Wow.  I can’t believe I haven’t written about this.  Emma’s on a new medication!  It’s kind of big news around here.  Well, you know how she’s swallowing pills now (another milestone that deserved its own post, by the way).  Since she started swallowing pills, we decided to try a medication that we once tried about a year and a half ago.  This medication was wonderful.  It gave her the focus and clarity she lacked( by the way I’m talking about an ADHD med), and it didn’t cause her to act (or feel) drugged or lethargic.  I. Loved. It.  Problem was, she didn’t love it.  This pill came in a capsule form, so back in the day (you know, pre-swallowing-pills), we would empty the capsule and dissolve it with her other pills into Sunny D (which is, by far, the sweetest tasting juice I have found).  This pill was so bitter, she refused to take it.  She wouldn’t swallow the syringe with the dissolved medicine.  Brett and I tried it.  We didn’t blame her.  The stuff was horrid.  The most bitter and metalic tasting medicine you could imagine. Which begs the question, if you’re gonna make a kid’s medicine, please make it palatable.  Am I right?  Whatever.  That’s another story.

Okay, so back to the present.  The girl is swallowing pills!  We thought, “hey, let’s give this old medication another try!”  And we had precious few days before school started to get this medication in her system.  So we tried.  We waited for a few days.  We increased the dosage (yes, this is all under her psychiatrist’s supervision). It started working better.  In the first week of school, we had her taking it in the morning.  She took it in the morning last time, though the doc warned us that this could cause drowsiness.  Duly noted. After getting up every morning last week around 5:30, and falling asleep every chance she got in the car, we decided to switch to a night time dosage.  She slept in longer.  She wasn’t falling asleep in the car.  She didn’t want to watch TV all day.  She’s got more energy.  And….(drumroll please)…she’s got that focus that we’ve been waiting to see.  Hallelujah!!  Now, we’re not holding our breaths here.  She’s still getting acquainted with the school schedule.  Things could change.  But, so far so good!  I only hope this is the beginning of a successful year in 1st grade!!

My friend posted an MSN article a few days ago about some new statistics regarding ADHD.  And they’re not that surprising.  The title is Pesticides in Kids Linked to ADHD.  The title says it all.  But is it that surprising?  Maybe some of the numbers will surprise you.

“Kids with higher-than-average levels of one pesticide marker were nearly twice as likely to be diagnosed with ADHD as children who showed no traces of the poison…. The most alarming finding was a near-doubling in odds of ADHD diagnoses among kids with higher-than-average levels of the most common of the six metabolites detected. Kids with high levels of dimethyl thiophosphate were 93 percent more likely to have the disorder than children with with undetectable levels of the marker.”

Yeah, those are some big numbers.  But there are SO many other factors that go into ADHD.  Take Emma, for example.  She has at least 2 other factors that contributed to her diagnosis.  First, kids with SOD have a tendency toward an ADHD diagnosis.  Secondly, it can be hereditary and her Dad had/has ADHD (truth is, he is able to control the tendencies).  So it was almost a given Emma might have it.  Hence my persistence in getting the right evaluations.

Which leads me to my next question.  I wonder how the diagnosed kids in the article got diagnosed.  It’s no secret that ADHD is widely over-diagnosed.  I have had people tell me, “well every kid these days has ADHD.”  Which is precisely why I went through the measures I did to get her diagnosed correctly with a trusted pediatric neuro-psychologist (who is wonderful, if you need someone from PCH).  But practically any doctor can diagnose ADHD these days.  And they can all write out that prescription for Ritalin, too.

So what do we do about this?  Well, the article suggests buying organic as much as possible and washing all produce.  I think the last one is a no-brainer.  I do try to buy organic when it’s cost-effective.  That stuff can be expensive!  I DO wash my produce every time with Fit Spray.  I find mine at Fry’s.  Whole Foods also has a spray…actually a few to choose from.  I believe Fit is made from citrus.  So is the Whole Foods spray, and their’s is organic, too.  Oh, and I will try to stay away from frozen produce.  Which actually will be easier said than done.  Eek!  At this point, what more can you do when it comes to produce?

I realize this is quite a hot topic and I am not trying to step on toes.  But I would love to start a dialog about this and see what you all think of the ADHD topic and this article in particular.

I started a discussion in my Blog Frog community over here…come on over and join in, won’t you?

After I posted about Emma’s ADHD, it occurred to me that maybe I should write about medication.  It’s kind of a hot topic, but one that’s important nonetheless.  If you’ve been reading my blog, you’ll remember this post about all of Emma’s medications.  I choose to see the medications that she takes for her hormones simply as replacements for what her body doesn’t make naturally.  I don’t really count them as medications in the traditional sense.  Of course then we have her anti-seizure medications.  Those are a given.  There’s no need for a second thought on those.  However, when it comes to ADD/ADHD medications, there is a lot of debate out there.  I do believe kids are over-diagnosed with ADHD.  And I believe they’re over-medicated.

