board
Here is Australia, any kid these days that gets a cough seems to be diagnosed with Asthma and put on Ventolin (also known as Salbutimol). ------------------ "Repression never did me any harm (I finally ceased to include "stop masturbating" as one of my guilt ridden New Year's resolutions, but that's a different topic)." Achebe - programmer by day, Mrs Palmers Husband by night
Exactly! Our society has become so engrossed in keeping everyone to the mainstream design its laughable. The slightest difference in a group of children and their given counseling and harsh medication. I didn't know the year was 1984. ------------------ Ceo of the Walt Williams and Lisa Malosky fan club. atheistalliance.org [This message has been edited by DEANBCURTIS (edited April 11, 2001).]
A few tidbits, Our society is drug happy! In NY state there is a new law on the books that makes it Illegal for a person to stop taking something they were perscribed. this is so crazy people dont stop taking drugs than kill people, but it laso makes it so that if a kid is perscribed Ridlin than they must stay on it till the doctor says so. (new law, mostly ignored) Also. I am supposed to be on Ridlin for my ADDHD I am 26 so its not like im gonna grow out of it. The reason Im not on it... in tests, doctors cant tell if a patient is on Ridlin, or COKE. they act exactly the same. (this is why many Adults with ADD have adictions, they are self medicated) ------------------ Hanta-Force Paintball www.hanta-force.com
This is kind of on a tangent, but the most recent Rolling Stone had an article on using MDMA (ecstacy) for behavior modification. Real interesting read - basically called Tim Leary a fraud. If this turns out to be viable as a means of treatment, well, then I was way ahead of the game in college. ------------------
I'm not against the use of drugs to fix chemical problems, I just want to mention that I think having depressend and emotionally unstable people is important to the world. These types are often the very people that make dramatic social change because they are not afraid to challenge boundaries and cross over the virtual lines the general public likes to draw. Again. I'm not saying that treatment doesn't have value, but I just wanted to make the point that the people you suspect are least important to the world are often the most significant people in it. ------------------ humble, but hungry.
Lack of discipline from parents resulting in lack of self-discipline in the kid. But as I said, I don't think this is always the case and in many, if not, most cases, the kid probably may need to be on some type of medication. ------------------ "So you say you want some intelligent responses? I say give me something intelligent to respond to." -- Dimwits beware, B-Ball freak tells it like it is. Sing it bro!
I do not agree I'm with Jeff. . . Medication should be a Last Resort. I don't think Kids under 5 have ADD or anything going on . . THEY ARE FRICKIN KIDS?????? QUESTION: These drugs were not used 50 years ago YET AND STILL a significant number of our over 50 crowd seem to be ok. . . . not unduly unstable. Why is that? Drugs are a crutch to cover for IMO bad parenting These 'disorders' are mainly excuses for undisciplined children. I feel a 'level' of unruly behavior is not only expected but acceptable. I don't want a 3 yr acting like a 25 yr old Cut the kids some slack . . Honestly if we were to put this in practice WHY NOT MEDICATE ALL CRIMINALS? to ADJUST them to ACCEPTABLE behavior Rocket River ------------------
