If you have an issue with all the Ritalin and Adderall out there, the issue isn't with Big Pharma, its with doctors who prescribe too easily. And primarily its with the PARENTS who would rather drug their kids than deal with them. We are a country of weak-minded, victim mentality, blame-seeking people. We would rather blame everything and everyone for our own shortcomings rather than deal with them ourselves.
Amen on that.
And with regard to Ritalin/Adderall - it's not only the parents though, it's teachers as well. Lots of teachers pressure parents into medicating their children. Now I'm not saying the parents are victims, they can push back - but generally parents tend to trust what professionals are telling them. I've seen that first-hand through family members and co-workers. Though not everyone caves into medicating on a whim.
Alluveal wrote:It's just disgusting that we have the most expensive healthcare in the entire world and we seem to have the sickest fucks as well (mentally speaking.)
Isn't it a property of human nature that we make problems for ourselves if we don't have any? /shrug
I think this is exactly what happens, Tax. And peeps are out there exploiting that desire.
So, if they are aware of it and want to exploit the pill-happy system, what's wrong with that?
I don't think most people who take these drugs are thinking, "weee! I want to be on Prozac for the rest of my life and drug companies know it. We make a gooooood team!"
I think that the companies are relying on folks to be willing to take prozac for having a few blue days out of the year.
If you have an issue with all the Ritalin and Adderall out there, the issue isn't with Big Pharma, its with doctors who prescribe too easily. And primarily its with the PARENTS who would rather drug their kids than deal with them. We are a country of weak-minded, victim mentality, blame-seeking people. We would rather blame everything and everyone for our own shortcomings rather than deal with them ourselves.
Amen on that.
And with regard to Ritalin/Adderall - it's not only the parents though, it's teachers as well. Lots of teachers pressure parents into medicating their children. Now I'm not saying the parents are victims, they can push back - but generally parents tend to trust what professionals are telling them. I've seen that first-hand through family members and co-workers. Though not everyone caves into medicating on a whim.
Well, doctors get monetary compensation and perks for pushing certain drugs (by the pharma companies that issue those drugs.) But, I also think that many doctors are this way. Parents are absolutely a huge part of the problem as well. They can't imagine that they were shitty parents so it's best to think their child has a chemical imbalance and a drug will "fix them." Teachers, same thing. It's a happy little family. It functions for most of them involved, but that doesn't make it any less sick.
I have mixed feelings on the ADD drugs. I have had more then one person tell me that my 6 year old is ADHD and he should be medicated. While I want him to have every advantage in school I'm not sure I want him to be medicated unless it's necessary... but what is necessary ? I certainly wouldn't deny the kid glasses if he needed them to help him be able to SEE in school would i ? Of course not. So why do the drugs bother me so much. Personally I think he's a healthy, active, normal 6 year old little boy, and i should LET him be a little boy and for gods sake give him a chance. I mean he's in Kindergarten ! I specifically denied the offer of an "observing child psychologist specializing in hyperactivity in children" to have a BRAIN SCAN done on my child. I felt it was utterly above and beyond the scope of necessity. I would like to believe those around him, my parents and his teachers and the observing professionals would only tell me they think he needs medication if they really thought he did, not as a way to crowd control the kindergartners. What i find most interesting is my father has been telling me how he's just a normal little boy, until this specialist talked to my dad, then he was all on board with a brain scan and medication. Professionals trust professionals as well, however having this shoved in my face I was less then appreciative and proceeded to get into an argument with my father over the whole ordeal, when he finally admitted maybe he'd just gotten a bit excited by the whole thing and hadn't really thought over everything yet.
Emabr's certainly right, there are drugs people need, or at the very least are very thankful for, but there's certainly the opposite side as well.
The thing that makes Big Pharma cross from a plain old company into the "evil" category is when they misrepresent their products. Withholding of negative information is the biggest issue here, and trying to say it's the parent's or even the doctor's responsibility to do their own research is flat out ridiculous when you think of the double blind trials and costs involved to set these up. So, doctors have to rely on the Pharmas to provide accurate information and complete disclosure on their products and consumers have to rely on both the doctors and the Pharmas to provide them with accurate information.
