America, Please Stop Drugging Your Children

[theWhiteLarryBird]

To treat all people with the label "schizophrenic" as identical is stupid and wrong.
But to ignore that there is such a generalization to be made is hiding one's head in the sand.

A balance between the two is necessary, in order to gain the wisdom from the label without committing one's beliefs to it entirely.

If someone screams that a hungry lion is approaching, you would not stop running to point out that it was actually a tiger.
We need to be able to use labels conscientiously, and remember not to believe in them.
That is why I appreciate these kinds of discussions...

I agree with the first sentence, but thats a pipe dream if you ask me. Our society (you live in the US, no?) functions in the opposite way..

And again, I agree, but I assure you we are the minority.

 

[severely etarded]

I am interested to ask - do you think ADHD is simply not a disease?

I am not an expert, but I feel that they have pushed too far here.
I think that many ADHD diagnoses may be flawed or incorrect, but I would not say that all of them are incorrect.
Just because too many kids are given this diagnosis doesn't mean that none should be given it.

The thing about it is that psychiatrists have a conflict of interest diagnosing ADHD. They can simply tell parents nothing is wrong with their child or they can milk the cow and get the kids hooked on amphetamines they don't even need. Even better for the doctor to push a schedule II so tge patient must return at least once a month. Each visit is like $150 cash.

 

[Captain.Heroin]

But my kids don't like the drugs; the drugs like them.

 

[Jabberwocky]

while I really don't have an opinion one way or another on whether add/adhd are overdiagnosed*, this video is rubbish sensationalism IMO. A video of kids skateboarding, and overlaying cherry-picked passages from the DSM like they did, is disingenuous. [grab my dsm real fast] Oh wow, after reading the criteria, there are some things that really pop out but, for simplicity's sake, i'll cherry-pick my own: "maladaptive and inconsistent with developmental level", "must be clear evidence of impairment" Bottom line, it's wrong to say that the 'legit' add/adhd definition includes all kids, because by the very criteria it defines this by, it requires inconsistency for where the person should be.
/csb: my dsm was actually bookmarked on the adhd page LOL
//*='overdiagnosed'... I think about this often enough and something I frequently contemplate is 'what is mental illness?' While it may be true that more kids are getting prescription speed because of 'shady pharma co's', I don't have issue w/ and in fact like that the dsm has expanded so much. These 'illnesses', or what the author of that article would say are simply 'personality quirks', are still better served by documenting and cataloguing(sp?) them so we can further understand/refine/approach these situations when it's the right thing to do (none of this medication is forced, a more appropriate title may be something to the effect of "parents, stop drugging children unnecessarily") Something I heard recently I found fascinating (and fully endorse myself), and that is that the DSM's first edition was in like the 40's or 50's and was incredibly thin, now it's gigantic (I have DSM IV but i imagine the newest one is even bigger; my dsm is 880 pages) It's almost as easy to view this in 2 different/opposed ways: 1) we're calling normal eccentricities illnesses, or 2) we're actually giving names to psychological deficiencies that are far more subtle than, say, schizoform / OCD / etc. I'm probably in teh 2nd camp there, and never understood ppl's indignation w/ how the DSM has progressed. My 2cents

 

[theWhiteLarryBird]

The thing about it is that psychiatrists have a conflict of interest diagnosing ADHD. They can simply tell parents nothing is wrong with their child or they can milk the cow and get the kids hooked on amphetamines they don't even need. Even better for the doctor to push a schedule II so tge patient must return at least once a month. Each visit is like $150 cash.

yup. same goes for just about any mental disorder. a lot of money to be made from diagnosing and prescribing meds.

 

[Jabberwocky]

alert- unpopular opinion here: amphetamines for 'lifestyle' usage (not binge/recreational usage), are generally a good thing for people IME. There's certainly a bias($) dr.'s have, but the parents still choose this and, failing improvement in the child, choose to continue long-term. Honestly I wish there was more responsible amph usage in the world, it makes ppl live better in many, many cases (i REALLY wish it were just another caffeine, ie an 'alert'/honing product that you couldn't get high off of, but sadly there's zero way to have an amphetamine compound that isn't also ripe for abuse; taking too much doesn't get you sick(like caffeine) before it gets you high and is fun. It would be interesting if someone in pharma actually came up w/ a truly novel solution to prepare compounds like this (or oxy) in 'unbreakable' pills/formulas to be able to flood cheap, useful products w/o all the problems, but, once again, it's really ($) because, well, think of how much oxy someone like purdue pumps a year, it's clearly dependent upon a black/recreational market for a massive portion of the drug's income. Short of abolishing the WoD, the best approach would be to relax restrictions and make abuse-proof compounds. I'm sure anyone here could think of possible formulations to completely distinguish abuse of these things, but - surprise, surprise - the 'best' time release / abuse-proof compounds are hardly abuse-proof to anyone w/ a cell phone/internet connection and a kitchen)