When we sat down to hear the results of Emma’s evaluation, the doctor did give us her opinion.  She said with all of the “therapies” she is in, and given the type of ADHD and the symptoms, she did feel that medication was best for her.  And so we went with her opinion.  We also felt strongly that if Emma should receive this diagnosis, that we would  put her on medication.  We looked at it from a few different angles.  First, we had a concrete answer for how much Emma was delayed (globally).  We wanted her to have the chance to catch up to her peers, if possible.  And our hope was that with medication, she might be able to catch up academically as well as socially.  She would have a bit of the focus that her peers had.  Another thought we had was time.  Emma receives OT, PT, and speech…all at home and school.  She’s also in ballet right now.  Quite simply, there aren’t enough hours in the day to add another therapy that might help her focus.  We would be looking into behavioral therapy, a provider, and a location (if a provider couldn’t come to us).

We had some ground rules to follow that we gave ourself.  For example, if a medication altered her normal behavior in any way (with the exception of her focus, of course), we wouldn’t continue on with it.  If the medication had any side effects like headaches, etc., no dice.  If the medication tasted horrible (as the Strattera did), we would stop taking it.  Fortunately the patch has worked really well for us.  She doesn’t behave “drugged” like I’ve seen on some anti-seizure medications.  She can’t take it.  The only side-effect we see is that her skin is red where the patch is adhered to.  That’s a normal side effect and doesn’t bother her in any way.  It works for us right now.  It won’t always work for us (I don’t think, anyway), and then we’ll try something new.  But for now, it does the job.

I fully support any parent in whatever decision they feel is best for their child.  Every mom wants what is best for their child…to make sure their quality of life is the fullest it can be.  If that is behavior modification, that is great.  Some people choose a diet change (such as GF/CF), and that is super.  Our way is the medication way, and we’re sticking with it!

What’s your opinion on the subject?  I want to know!

It’s something I’m learning about each day.  It ‘s also something I have known a little about for a long time.  As a teacher, you can’t escape it.  Also, as a teacher, you see the “real” cases versus the “not-so-real” cases as ADHD and ADD is so over-diagnosed.  I did learn that there is technically only one term: ADHD.  There are variations as the patient doesn’t always have the “H” (hyperactivity) in his/her ADHD case.

I have suspected Emma had true ADHD for quite some time.  Getting her to focus made me want to bang my head against a wall.  Literally.  And it still does, truth be told.  She didn’t have the “H” in her situation, nonetheless, ADD was hard enough without it.  The interesting thing is that I had more than one healthcare provider tell me “NO”.  They didn’t think she had it.  And, literally, one developmental pediatrician told me this after Emma’s evaluation in which Emma was ALL over the place and not able to answer any questions.  I still wonder if they denied my beliefs because perhaps they thought I was “just another mom” looking for that diagnosis.  That maybe I was “just another mom” who couldn’t handle the normal behaviors of a preschooler.  Each time they would tell me no, I would try to push it into the back of my mind…try to forget about the feelings that I was having such a hard time ignoring.

Finally I had enough.  I decided I needed to do more.  I made an appointment with a neuro-psychologist at PCH.  Joy Goldberg. I ♥ Dr. Joy.  She is so kind and compassionate…and that’s with me the parent!  She did amazing with Emma.  She ended up doing 7 hours of evaluation over the course of 2 different days.  She did cognitive, behavioral, speech, focal, everything.  And in the end, we sat down for at least 1 1/2 hours as the parents and she went over everything.  We learned just how delayed Emma was.  And finally, I got the diagnosis that I knew was coming.  ADHD (without the H).  It was such a relief for a few reasons.  First: That was the only thing “wrong”.  In my mind I was wondering if it was something worse, a confirmed case of Austism (something I’ll save for another post).  Of course ADHD has no easy “cure”.  But it was something we could work on.  Second: I was so happy that I wasn’t going crazy!  That my motherly instinct was spot on.  To all those naysayers, I kind of want to say, “told you so!”.  But I’ll refrain!

Emma’s been on a myriad of medications to try to help her focus.  One of our biggest problems is that she can’t swallow pills.  Remember this post?  So unfortunately, the medicine that worked the best, also tasted the worst.  And I tasted it.  It was truly horrible.  We hope to work on pill swallowing this summer and perhaps try Strattera again.  Right now she’s on a patch (yay! no pill!!) that sticks on her bum.  It’s time-released and works for about 9 hours.  It does pretty good.  You can see a HUGE difference when she doesn’t have her patch on.  But there are roller-coaster days at school.  Sometimes she has focus…other times she doesn’t.  At all.  And you never know what you’re going to get.

If you want to learn more about ADHD, Knowledge Safari has a great Friday Facts post on it today.  You can find it here.  And feel free to ask any questions!!  Emma and I are an open book!

Have a great weekend!