Recently I took part in a double-blind randomised controlled medical trial for a cannabis inhaler to help in controlling ADHD symptoms. At the end of the six-week trial, I was later told that I was on the placebo – which was no surprise as the mouth puffer had no effect whatsoever. While I wasn’t expecting to feel euphoria, I expected to feel something – and quickly sensed I was puffing a dud. However, the trial run out of the Maudsley clinic in London, was evidence of the growing interest in CBD – Cannabis oil or medical marijuana – typically the extract of the plant without the THC, the part that makes you high. Continue reading “CBD – a help for ADHD?”
Tag: ADHD
Dr Ned Hallowell Answers a sheet of questions…
Here in the Washington Post about what ADHD means to America’s children. It includes details of the first US national survey of medication among preschoolers. It makes positive and interesting reading. I like the Brain difference, rather than Brain deficit.
ADHD is real – so why question it?
The British ADHD organization – ADDISS – ran a campaign a few years ago in ADHD awareness week (this year happening on October 14 ) called “ADHD IS real”. I can’t think of many Awareness weeks that have to focus on the fact that the condition they are campaigning about actually exists.
Few mental health issues seem to suffer from the same stigma as ADHD. When I asked the head of the UK ADDISS, Andrea Bilbow OBE, to explain to me why I could only find well-funded parenting groups for Autism and Aspergers in my area, and nothing for ADHD, she explained: “Autism has the Aaahh factor, people feel sorry for the sufferers or carers. ADHD is just seen as annoying”.
Continue reading "ADHD is real – so why question it?"
Postcode Lottery and Chemical Cosh
Two phrases that mean little, but that are cliches bandied about journalists. We journos love a catchy cliche, however unhelpful they are. This piece by Nicholas Hellen in yesterday’s Sunday Times is no different. The medication is not a chemical cosh, it’s a stimulant – that helps ADHD concentrate. They may become more focussed, but they don’t turn into zombies, or someone knocked out or whacked out on downers. And with around 3% of the population suffering from ADHD, many in the UK undiagnosed, particularly if adults, it is unlikely that they are over-prescribed in some areas, more likely to be underprescribed. I would look forward to getting hold of the data properly and checking it against the % of the population. Most likely the patchy provision for people in, say, Portsmouth – where fewer mental health adhd specialist nurses operate mean that it is hard to get a diagnosis.
I would expect that the above “postcode lottery” is not showing an over-precription of “chemical coshes” to children, but an “under-diagnosis” due to lack of CAMHS resourcing in the area.
More examination needed.
The Times of London reports: Substance abuse among the older generation in the UK
Yesterday’
s Times published a new report by the Home Office showing that although illegal drug use has fallen among the young in the past year, it has increased among older adults for the past 18 years. But Why? Continue reading “The Times of London reports: Substance abuse among the older generation in the UK”
The Fidgets – Washington Post calls for kids to move more to prevent ADHD diagnoses
Hurrah! A positive piece on ADHD and creativity…
Thanks to Scott Barry Kaufman for this great positive piece on the power of creativity and ADHD here in the Scientific American. The Author Kaufman suggests that there is a link between a fast brain that allows unfiltered messages to come through all the time, and unfettered imagination. Acting on impulse is not always bad – especially if you use those impulses to create something new. And working memory…pah, who needs it when it comes to artistic or scientific endeavour. Isn’t google our new working memory after all these days?
Continue reading “Hurrah! A positive piece on ADHD and creativity…”
Pre-schoolers and ADHD medication – scary? Not so much…
When the Guardian writes a piece about preschoolers and ADHD, as they do here , we don’t expect it to scaremonger or to conform to prejudices around this complex neurodevelopmental disorder. We expect some breast beating from the Daily Mail or the Telegraph, but we hope for sense from the Guardian. However, while medicating preschoolers is controversial, ADHD medication (please don’t call it drugs – this not pushing recreational ecstasy tablets or making toddlers smoke joints) is immediately written off as a Bad Thing – without any explanation for what type of medication it is. Continue reading “Pre-schoolers and ADHD medication – scary? Not so much…”
ADHD and Exercise – When will schools get it?
I’ve just been in to meet with my son Michael’s head of year, two teachers and Special Needs co-ordinator. None of them seemed to think that excluding my ADHDer from sport yesterday was not the best way forward when they also wanted to talk about his challenging behaviour in class. As they went on and on about how he liked to “challenge the rules”, and his mis-behavioural points, I wanted to say that – like a Golden Retriever dog that always brings back the ball – he wasn’t going to change. And I couldn’t help thinking – “well you have the power, if you don’t want to argue the toss over the rules with him – just don’t engage’.
More worryingly for me, is that he doesn’t have the choice to challenge his exclusion once again from extra-curricular activities. Last term he was made to sit in a library while others were outside playing games, because he was deemed a “risk” (to himself? to others?). Despite the fact that he had a giant black eye from a friend hitting him in the face during hockey after school (we are used to Michael being accident prone and didn’t complain) this time Michael was the culprit. Except Michael was excluded from hockey club for hitting another boy with the hockey stick.
Arrrrrgggghh. Why can’t teachers get it? Exercise is the best medication for ADHD? Continue reading “ADHD and Exercise – When will schools get it?”
Now Dr Saul wades in with ADHD doesn’t exist
Doctors are getting themselves in a right twist. In response to the previous post on the New York Times piece, Behavioural Neurologist Dr Richard Saul in Chicago has waded in, puffing his provocatively titled book called “ADHD does not Exist” (ironically reviewed by Belinda Luscombe on the same site as one of the Top Ten ADHD books here ). Dr Saul’s stance argued on the Time Magazine’s website here has a particular beef with the new diagnostic manual for mental health (DSM V), which awards ADHD to anyone displaying a minimum of five out of 18 possible symptoms.
His views will no doubt curry favour with Daily Mail readers, who do see this massive upsurge in ADHD diagnosis and medication as a problem, and also with those who feel that taking medication for ADHD is in some way “cheating” in life – whether offering extra focus at school or in the workplace (something that is shown to be not the case in the more level-headed recent Time Magazine piece by Denise Foley in another piece . Foley points out that even with meds, the attention of an ADHD child is still below the par of a “normal” child in school).
Without blamming the reader with any more Time Mag pieces to read, what Dr Saul does not to address in his piece, Continue reading “Now Dr Saul wades in with ADHD doesn’t exist”
Better Late than Never 