Is ADD a real disorder?
Or is it more of a pseudo-disorder ?
I was diagnosed around 2001 when apparently every other kid in school had it too. My parents said it was bullshit, and I went on with my life without the medication.
I'm upgrading now because I barely graduated high school an the marks I got were crap.
I failed grade 10 math with a 46% and did grade 11 math in the remedial stream and scored in the low 60s. I never took grade 12 math.
I'm upgrading now and my grades are good. I have 80% in math 30 pure and 87% in physics 30. I stopped taking the medication for a few weeks because I had sleeping troubles and my test marks friggin dropped. I got a 35% on a unit test in math. horrible.
Back on the medication and my last unit test was 86%.
Does the fact that the medication works well for me mean that I actually have ADD? or would the medication do this for anybody?
is add a label for anybody that sucks at school, not because they are stupid but just because they can't remember anything/pay attention?
thanks.
Comments
From my research, the frontal cortex of the brain in ADD / ADHD individuals is under developed. That OR the individual experienced brain damage of some sort.
Yes, it is a real disorder. I thought it was bullshit too. I didn't like the medication, ritalin, that I was on the majority of my childhood. Well, let me put it this way - I can't go to college / hold down a job if I'm not on the medication. Embarrassing enough I will admit that, I have tried multiple times without meds to do it, and I just can't. It fusturates me daily, knowing I have to swallow amphetamines to function in society.
However, I don't view it as a weight on my shoulders. I have the ability to hyperfocus, where, time is not even a factor in the present moment - hours will go by and I will look at the clock and feel like 2 minutes have gone by.
In the end, you cannot tell anyone you have it. In my experience, the friends I have told - either think differently of me as a person, or, try to buy / take my medication from me. I have a big problem with insomnia on the drugs, and will likely be resuming a ambien rx when I restart the adderall tomorrow.
Anyways, long story short - if the medication works for you bro, take it. Don't limit yourself because you think it isn't real, or what someone told you. Opinions are like assholes, everyone has one.
Peace!
Disorder is now two or three times more common than it was just twenty years ago. A recent study reported that a whopping 10% of kids in the general population would qualify for the diagnosis. There has also been an incredible explosion in the use of medication in treating it.
What is going on? Are our kids rapidly getting much sicker? Or are we getting better at identifying ADD? Or is the diagnosis being spread around too loosely? Or is it some combination of all of the above and perhaps some other factors as well? This mystery cries out for solution, but yields no easy answers.
I can think of at least twelve different, probably interacting factors that may have contributed (in greater or lesser degrees) to the huge jump in ADD rates. These are not listed in any presumed order of priority because I am simply not sure how much weight to give to each.
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1. Rates are now higher because our better diagnostic tools and increased awareness allow us to properly identify previously missed cases of true ADD.
2. The changes introduced by the DSM IV criteria made ADD diagnosis loose by lowering the definitional thresholds.
3. Kids previously diagnosed with Conduct Disorder are now often given an ADD label.
4. Massive direct-to-the-consumer drug company advertising to patients, parents, and teachers has succeeded in elevating ADD to fad status. Drug companies also used thought leader influence on and aggressive marketing to psychiatrists, pediatricians, primary care physicians, and other mental health workers to spread the gospel of ADD.
5. The increase in ADD symptoms results from environmental factors - like kids now being bombarded by an information overload driven by the internet or by drug use or by food additives or environmental toxins.
6. The increased rate of ADD symptoms may be partly due prenatal problems like increased rates of premature birth and maternal drug use.
7. ADD is overdiagnosed because of increased perfectionism among parents and teachers who expect more self control from kids than is feasible given their developmental stage.
8. We have less tolerance for what should be expectable and acceptable individual difference in activity levels and inability to focus and control impulses.
9. There has been a decrease in tolerance for ADD symptoms because parents are often single, stressed, and overworked and teachers are confronting large and unruly classes.
10. Enormous publicity generated by the media, the internet, and consumer advocacy groups has increased the visibility, popularity, and acceptability of ADD.
11. Schools require a diagnosis of ADD as a precondition for providing special educational services.
12. Epidemiological studies have relied on an inherently flawed methodology that results in inflated reported prevalences.
Unfortunately, there is no precise way to determine what should be the true rate of ADD and how influential each of these factors has been in contributing to the doubling or tripling the reported rates. Symptoms of ADD are so nonspecific and common in the general population, there is no bright line boundary separating the normal high spirited child from the psychiatrically ill one - and it's an inherently imprecise judgment that is very much in the eye of the beholder.