Naturally every industry has this issue, but there's a slight difference between getting a bad stick of RAM and getting a bad side effect from a pill. Similarly there's a big difference between not putting in the memory to your PC and not taking a pill that could have cured the disease you had. When the stakes are literally life and death, the duty of care has to be raised and using the excuse of "just a business" doesn't cut it unless you can put the board in prison for murder and employees for accessories to the fact when they mislead the public.
And that doesn't even start with the stupid patent tricks they play to ensure the costs to consumers stay high, or the fact their more interested in long term management of illness than short term cures, or etc. etc.
Dd... do you know what a drug manufacturer has to go through in order to get a product to market here in the states? It's fucking crazy, man. Why do you think the rest of the world relies on US tested and manufactured drugs? Its because we have one of the most rigorous and stringent regulatory climates for that kind of stuff.
Unless you're snuffing rhino horn to sustain your erection or eating antelope testicles to increase your stamina.... US discovered, tested and produced drugs are, for the overwhelming majority, the first choice for the rest of the world. There's a reason why people in other countries come here for medical treatment. Its the access to the drugs.
That said... I think Cuba has one of finest cadres of physicians. They do more with less, and have managed to bridge the gulf between western and eastern medicine. If the travel embargo is ever lifted, I will personally donate money to a foundation that supports an exchange of medical professionals here.
Correction Mr. President, I DID build this, and please give Lurker a hug, we wouldn't want to damage his self-esteem.
Embar Angylwrath wrote:Dd... do you know what a drug manufacturer has to go through in order to get a product to market here in the states? It's fucking crazy, man. Why do you think the rest of the world relies on US tested and manufactured drugs? Its because we have one of the most rigorous and stringent regulatory climates for that kind of stuff.
Umm... no. The US has one of the fastest and least stringent approval processes of the first world. Drugs are approved much quicker in the US than in places like Canada, Australia, Italy, Germany and the UK and there's a significantly higher chance of recalls from US drugs, especially now that a significant portion of the drugs in the US are actually manufactured in places like China and Mexico with little to no FDA inspection due to simple lack of funding.
There's a reason why people in other countries come here for medical treatment. Its the access to the drugs.
Yes - because it's easier to get approval in the US than other places, but that wasn't even the point I was making in my prior post. Despite the disparities between nations, the drug companies do similar things all over the world - they tend to hide findings when they negatively impact their products. I have no clue whether you're agreeing with my statement but saying it's justified because it's "so hard" to get approval, or if you're saying they don't do it. Either one is false.
Head over to http://worstpills.org/ and look at the sheer number of occurrences where the drug companies have found problems with their product and lagged significantly in bringing that information to public view, in some cases having to actually be sued to even admit their own findings.
Ariannda Kusanagi wrote:I have mixed feelings on the ADD drugs. I have had more then one person tell me that my 6 year old is ADHD and he should be medicated.
Don't put your children on that shit - sursly. Having access to Adderall for the last couple of years now, I never would suggest for parents to put their kids on it. That being said, it's great for studying and homework projects. Of course I could have done everything I did without it, it's just easier/more fun when you are high.
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In December I was diagnosed with ADD. If it weren’t for Taxious talking about his ADD on this board I probably would have never had myself evaluated. Evaluation took 2 sessions over a period of 2 weeks. In between I had to give paperwork to my mother and my wife to fill out asking them to rate me on a scale 1 to 5 on various behaviors. For my wife she was to evaluate my current behavior. For my mother she had to evaluate my behavior when I was 6 to 12 years old. I also had to look very closely at myself now and at what my life was like as a child. After those evaluations I was broken hearted for days. So many bad memories to bring back up. And looking at my past in the perspective of how ADD affected it I was in mourning for the child I was and the adult I could have been.
