44 answers

Adhd in a Only Child

i have a 5 yr old girl with severe adhd. she is on ritalin ld 20mg in the morning and 5 mg of ritalin in the afternoon. she has just started dance classes once a week. she sees a pschycirist*sp* once a month and a behaviorist once a week. the problem is that she is still out of control in school and home. the last meeting with the school they acted like i was a bad mom cause she is so disruptive during the day. i am at my wits end. any other ideas to help me burn energy??? shedoesnt watch tv except 30minutes before bed, doesnt eat much sweets either.

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So What Happened?™

i have not pushed for the meds. that was my last resort. i have tried behavior training and therapy for her since she was 2. i noticed the signs since she was 1. since i am diabetic, and bipolar i limit alot of the processed foods in th house and sweets. for her animal crackers are a sweet cookie. at the store she refuses the cookies and wants a slice of turkey from the deli instead. she is a huge veggie eater. it is normal for us to go wake her up and she will have a bowl of left over veggies in her bed eatn up. i have tried to lock the frige but she figured out how to take that off within a week.

Featured Answers

You might try an experiment with food. Take her off ALL processed foods for one week - no sugars, no dyes, no foods with additives -- stick with proteins, veggies, fruit, and some grains -- see if there is a change -- you might see some radical shifts in behavior in just a week. Also, find some children's DHA with Omega 3/6/9 and add that to her daily diet.

1 mom found this helpful

Dear D., I have a copy of a CD by Dr Christine (Ito) Wood, M.D., C.L.E. about ADHD. Dr Wood is a practicing pediatrician and certified lactation educator. She is listed in the Best Doctors of America, representing the top 3% of doctors in this peer review polling process. If you like, I can mail a copy to you.

I dont know a lot about adhd but read an article some time back that said that this problem is caused/aggrivated
by the consumption of processed food ingredients such as artificial colors and refined carbohydrates. that 80% of who were taken off processed foods had a huge change in behavior.
hope this helps some. Maybe making a change in the foods eaten would make a difference. might be worth a try.
D.

More Answers

Homeppathic remedies have been found to be very successful in helping adhd children. It takes a trained homeopathic physician to do a thorough case study and work with you and your child to come up with the correct remedy, but it is worth it! Look for the book "Ritalin-Free Kids" (sorry I don't remember the authors right now). It was published in the 1990's so might not be in print now, but maybe you could find it in a library or on Amazon.com.
J.

1 mom found this helpful

You might try an experiment with food. Take her off ALL processed foods for one week - no sugars, no dyes, no foods with additives -- stick with proteins, veggies, fruit, and some grains -- see if there is a change -- you might see some radical shifts in behavior in just a week. Also, find some children's DHA with Omega 3/6/9 and add that to her daily diet.

1 mom found this helpful

My son also had extreme adhd.

Introduce her to as many sports as YOU can handle; basketball, baseball, soccer, swimming. The dance class was a good idea, but she needs to burn additional energy!

Also restrict her sugar intake. NO SODA! Try Crystal Light. NO CANDY! I used to make fruit baskets for Easter. I would tell people that my son could have an allergic reaction to sugar. And he did. He became a monster!

My son outgrew his adhd when he was almost 8. I did not put him on medication so we all truly had to dedicate ourselves to maintaining this structure. As a single mom, you'll have to make the decision whether the medication is worthwhile. I didn't find it to be so.

Good Luck!
M

1 mom found this helpful

My advice to you is get her off ritalin. Doctors are to quick to put kids on this drug. And the fact that he prescribed 2x a day is outragous. The best thing to do is to start teaching your child how to control the effects of ADHD, give them ammino acids, decrease sugar, remove anything with red or yellow dyes and also remove MSG (Monosodium Glutamate)from their diets. Also I would recommend going to a book store and looking for books on handling ADHD in children in healthy way. These books will better help in diets, way to help control and understand the effects of ADHD. There are also website you can go to for support...just put in "dealing with ADHD" in search. My oldest son had ADHD and I was not pleased with the effects he was having so I tried a couple of these things (removing dyes, sugar, MSG, teaching him to understand and control his impulses along with focus...he now controls it himself without drugs.
But my two step son's were already on meds by the time I came into their lives as it was court ordered because of birth mother demanding it in custody papers. There was little I could do except try to keep the doseage as low as possible and still do what I could that I did with my olest.
So if you must have the drug I personaly recommend Concerta or Medadate time release or extend release. Both of these are a ritalin type drug but they do not have the same intense side effects. Plus having the extend or time release gives a small amount throughout the the day. Ritalin is a form of speed (as is the others) so the most problem that you have to look at is rapid heart rate, sweating, aggressivness and when they get older the likelihood of trying other street drugs is higher then other kids. I know this as my oldest step son was on Aderall XR and we had problems with all of this while he was growing up (I was only able to do the diet and teaching for a a year or two because the problems were too far gone by time I got to him) now he is on Meth. And my youngest step son is currently on Concerta 36mg (at one point they also had him on 18mg at noon...bad move as we had more problems then not). He is 14 now on just the one dosage of 36mg plus ammino acids but he also was starting to play around with drugs because the ADHD drugs weren't giving him the same effect as the used to (that is another thing that the docotrs don't tell you is that when your kid reaches puberty the hormones conteract the drug so it doesn't work as good so they need more and more to get same effect as before). We are currently trying to his diet and ammino acids adjusted.
Just be very careful with this drug as there are also cases of the drug having a very bad backlash in making the kids violent. I am sorry to be such a bummer or if I scared you but we are dealing with very fragile brains & lives here. Doping up these brains is a recipe for problems in the long haul. That is just my experience.
You are in my prayers that all goes well.
M

1 mom found this helpful

My oldest has ADHD too, and he did not really respond to the med either very well, they changed after 4 month the perscription in a ritalin which I only had to give than 1 time a day , not 2 or 3 times we did sport as you did and Psycatric help, but I figuered also that some of the preservertives make it worse. I homecooked everything, only water and tea without sugar and after one year on the drug, he got off, we are with the same died and a lot of sports and are really great. Now we even can have sometimes sweets or some premate foods. It takes time your child is only 5, my son was about 8 untill things really got better. I know it's hard, try to have patience and make teachers aware of the problem too. Also herself she needs to realize what's wrong with her, and learn to see the signs herself that you can pin point them our. like hey look at yourself, do you see it's not ok.?? But for that she still needs to grow a little. Patience is the key.. It will get better. ....I know I went trough were you are.. it feels hopeless, but it's not. .:-)

1 mom found this helpful

Hi D.:

I would check into any issues with kids in school. My daughter came home with tantrums and hyperactive behavior and it turns out a little girl was punching her in the stomach and she had no idea that it was not a nice thing for her *friend* to be doing. We pulled her out of that school and is back to her old sweet self, helping around the house and playing quietly. Night and day within a matter of a few days.

The second thing is, check into DHA (fish oil). Studies show that it helps fight ADHD and provides much needed Omega-3s in the diet. This helps with ADHD A LOT!

Thanks and God Bless.

1 mom found this helpful

I dont know a lot about adhd but read an article some time back that said that this problem is caused/aggrivated
by the consumption of processed food ingredients such as artificial colors and refined carbohydrates. that 80% of who were taken off processed foods had a huge change in behavior.
hope this helps some. Maybe making a change in the foods eaten would make a difference. might be worth a try.
D.

Sorry I forgot ~ A little about me :) I'm a 43 y/o mother of 3, my youngest daughter is 7 and in 1st grade my son is 10 in 4th grade and my oldest is 20 and "on her own". I've been married for 12 years this summer.

~ H. S

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