He won’t sit still. She just doesn’t pay attention in class. He can’t focus on one subject and is disruptive to other students. Does your child have ADD or ADHD?
Many teachers might say that your child has ADD/ADHD, but don’t let them diagnose your child of a disorder he or she may not even have. Teachers have as much authority to diagnose your child with ADD/ADHD as a plumber has to diagnose your car’s engine.
Teachers, medical doctors, and even government officials will tell you that if you don’t medicate your child who has ADD/ADHD now, they will “self medicate” themselves later in life with cocaine or other illegal drugs. What they don’t tell you is that many drugs for ADD/ADHD, such as Ritalin, produce effects very similar to cocaine or amphetamines. What’s even worse is that some kids may have to take it their entire lives, increasing dose sizes as they grow.
Doctors Prescribe Medicine
Ritalin is the Medical Doctor’s First Choice When It Comes to ADD/ADHD
What’s scary is that in 2000, Ritalin prescription rates worldwide were five times higher than in 1990, only a decade earlier. And even worse, 90% of those prescriptions were in the US. We don’t have five times the birthrate, children, or population as any other country in the world, so what is the reason our kids all of the sudden have ADD/ADHD? Today’s society is more impulsive, demand quicker gratification, and have a shorter attention span, and children are the most affected by it. So why are we medicating our children when they are simply moving in the direction of society?
When a child starts having difficulty in class or starts behaving badly, teachers make a preliminary ADHD “diagnosis” and inform the parents. The parents then bring their child to their family doctor who does a few tests and usually ends up prescribing a medication like Ritalin to their child. There are several things wrong with this situation. First off, TEACHERS CAN’T PRESCRIBE OR DIAGNOSE ANYTHING. Their advice should be taken in the right context, merely as someone who sees a problem that needs to be discovered and dealt with. Second, there are several other treatments for your child that are much safer, and often times more effective and longer lasting than drugging them up right away.
There are several factors that are more likely than ADHD and they should be tested before medicating, because some more serious neurological disorders may be present, and can be worsened by adding “kiddie cocaine” into the mix. Ritalin is called “kiddie cocaine” because the long term developmental brain irregularities are often compared to those of long term cocaine users. Ritalin is not a cure for ADHD, it doesn’t correct the disorder nor does it help the patient with their individual issues. The drug merely controls the symptoms to help the child concentrate better.
Diagnosis
Get a Diagnosis from a Qualified Health Care Professional
After their teacher tells you that there is something wrong with your child, take them to a healthcare professional that specializes in ADHD or neurology. Their “ADHD” as “prescribed” by their teacher, could actually be obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) or Tourettes. Also, observe the child at home. If they aren’t acting like the teacher is reporting, it may be something wrong with the teacher, school, or something in the school such as an allergen. For it to be classified as ADHD the behaviors have to be excessive, occur before the age of seven, cause problems in social environments (such as school or home), and last for at least six months. Many children don’t meet these requirements, yet are still “diagnosed” with ADHD.
ADHD has been observed since 1938. It is caused by a problem with the reticular activating system, or the activity center of the brain. The use of a PET (positron emission tomography) scan researchers can look at the brains of non-ADHD patients and those with ADHD. In patients with ADHD certain parts of the brain are underfunctioning. This can be caused by two things – under stimulation of the brain, or the biochemical substrates to the brain. That translates into “some children” have problems with the environment they’re in, some have biological problems, and some have both. Medical treatments play the “one-size-fits-all” approach by simply prescribing medicine. This affects the biological aspect of ADHD which, as discussed before, may not be the cause.
Taking drugs should never be taken lightly. For example, a child died suddenly because of a reaction between a Ritalin-like drug and clonidine, a drug taken to regulate high blood pressure. Drugs can react with each other in deadly ways, and what should worry you is that medical doctors and pharmacologists find out the hard way at the expense of innocent human lives.
Chiropractic can Help
It can help brain stimulation by opening up pathways so that as much stimulation can get to the brain from sight, smell, touch and taste. In many cases it can correct long-standing brain imbalances responsible for many of the deficits that lead to ADD. It can help the biochemical substrates by identifying specific subluxations (vertebra that are misaligned causing poor nerve function) and different sensory stimuli that specifically affect the deficient hemisphere and thus help normalize brain function.
To complement your child’s chiropractic care, have them do some exercises at home to help their brain develop like it is supposed to. Exercises like clapping a hand or tapping a foot using the hand or foot they would use to play a certain instrument helps them to concentrate on one task at a time, throwing darts at a board to help with hand-eye coordination, and timed cognitive tasks such as crosswords and mazes to help them practice figuring things out in a certain period of time all help develop your child’s brain safely and effectively without the use of drugs.
If we can help, we’ll tell you. If we can’t, we’ll direct you to someone who can.
Extra Resources
Here are a few links to content aimed at furthering your understanding of how chiropractic can help ADD and ADHD. Enjoy!
ADD/ADHD on YouTube:
How Chiropractic Care Can Help with ADHD
ADD/ADHD Articles
Children with ADHD Medical vs.Chiropractic Perspective and Theory; Part 1
Children with ADHD Medical vs. Chiropractic Perspective and Theory; Part 2