Comment Trolling on ParentDish, Part I

In a departure from the usual fare of pubmed expositions and autism books, this week I feasted on blog comments. And what a feast it was.

The topic: a recent study that links ADHD meds with an increased risk of sudden death, a significant and controversial finding. The forum: ParentDish. The relevance: kids who are A Little Bit Autistic often stuggle with attention when they enter school.

Here are the best chestnuts, which are far more compelling, colorful and diverse than any editorial I could put together:

Wish Belkin 6-16-2009 @ 8:20PM
This is insane. If there was one chance in a bazillion, I wouldn't let my kid within ten miles of this poison.

Sarah 6-16-2009 @ 10:47PM
Wish Belkin?Then you can not possibly know what it is like to have a child with ADHD. Without the medicine my son is on, he can not attend school, he can not have friends and he is not happy. I think this article should have listed which medicines increase the risk of death instead of saying the blanket term "AdHd meds."

rph94 6-17-2009 @ 12:33AM
As a pharmacist, I have probably seen only one or two true cases of adhd that would require medication - the million other cases seen are from teachers with over crowded classrooms or parents who don't want to deal with a child who is "busy". I myself have a boy who is exceptionally "busy" but with consistency and structure he has done just fine. He is a honor roll student. At school, I let his teachers know right off the bat that he has to stay busy. When he is finished with something - give him a project to do or another paper. I agree with those of you that have tried other measures - try cutting out all sugars and many times the child can be lactose intolerant. Try a coke cola in the am - it has the same stimulant effect as the meds. I am scared for the all of the children that are wrongly placed on these meds because of the side effects and long term effects.

michelle 6-17-2009 @ 1:49AM
Well then you must never have a child with ADHD!! Your child is miserable, and out of control ALL THE TIME!!! It's not fair to him OR to the rest of the family...concider yourself blessed...

Kelley 6-16-2009 @ 10:40PM
My 18 yr old son died in 2007 suddenly. He had been on adderrall for approx 3 years and the doc had increased the dose not long before he died. He had had cardiac tests prior to going on the drugs, but the doc really dropped the ball on follow up. I wish I would have known enough to insist on more consistent follow up, but I trusted our doc. Parents, Be very cautious of these drugs. I only wish I had. I don't want to see anyone else go thru what we have. Even if sudden death is 'very rare". I lost my only child and it was unnecessary.

Christine 6-16-2009 @ 10:59PM
How can it possibly be that 2.5 MILLION children are on these medications? Is this in place of parents and learning to behave? I CANNOT believe that 2.5 million American children are all defective unless they are just totally neglected, spoiled brats. I am sorry, I don't believe that most children should be medicated against their will.

chris 6-16-2009 @ 11:10PM
I was on ritalin for 7 yrs and became bipolar its not fair to the kid to experement with his brain,now Im taking Lamectle which is a wonder drug but Im an adult now and its my choice I turned down alot of drugs trying to combat bipolar,because they made me feel weirder,up or down or all around ,sweeden has outlawed ritalin,and I agree It burns up the synapisis in the brain ,sorry for me oh well,but I go off about this subject,the kids have it forced on them and nobody knows how they actualy feel like,it geeks them out,and the parents think because their being quiet its working, wrong very wrong

Karen 6-17-2009 @ 12:06AM
Parents who are dead set against Concerta/Ritalin/Aderol have never had a child with ADD/ADHD-Audio or Visual Processing Disorders. I was like the parents who were dead set against it....it was learning the facts, learning that taking red40 away, and any sugar prodects helped. My son was reading at the 1st grade level in 3rd grade....once he started Concerta, his reading level soared to a 6th grade reading level. Has it helped, without a doubt. But a parent MUST be proactive in their childs health care, and taking them to their doctor for check ups. To the parents who are prejuding us parents who are on this medication, don't....you have not walked in our shoes.

Not The Same Lisa 6-17-2009 @ 3:18AM
I am 31, I was "diagnosed" at 3 (1981) with ADHD. I can honestly say that 98% of children are misdiagnosed. I don't even know where to start. . . I was put on kiddiecrack, I mean ritalin, at 3 years old! I can only imagine the long term effects, I was on it until I was 13. It was a push by the school mostly, because they didn't know what to do with the genius that was failing everything but art and PE, and yes public schools get perks from the government the more kids they have with conditions like ADD on medication. Hence, idependant doctor's opionion always. There are many alternatives to treatment, medication should always be a last resort, because it leads to a long time drug use. Many ADD children go on to be medicated teenagers with manic depression, and other mental disorders. The ones that don't get on track grow into non-productive adults, still on medication or hooked on illegal
drugs. Seriously elvaluate your situation before you give out the medication, because they can't even tell you what the long term effects are of what they are giving your childen, to turn them into managable,zombies. ~ From Someone Who Knows

Next up for the one person book club...

...The Mislabeled Child, as promised. It's 510 pages long, so I'm going to break this up over a number of weeks. This week, I'll be skimming the surface starting with:

The cover. Check this out. The kid is smiling! Compare and contrast to the disturbed child on the cover of Out of Sync Child. The tone of the book is similarly upbeat, imploring the reader to focus not just on impairment but also on positive attributes.

Of the books I've read, The Mislabeled Child is the best explication of what I call the A Little Bit Autistic-sphere because it describes the relevant disorders and their component parts comparatively, and it does so in a parent-friendly manner. So while many books separately explore autism, sensory processing disorder and language disorders, this book pulls it all together and then some (ADHD), compares and contrasts the disorders to each other, and peppers in the neurology for credibility and good measure. Also, it explores what I refer to as the lesser-includeds: visual processing impairment, central auditory processing disorder, working memory impairment and dysgraphia.

Next, a note about the authors, Brock Eide, M.D., M.A., and Fernette Eide, M.D. Brock Eide's medical specialty, in the formal educational sense, appears to be internal medicine, while Fernette Eide is a neurologist. Together, they run the Eide Neurolearning Clinic, specializing in neurologically based approaches to learning. They host this blog.

And here they are, on tv, plugging their book:

Nice people.

Last, a note about the title, "The Mislabeled Child." See, the book is not about unlabeling, or losing the label. Labels are useful, the Eides argue. Rather, it's about re-labeling in the broadest sense. They cite as an example of mislabeling a dyslexic child whom the educational system "labeled" lazy, careless and slow.

The "neurolearning" lens is pervasive throughout the book and shapes how the Eides define autism, and the other conditions they explore. In an earlier post, I explored the fundamental question: what is autism? Under the Eide/neurolearning paradigm, autism appears to be defined in large part by its neurological indications and the child's learning strengths and weaknesses. Behaviors are taken into account, but are not dispositive in and of themselves. In a recent blog post, they write:

Historically, autism was first recognized as an entity by a psychiatrist, but as it becomes even more clear that the behavioral label subsumes many different neurological conditions, it's time for business-as-usual to come to an end.

***

In the coming weeks, I'll explore the chapters on sensory processing disorder, autism and ADHD.