I'm 39 years old and I decades behind in decades behind in progress academically socially and career wise. In elementary school I was completely undisciplined. My behavior was often wild and showed a complete lack of self control. If I saw something that caught my eye I would get out of my chair in the middle of class and go play with it. If the thing that caught my attention was another student I would get up and go to them right then in the middle of class and start talking to them about whatever was on my mind. Even if they didn't have any interest in what I was saying. While the teacher was yelling at me to sit down. The kids all thought I was a freak. I had to stay by the playground monitor all recess or they would beat me up. Social isolation delayed the development of my social skills and that just made the isolation worse. Negative attention is better than no attention at all. I got to the point where I would purposely seek out fights with the other kids and actually thought that these people who picked on my and beat me up were my friends.
My grades were terrible. I almost got held back 2nd 3rd and 4th grade and only intervention by my parents made the school relent and let me go to the next grade. My academic performance got better in my teens. But it still was not good. I graduated high school with a 2.49 GPA. Somehow I managed to be accepted to the University of Minnesota with those grades. By the end of my first year I was on academic probation. At the end of the second year I received a 12 month suspension. I flunked out. When the suspension was over I went back to the UofM and flunked out again.
Depression accompanies ADD in over half of adult cases. I can't remember a time in my adult life when I was not depressed. I turned to drugs and alcohol. Frustration with the world and with me, as well as a need to numb myself to my bleak mood and shitty life made being drunk or high a haven from the unhappiness. But that cost me as well. All that money I wasted on getting wasted. All the progress I could have been making in my life instead of sliding towards being a burned out homeless addict. And I am convicted I would be that homeless addict right now if I had not smoked some pot that was laced with PCP while drinking half a bottle of Jack Daniels and tripping on 4 hits of really good acid. I didn't know the pot was dusted.
I didn't even know what PCP was like. I had never tried it. That night I had a freak out worthy of the epic stories thread. I firmly believed I was going to die if I could not force myself to relax. What a soothing thought. Relax or die. Relax or die. Relax or die. Relax or die. All my friends thought I had passed out. I was wide awake. And so terrified I could not move of speak. Quite literally paralyzed with fear. It lasted for hours. I felt them shove me a few times trying to get me to wake up. I heard them joking about writing on my face with markers while I was passed out. I heard them play through all of Dark Side of the Moon, and 2 other CD's before I finally got my shit barely enough together to start screaming for help. After that any time I would smoke pot I would start to have a panic attack. I didn't even want to think about what acid would do to me.
But still I tried to get high. At first once a month thinking surely I must be over it by now. Then once every six months, then once a year. I never stopped having the racing heartbeat and chills every time I hit a pipe. I haven’t tried to get high in nearly 10 years. I don’t quit drugs voluntarily. They were taken away from me. If I knew that starting today I could get high like I used to I would be smoking pot or dropping acid as often as I now go to the bar.
One of the effects of ADD is poor memory. I was fired from nearly every job I ever had. Between poor self discipline and forgetting to do things I had just been asked to do I came off as lazy and careless. I lived in shitty little apartments in bad parts of town. For a coulee years in my early 20's I dumpster dove for food. When Rocky Rococo pizza closes they throw out all their unsold pizza by the slice still wrapped in their cardboard boxes. Super America gas stations are open 24 hours. But they throw out their sandwiches at 2 AM on the day they expire. I wish I never had to learn that.
My relationships with my girlfriends and later with my wife suffered because I would forget conversations we had, decision we made, plans we made. Sometimes I was sure that they were imagining that we had talked about XYZ, and accused them of being confused, or ironically forgetful.
I started on good old adderal on December 19th, and it was like someone had taken a weight of my shoulders I had been carrying my whole life. My mood is so much better. I catch myself whistling when I walk. My concentration and memory were up. It timed nicely with my return to school, and i noticed an improvement in my academic performance right away. Heck. Look at my posts on this board. How much longer and well thought out they are compared to what they used to be.
I will be on these pills for the rest of my life. But I do so gladly knowing that they bring a huge improvement to my quality of life. Experiencing how much better my life is with the adderal I can’t imagine I would be able to go back to the life I had even six months ago. Knowing what I had with the adderal and how much I was losing. Knowing what I had to go back to. I think the only thing that would stop me from killing myself would be knowing how terribly it would hurt the people that love me.
