Author: Suzanne B. Robotti

Suzanne B. Robotti

Suzanne is the President and Founder of MedShadow, and the Executive Director of DES Action USA.  MedShadow’s mission is to preserve quality of life by ensuring everyone has access to the risks, benefits and alternates to using drugs to manage healthcare. Read More

Think the only way to deal with a child who has ADHD is with a stimulant? Think again. More parenting skills and other resources can help your child out more than you might think. What causes hyperactivity and ADHD (attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder)? A combination of temperament, environment and parenting. The most important factors are parenting skills and resources, especially those that can help create some calm. You can learn them. “I would suggest we can head off many cases of ADHD in the first 2 years of life,” says W. Douglas Tynan, PhD, ABPP, director of Integrated Care at the…

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With new studies piling up warning of risks of stimulants on kids, are the risks of ADHD meds worth the benefits? I’ve never hidden my concern about giving stimulant medicines to children, teens and even adults with ADHD. When my child was diagnosed ADHD, we took a long, considered view of ADHD meds and decided against them. Behavioral therapy is the first line of treatment and we went that route. But we circled back to reconsider meds many times, when notes came home from teachers complaining of his behavior; when we couldn’t, try as we might, get him to concentrate…

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ADHD Drugs Side Effects What’s the harm in using ADHD drugs to get a little help studying? If you actually don’t have ADHD, these stimulants can lead to nausea, headaches, high blood pressure, arrhythmia and other side effects, as I learned by reading Teresa Bergen’s great article ‘Smart Drugs’ on Campus: Too Easy to Get & Abuse. She explores the growing phenomenon of college students taking illegal prescription drugs — stimulants mostly — in order to focus more clearly and improve their grades. I wondered whether the kids who do have ADHD and are taking stimulants have the same risks for nausea, psychosis and…

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Doctor Says Valid Diagnosis of ADHD in a Toddler is Not Supported by Evidence “More than 10,000 American toddlers 2 and 3 years old are being medicated for ADHD  drugs outside established pediatric guidelines.” (NYT) “Valid diagnosis of ADHD in a toddler is not supported by evidence,” according to Susanna Visser, DrPH, MS of the CDC’s National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities. What happened to the accepting tone of “ants in the pants?” Kids wiggle, move, get distracted and through all this inform the rest of us how wonderful life is. I have often worried out loud in this…

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Study: ADHD Symptoms Persist Despite Meds A new study on ADHD medication from Johns Hopkins was reported in The Atlantic magazine, “Study: ADHD Symptoms Persist Despite Medication in 9 Out of 10 Kids.” It found that 160 out of 180 kids on ADHD medicine still exhibited ADHD symptoms 6 years later. The parents, when interviewed, claimed the ADHD had been chronic through the 6 years. There were unanswered questions raised by the study: Were the children each prescribed the right medicine for him/her? Did they take the medicine correctly? Were they diagnosed too young? These children were diagnosed at 4-1/2 years…

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ADHD Stimulants Study on Boys This study was reported in The Medical Journal of Australia,1/22/13. It looked at both height and pubertal attainment (love the scientific term!) for boys between the ages of 7 to 15.99. As has been suspected in the past (the conclusion claims this is the first study to confirm) stimulant medicines used for ADHD stunts height in boys but doesn’t delay puberty. It is still unclear if the boys “catch up” with their height.

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Alcobra Ltd (Tel Aviv) has filed with the SEC to raise money in the stock market to test Metadoxine SR (slow release) for use with ADHD sufferers. The money will allow Alcobra to run a Phase II/III trial in preparation for requesting FDA approval for use in ADHD. They intend to raise $15-$20 million US. (Source: Globes) Metadoxine SR is the only product this company has and, of course, it’s not on the market until the FDA approves it. Yet the company is already valued at $100 million before raising money. This might give one an idea of how profitable…

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What is Ritalin Gone Wrong? Ritalin Gone Wrong (New York Times, January 28, 2012)  is an OpEd piece in which Dr. Sroufe contends that attention-deficit drugs only increase concentration short term. He discusses the history of medical theory on ADHD from the 1960s to today. He notes that the very real possibility that ADHD is affected by experiences in childhood. He refers his own study of 200 children followed from pregnancy through adolescence. He determined that ADHD was predictable by environment, not infant temperament at birth (which would imply an inborn deficiency) or neurological anomalies at birth. He proposes that each child…

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Many Parents Worry That Using Ritalin Might Lead to Drug Abuse While certainly no one factor determines future drug abuse, many parents worry that using Ritalin or other ADHD drugs might lead to later drug abuse. An article carried in the online journal, Neuropsychopharmacology (catchy title), reported on a study attempting to answer this question. The authors of the study were Linda Porrino, Ph.D., professor and chair of the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, and professor Michael A. Nader, Ph.D., both of Wake Forest Baptist. Dr. Porrino acknowledges the concerns of many parents, “We know that the drugs used to…

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In this Q&A from CNN Health(published Jan 10, 2010) Dr. Raison gives a lengthy, thoughtful answer to the question: “What is the long-term effect of Adderall on a child starting it at age 8?” The question goes on more specifically to the appetite suppressant issues with stimulants. Dr. Raisin partially answers the question and is not reassuring about ADHD in general. He focuses on efficacy of Adderall saying in general that children who respond well to psychostimulants do much better over an eight year period than those with ADHD who don’t receive treatment. He refers to an eight-year government sponsored…

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