CoActive Health

ADHD Treatment that Works for Both Parent and Child">Finding an ADHD Treatment that Works for Both Parent and Child

Find­ing an ADHD Treat­ment that Works for Both Par­ent and Child

Accord­ing to the Cen­ters for Dis­ease Con­trol and Pre­ven­tion, Attention-Deficit Hyper­ac­tiv­ity Dis­or­der (ADHD) affectes 3–7% of chil­dren in the United States. Inter­est­ingly, ADHD is more com­mon in non-hispanic, Eng­lish speak­ing kids, who have health insur­ance and is one of the few dis­or­ders that affects fam­i­lies of all income lev­els rel­a­tively equally.

Many par­ents are con­cerned about the longterm effects of ADHD drugs like Ritalin and are look­ing for alter­na­tive health­care options. Direct med­ical costs for each ADHD child is esti­mated at $1,574, almost dou­ble the cost of health­care for non-ADHD children.

While food com­pa­nies are allowed to put tricky health claims on sug­ary cere­als like Fruit Loops, par­ents of ADHD kids are becom­ing increas­ingly des­per­ate for answers.

Debate on ADHD Diag­no­sis and Treatment

The diag­no­sis of ADHD has increased sub­stan­tially over the past decade. This has led to debate as to whether the con­di­tion is really increas­ing or whether just the diag­no­sis is becom­ing more popular.

Par­ents do not care about what cri­te­ria is nec­es­sary for a diag­no­sis or what spec­trum their kids behav­ior lies. Par­ents want to know what to do for their kid! If their kids are becom­ing increas­ingly out of con­trol and are hav­ing trou­ble in the class­room, par­ents want more for their kids than just putting them sep­a­rate classes and giv­ing them drugs.

Health pro­fes­sion­als often point the fin­ger at par­ents for their child’s behav­ioral problems. While par­ents are not com­pletely void of blame, there are a vari­ety of pos­si­bil­i­ties that have been pro­posed to cause ADHD. Sim­i­lar to the ques­tion of the “chicken or the egg”, it is dif­fi­cult to link cause and effect when it comes to the issue of behav­ioral dis­or­ders, espe­cially ADHD.

Although ADHD may be pre­vented through proper peri­na­tal care for the mother through­out preg­nancy and breast­feed­ing, it does not offer help to par­ents already deal­ing with an ADHD child

New Pro­posed Trig­gers of Child­hood ADHD

Some less accepted the­o­ries that have been pro­posed include:

• Direct and indi­rect effects of vac­cines, and use of mer­cury and alu­minum preservatives.
• Food sen­si­tiv­i­ties to com­mon aller­gens like wheat, dairy, soy and eggs
• Food chem­i­cals, col­or­ings and preser­v­a­tives com­monly found in prod­ucts often con­sumed by children
• Impaired detox­i­fi­ca­tion mech­a­nisms in the body
• High con­sump­tion of sugar-laden foods and beverages
• Ner­vous sys­tem imbal­ance from phys­i­cal, bio­chem­i­cal and emo­tional stress
• Seden­tary hours play­ing video games and watch­ing tele­vi­sion.
• Socioe­co­nomic causes: over­worked par­ents, lack of access and afford­abil­ity to fruits and veg­eta­bles, and afford­abil­ity of day­care services.
• Lesser known sources of tox­i­c­ity such as chem­i­cals found in car­pet­ing, hygiene prod­ucts, & child toys.

These the­o­ries are highly debated because of the long latency between a poten­tial trig­ger and pos­si­ble symp­toms. Many cor­po­rate and indus­trial stake­hold­ers are involved and research stud­ies rely on sub­jec­tive reports of behav­ior by the child’s parents.

Look­ing at the expanded list of poten­tial trig­gers asso­ci­ated with ADHD, par­ents should not be dis­cour­aged as they are now given addi­tional ways to be proac­tive in their child’s care.

Find­ing an Alter­na­tive ADHD Approach

Some ther­a­pies that have shown promise both anec­do­tally and in some more exten­sive research reports include:

• Fein­gold Diet (http://www.feingold.org): removes all syn­thetic chem­i­cals, col­or­ings and preser­v­a­tives from a child’s diet.
• Chi­ro­prac­tic care: Restor­ing bal­ance in the ner­vous sys­tem and remov­ing phys­i­cal stresses on the body
• Acupunc­ture: releas­ing endor­phins and bal­anc­ing energy within the body
• Behav­ioral coun­sel­ing: iden­ti­fy­ing trou­bled rela­tion­ships, devel­op­men­tal delays, & help­ing the child find appro­pri­ate cop­ing mechanisms
• Exer­cise: Kids are meant to run around and play. They are not meant to be sit­ting hours a day play­ing video games and watch­ing tele­vi­sion while drink­ing soda, and con­sum­ing inflam­ma­tory, sugar-laden snacks.
• Anti-allergenic diet: Aside from more obvi­ous and life-threatening aller­gies, there are delayed food sen­si­tiv­i­ties that can show up 3–4 days after con­sum­ing a spe­cific food item. These delayed reac­tions can cause alter­ations in skin, hair, mood, behav­ior and even joint pain. Trig­ger­ing foods can be iden­ti­fied by through an elim­i­na­tion diet or a spe­cial blood test.

It is impor­tant to find a health pro­fes­sional with more advanced train­ing in nutri­tion. Look for clin­i­cal nutri­tion­ists, reg­is­tered dieti­tians, chi­ro­prac­tors,  or med­ical doc­tors alike who have advanced degrees and cer­ti­fi­ca­tions. Talk with other par­ents on pro­fes­sion­als they trust and ask about their expe­ri­ences and how var­i­ous approaches have helped their own children.

Mak­ing an Alter­na­tive Approach Work for Both Par­ent & Child

It is unlikely that just a sin­gle approach will improve the behav­ior for your child. ADHD has multi-dimensional causes and requires a multi-dimensional solu­tion. Although many are crit­i­cal of alter­na­tive ther­a­pies, par­ents are just not will­ing to wait for research to sup­port new ther­a­pies. Good news is that with the right com­bi­na­tion of alter­na­tive ther­apy, a drug­less solu­tion may just be within our grasp.

An alter­na­tive approach to ADHD is a bit of trial and error for par­ents and health pro­fes­sion­als alike. Com­plex and mul­ti­fac­eted prob­lems require com­plex and mul­ti­fac­eted solu­tions. Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal ther­apy offers lim­ited help at the expense of poten­tially seri­ous short-term and long-term side effects. Alter­na­tive approaches will require changes in the par­ents’ lifestyles as much as it requires change for the child.

These are all approaches that will improve the health of any­one regard­less of whether a per­son has a diag­no­sis of ADHD or not. The more par­ents are will­ing to chal­lenge the cur­rent sys­tem, the closer we will be able to find a work­able solution.

I wel­come you to com­ment below or e-mail me at CoActiveHealth@gmail.com to dis­cuss what has and has not worked for you and your child. I’m always curi­ous to learn more

This infor­ma­tion is not intended to treat, diag­nose, cure, or pre­vent any dis­ease. All mate­r­ial in this arti­cle is pro­vided for edu­ca­tional pur­poses only. Always seek the advice of your physi­cian or other qual­i­fied health care provider with any ques­tions you have regard­ing a med­ical con­di­tion, and before under­tak­ing any diet, exer­cise, or other health program.