Taking Prozac and adderal long term because you feel bummed out once or twice is not very realistic. No more than taking a couple Percocet every day because every once in a while your knee hurts. For people who need these drugs they are a lifesaver. For people who don't need them they are a huge waste of money and the side effects can be potentially disastrous.
The medical definition of distimia is moderate to severe depression that lasts for over 2 years. Any doctor who gives you Prozac when you don't meet the criteria could lose his license to practice medicine. Adderal is a controlled substance. It is quite literally amphetamines. And meth heads will quite happily crush a pill and snort it to get their fix. A doctor could not only loose his license, but go to prison for misprescribing that. That’s not to say that it doesn't happen. You can't look at an X-ray or analyze a urine sample to tell if someone legitimately needs these medications. Some people lie to their doctors to get them. But honestly. Look around you. All the people you know. Do you personally know anybody who takes these pills when they don't need them? Not that friend of your cousin. Not that dude you heard of that one time. Do you actually know anyone personally?
(Edit. While I was writing this Tax posted about taking addreal recreationally. Recreational use is different from popping the pills every day I’m talking about the “poor me” whiners that you all are hating on.)
"A few months ago, I told the American people I did not trade arms for hostages. My heart and best intentions still tell me that's true, but the facts and evidence tell me it is not." - Ronald Reagan 1987
PS. Sorry for the extra long post. I've been watching this thread for a few days and it's been building up in me.
"A few months ago, I told the American people I did not trade arms for hostages. My heart and best intentions still tell me that's true, but the facts and evidence tell me it is not." - Ronald Reagan 1987
See Klast your experiences are the reason i WOULD medicate my child, if it's necessary, however I'm not exactly sure what is and what is not necessary. If i put him on the medication and he doesn't need to be, i'm fucking him up, if i DONT and he needs to be, then I'm fucking him up. I was on Ritalin as a child, i stopped taking it in high school of my own accord. I didn't like the fact the Ritalin changed my personality. I did fine in school, i could have done better on my own but frankly I didn't care... now 10 years later I care. I wish I'd graduated (although I dropped out, tried to go back and hit a wall, needed an additional year of school because the tech center principle, my former vice principle, wouldn't give me a chance, so i had to take a years worth of classes to make up for NOT graduating in my tech program) and I wish i'd gone to school several other times over the years, but I've always had excuses of not enough time, or money, or daycare, or whatever the case may have been... I just decided that I was better then the medication, and I've done fine post high school with grades and what not. Medication CAN be necessary in the lives of people who are otherwise "healthy and normal" but in Klasts case he's chosen to take the medication and he's happier in the end for it, and healthier, and thats what's important. He made those choices without having them pushed on him, and it came very late in life, compared to when it could have occurred.
Glad you're feeling better Klast. Glad that your quality of life has improved. Obviously, you're one of the people Adderal was designed for. However, I think that shit is still way over-prescribed, and when teachers start suggesting pharmacological regimens, that's an indication parents and teachers use the shit for behavioral control, not modification.
Correction Mr. President, I DID build this, and please give Lurker a hug, we wouldn't want to damage his self-esteem.
M computer crashed an I lost a long post I was writing. I'll summarize it because i don't want to start over.
ADD has a genetic component. Medical doctors are not trained in the subject as well as an actual shrink who specializes in ADD. I think you should try and get a referral to take your son to a shrink who specializes in ADD. I don't want your son's life to be like mine was.
And while you are at it you should get yourself evaluated as well. You were diagnosed with it once. 70% of childhood ADD goes away with adulthood. for the other 30% ii persists in to adulthood most often with different symptoms than when you were a kid. And if you have an adult form of ADD I promise you that treating makes a change for the better. It's not like antidepressants where you have to wait a month or 2 to see if it's working. you can see a difference in a day or two. And it's shocking how big a difference it is. To put it in nerd terms, it was as if I had gained a level and got to put more points in to my mental stats.
