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ADHD
Is Ritalin the Only Way?
By Julia Rosien
When your child is diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, you face an ominous array of treatment choices. Finding the right strategy can be as frustrating as coping with the disorder.
You must arm yourself with information and make informed decisions. Most likely, you'll discover that a combination of treatments will serve you and your child best.
"They have been used for over 30 years, are effective 70 percent of the time and are considered very safe when used as prescribed," says psychotherapist Terry Matlen, who counsels children with ADHD in her private practice in Birmingham, Mich. However, Matlen recommends children be screened before taking stimulants to ensure the absence of heart disorders, which could be complicated by such drugs. And even in healthy children, side effects can occur.
"Side effects may include appetite suppression, insomnia and rebound [a feeling one gets when the medication wears off such as irritability, weepiness and an increase in ADHD symptoms]," Matlen says. For some children these side effects wear off once the body adjusts to the medication. But for others, the complications are chronic and require a change in dosage, she says.
"Concerta, which lasts 12 hours, and Dexedrine Spansule, which lasts 8 hours, are chosen often for preteens and teens, because only a single dose per day is needed -- no trips to the office at lunch and no missed doses," Matlen says.
By the time Eddy Hauser, a fifth-grader in Seattle, Wash., was diagnosed, his grades had plummeted, he had no friends and he had behavior problems during class time. Eddy now takes Adderall, a frontal lobe stimulant that has a smoother effect than Ritalin. "He takes a low dosage every six hours, so a single dose lasts him most of the school day," says Lee Hauser, his father. "He still tells terrible puns, plays computer games and reads voraciously."