[kttsizme]

I wanted to share my experience with adhd and diagnosing procedure's. This occured 10 years ago.

I have to agree that many physicians are so ready to push the drugs on kids that "seem" to show signs of ADHD or ADD(leave out the "H", hyper).

My daughter was a very over active toddler right around from when she was a year old on up.

It came time to have her screened for kindergarten. She was screened and it was decided that she be put in young 5"s when she was just 3-1/2 years old. I agreed. Anything to help her learn and thrive in school.
She continued on to Pre-k then on to Kindergarten.

Seeming to struggle all the way. I heard the word ADHD but ignored it. Thought, Na not my kid.

At the age of 6, Now in the first grade the teacher had concerns that my daughter was not "getting it". She was struggling at most of the work she was suppose to be doing on her own.

Half way through the 1st grade school year it was decided by her pediatrician at the time, her teacher and myself that she be tested to see if she did have ADHD.

We took a 6 hour one way car ride to a well known hospital clinic in Minnesota. Once there we spoke in length to this pediatrician who specialized in psychiatry.
After 5 hours at the clinic doing different assessments on my daughter, The specialists decided to do the "Placebo, Ritalin trial".

What this is was six weeks and (6) bottles of medication. Every single bottle of pills looked EXACTLY the same. These bottles were only marked with my daughters name and the bottles were numbered 1 through 6.

Each week she would take the corresponding bottle of pills on a daily basis.
Her school teacher and ourselves would then complete a form at the end of each of the 6 weeks. Each form marked with the pill bottle week number.

On these forms were questions concerning our daughter's behavior, attention etc....

At the end of the 6th week we patiently awaited the results of this somewhat new test.

The results were called in to us by the clinic pharmacist.
He was the ONLY person who knew which bottles of pills really carried the Ritalin, used to treat ADHD.

I suppose we were really not surprised when we found out that the weeks that she had the best reports were the weeks that she was actually taking the medication Ritalin.

I have to say I was impressed with this procedure and so glad that we took the time to really get to the bottom of her behavior and lack of attention and concentration in school and at home.

She did end up repeating the first grade.

It just may have attributed to her being a honor roll student today.

To this day I see way to many children being mis-diagnosed with having ADHD or ADD. When in fact there are many more contributing factor's to their lack of attention, behavior and concentration.

Everything possible shuld be done first to rule out anything else first!


Sorry for babbling on.

Again just my .02 cents from mine and our daughters own experience.