Posts Tagged: Medication

ADHD Traits — No Comments
27
Aug 10

Toughest Thing About ADD

The hardest part about ADHD in adults and ADD in kids is that no matter whether you take standard prescription drugs from a doctor, or work out your own drug-free alternative ADD treatment, nothing helps you focus on the RIGHT things.

That is, while Adderall may help you focus, there is nothing in it or Ritalin or Vyvanse that will make you focus on schoolwork or on that critical project due for work. They can help keep you focused and help you get distracted less often, but in the end, you have to make yourself focus on the right thing FIRST, and THEN the meds will help keep your focus in place. But, if you don’t get your focus on the subject you need to focus on, then all they do is help stop you from being distracted from something you shouldn’t be doing in the first place.

Who wants to guess what my top ADD issue is this morning?

Hope your day is more focused and productive than mine has been so far.

– ADDer

ADD Medication — No Comments
14
Jun 10

ADHD Prescriptions Are Controlled Substances

As any anyone with ADHD can tell you, the drugs for ADD are classified as controlled substances. You can’t get refills of ADHD prescriptions, you have to get a new prescription for every time you get your monthly supply of Adderall or Ritalin. Likewise, the pharmacy cannot call your doctor to get an approval for your ADD prescription for you like they can for other drugs like antibiotics or insulin. Of course, this also means that you cannot take advantage of the discounts or convenience for getting  your prescriptions in a 90-day supply via mail order from your insurance company, either.

Too bad, because it would be a great ADHD advice tip to have people who aren’t good at organization and remembering to-do lists to have their medication automatically mailed each month.

All drugs (not supplements – there is a difference) are controlled substances by virtue of being “controlled” by the DEA and the FDA. What people with attention deficit disorder may not realize is how ADHD drugs are classified.

Adderall, Ritalin, Concerta, Vyvanse, and all the generic equivalents are classified as “Schedule II” controlled substances.

That may not sound absurd at first, but believe me, it is asinine and yet another example of why the so-called war on drugs is so messed up.

Adderall Is As Bad As Morphine or Cocaine

There are technically five schedules used for classifying drugs. Schedule I drugs are the “bad” drugs, the ones that get smuggled in by villains using super speedboats and hollowed out dolls, depending upon the movie. These are the narcotic drugs and they include Heroin, Ecstasy, Marijuana, and LSD. Ironically, cocaine is not on this list which is going to make your Adderall meds being on the next list all the more pathetic.

Schedule II drugs are the very next set of medications. This is where ADD medicines are classified, just one step below Heroin and meth. It is also where cocaine is classified, as well as all of those pain killers that you hear about people getting addicted to.

How are ADHD medicines like Adderall and Ritalin grouped with pain killers and cocaine?

The law states that in order to be classified as a Schedule II controlled substance three factors must be met:

  1. There is a high potential for abuse
  2. There are valid medical reasons for using the drug (this is the difference between Schedule I and II)
  3. Abuse of the drug may lead to severe psychological or physical dependence

Wow!

Number 3 is a newsflash to me. No one every told me that taking mixed amphetamine salts could lead to severe dependence!

Of course, the reason no one ever told me that, is because it is not true.

There have been no medical studies that suggest that taking ADD medication like Adderall leads to any kind of dependence at all, except for having to get used to its affects going away. Certainly there is no medical data that these medications cause severe dependence.

As for abuse, the only thing I have ever heard of is students using ADHD medicines to study and concentrate. That’s hardly shooting up in the back of an alley. It is not safe, but neither is taking someone’s antibiotics because you feel sick; that’s no reason to lock them all up under tighter rules.

The law requires that all three conditions be met to be listed as a Schedule II medication, so even if you go with the whole “abuse” thing, ADD drugs should not legally be classified as Schedule II substances.

Even worse, the law specifically says that the “salts of,” among other things, amphetamine,  are to be listed as Schedule III drugs.

So, the next time you have to jump through hoops in order to get the same medicine that you have gotten every month for years, remember that it isn’t even legitimate. You are just being screwed over by a Federal Agency who put your medication on there for political reasons.

ADD Medication — 2 Comments
23
Feb 10

Alternative ADHD Treatments Herbal Studies Research

One of the most common complaints about studies of herbal medicine and research done on alternative therapy treatments for ADHD and for other health issues is that scientists typically do not test the full plant or herb. Rather, research scientists identify the "active ingredient" in the herbs or other plants and then isolate that component. Once that is done, they standardize that component in order to test it.

researchThe issue that many alternative health advocates raise is that such research cannot accurately determine the effectiveness of herbs, plants, and roots because it is possible that other components within those natural elements either increase the potency or are necessary for the effects of the natural treatment to work. This is not an unbelievable argument. It is entirely possible that in order to be effective, alternative treatments for attention deficit disorder and other issues, cannot come from just one ingredient in the plant. In fact, many herbalists, homeopaths, and other alternative practitioners are adamant that this is the case, not only for ADD but for all natural treatments.

Faulty Research Studies of ADHD Alternative Treatments or Reality?

Assuming that these advocates are correct, what does that mean for people with ADHD looking for alternative treatments or more natural ADD treatments as an alternative to chemical prescriptions most often used to treat children with ADHD and adults?

Unfortunately, it doesn’t necessarily mean what alternative health advocates think it does. For one thing, just because a study may be flawed in one’s opinion, does not necessarily mean that the opposite conclusion is true. Far from it. Even worse, if it is true that standardized preparations made from a plant’s active compounds is not effective enough to be used in research, it also means it is not effective enough to be used as an alternative therapy.

In other words, if an herbal remedy’s compounds are not functional when isolated and turned into pill form for research studies, they aren’t functional when turned into pills to be sold to people either!

If you subscribe to the belief that herbal remedies and other natural medicines must be taken in whole, then you also believe that taking pills is worthless. There is no two ways here. Logic dictates that what is true for one scenario is true for another, not that it is true when someone says something against you, and not true when you are selling something.

What it all boils down to, is that if you are going to subscribe to the idea that natural treatments for ADHD and other conditions cannot be researched by distilling the main ingredients into pill form, then in order to get effective herbal medicines or other natural treatments, you cannot take pills. You must use a different means of taking the medicine.

One popular alternative to pills is teas. Unfortunately, any tea that comes in a bag cannot be brewed to enough strength to be therapeutic. If you are buying teabags of alternative medicines, you are throwing your money down the drain. If you are going to use teas, they must be loose tea, you must get the dosage right, and virtually all of them must be brewed for twenty minutes or longer. Just leaving the tea in there isn’t good enough. The water needs to stay hot, so you’ll also need an insulated container to brew the tea in.

The truth is that chemistry is chemistry and biochemistry is biochemistry and even biology is biology.

If a chemical is required in order for another compound to be effective, that will always be the case. Without discovering what that helper chemical is and also standardizing it, there is no way to ensure that enough of it, or the main active ingredient is present in any treatment. For those of you familiar with drug culture, it is the difference between ditch weed and the kind that you buy. Both of them are the same plant, both of them have the chemical that gets you high, but only one of them has enough for it to be reasonable to expect anything out of it. Unless you plan to have a bonfire in an enclosed space.

When it comes to alternative therapies, be sure to check out all the alternatives, but be smart about it. Understand how peer reviewed medical research works and how pills are manufactured. Also, understand the biology and chemistry behind any argument. Just because someone really wants something to be true doesn’t mean it is. That might be one of the best ADHD tips you’ll ever get.

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