People with ADD react differently to stimulants. I felt a little wired for a few days but after wards I couldn't notice a difference. If you take the stuff and you are still bouncing off the walls after a week then that will confirm that you don't have it. You can stop taking the pills right then and there.
At least get your son checked out by an ADD specialist. Not a GP, but a real shrink with a specialty in ADD. I hope you never, ever have to look at him and say: "he had so much potential"
"A few months ago, I told the American people I did not trade arms for hostages. My heart and best intentions still tell me that's true, but the facts and evidence tell me it is not." - Ronald Reagan 1987
Klast, I will defiantly do that for the both of us. Thank you for sharing that information, I really appreciate the thought you put into the post. It's exactly the kind of thing I've been hoping someone would say to affirm my validations in taking him to look INTO being treated. Like I said I wouldn't deny my child glasses to help him succeed, but I don't want him medicated simply to be medicated, only should he really need it and not just to appease people who want him medicated as a means of control.
For every case like you, Klast, there are 5 kids who don't need it and twice as many bad parents who try to force meds on their kids. One of my family members works in LA (child/adolescent psychology.) She will literally have parents come in and say, "fix my child. There is something wrong." When she diagnoses them and spends time with the parents, it's clear that most just don't know how to tell their kids NO. They dump them off and want a "repaired" child when they return in an hour and they get downright pissed off when you can't do that for them.
They aren't interested in therapy or treatment that includes "Work" on their part.
They usually doctor shop until they find one that will ask fewer questions and dole out more drugs.
I was also diagnosed with ADD a few years ago. I was on Adderall for a year, but the side effects were too much for me and I hated feeling like I was "on something" constantly.
I finally found a therapist who gave me the tools to conquer this crap w/o meds. The biggest part was learning when I was "slipping" in focus and learning how to head that off. Lots of mental exercises, lots of cognitive therapy. I allow myself some caffeine now and then if I'm not responding to any of the exercises. I understand that it's not necessarily the "diagnosis of the week" but rather a condition that went undiscovered for so long. Most adults (especially women) are misdiagnosed with depression when they have ADD (not ADHD.)
I get that.
But it's used as a crutch for too many. And so many kids are doped up, it makes you wonder how the fuck we survived so long w/o our precious ritalin or prozac? I don't know people who really need this stuff, but I think it's a cash-cow for a lot of folks to get those drugs out there and into the hands of whomever will buy them. And that's what pisses me off.
I took wellbutrin/prozac to quit smoking a few years ago and it worked. I didn't have any urge to smoke, or eat, or work, or be romantic with the wife, or anything - no urges of any kind. SSRI's were the only thing that had ever worked, but if you're not depressed then this class of drugs is a really bad trip. I just went back to smoking.
What's funny is that Xyban, which is really Wellbutrin, wasn't covered by the insurance, so he prescribed Wellbutrin, and told me if anyone asked, I was depressed about smoking lol.
Ugh. Welbutrin. A friend of mine took that and her hair started to fall out. I'm talking, she lost about 55% of her hair. She told the doctor and he laughed at her. "That's not listed as a side-effect."
So, she looked online and found message boards where people were bitching about how Welbutrin made their hair fall out. All over. She couldn't toss a rock into the ole google parking lot without getting a hit.
She wrote the makers of the drug, explaining her situation. She received a letter that stated that hair loss was a side effect, but it wasn't included in the literature because it wasn't a real health concern (I am paraphrasing.)
Wow, thanks twatgobblers. If you're depressed and you take Welbutrin to feel better, losing half your hair is sure to make you extra happy, right?
The thing that got me was they outright said, "oh yeah, that's a side effect." She took the info to her doctor to show him and he just shrugged it off. She stopped the welbutrin and has hair now and found new meds that work and let her keep her hair and her sex drive too. I don't know which kind, but she said she was hornier than she'd ever been on it.
Not a medical opinion, but the SSRIs are pretty much interchangeable so doctors will prescribe different ones until they find the one that works for the particular patient with a minimum of the nasty side effects.
