Children with “ADHD” and medication

I’ve seen yet another one.  A child labeled as ADHD and put on 5 different medications (an antipsychotic, a stimulant, an antidepressant, a mood stabilizer, and clonidine–an antihypertensive).  If I saw this every once in awhile, I could dismiss it more readily.  But this practice seems to be becoming common based on the number of children I’ve seen with this type of polypharmacy. 

Polypharmacy has multiple definitions.   “Mixing many drugs in on prescription.”  “The practice of prescribing multiple drugs to patients suffering from more than one malady.” “The prescription or dispensation of unnecessarily numerous or complex medicines.”  This according to the freedictionary.com. 

http://glennsacks.com/blog/?p=940

I’m not a psychiatrist.  I’m a psychologist.  For those of you who don’t know, psychologists can’t prescribe medication in most states.  Psychiatrists can in all states.  So, my viewpoint may be a bit biased.  You see, I try to help people overcome problems without medication whenever possible.  I’ve been able to keep several children off of medication for “ADHD.”  So far, the only children on medication for ADHD that I see, are the ones who were already on medication when they came in.  I’ve had to convince teachers and principals to be patient.  I’ve had to give suggestions of how to deal with different children in the classroom.  I’m sure there are some teachers who don’t like me very much because I don’t advocate medication in most cases.  That’s tough luck as far as I am concerned.  There are difficult adults and difficult children in the world.  You deal with them the best that you can.  Worst case scenario, you try some medication.  But to me, that is the worst case scenario.  Try everything else first. 

Try nutritional changes, try exercise, try everything you can think of.  If the child is failing then consider medication.  Otherwise, use your brain, use the Internet, talk to others, and do anything you can to keep kids off of medication.  Medication is warranted when there are severe consequences that may occur without it.  The case I described at the beginning on this post, was given all of those medications because, “he gets a little irritable somethimes.”  I feel sorry for this poor kid’s brain and mind.  But he is not alone.

Some day, this whole approach of polypharmacy, the idea that you might as well throw every class of drug at a kid and maybe one will work, will be seen as in the perspective of psychosurgery (read labotomy) and electroconvulsive therapy for all kinds of problems.