Questions from a newbie | ADHD Information

Hello all!  I am new to these boards, but not new to forums in general.  I have an important question, but let me give you some background first.

I have a 9 (10 on Wednesday!) year old boy that was diagnosed with ADHD at age 8 (3rd grade).  We have him on 36mg of Concerta that he takes once a day, in the a.m.  The Concerta is prescribed by a Pediatric Neurologist.  He only takes the Concerta on school days; we do not give it to him on Weekends or during the summer.

Once we realized his problem and started working with him, he slowly began to improve his grades.  In fourth grade, he did outstanding the first quarter, but horrible the second quarter.  His meds seem to hold him through the school day and HW time, we thought perhaps he needed more one on one time so I decided to become a stay at home mom.  It seems to work because by the end of fourth grade, the grades came back up.  He will begin 5th grade in just a few weeks.

Now, when trying to get his grades back up last year it was a constant struggle.  He seems to have no long term memory.  If we study/prepare for a test he does great at home with me, but when he takes the teat he doesn’t do as well as I know he could of.  His small private school can not accommodate him by allowing him to take the test orally.

He seems to forget other things as well and he can not seem to get organized without help.

I’ve also observed they he has low self esteem, and have difficulty dealing with certain emotions.  For example, he recently went on a trip with his father to Florida, and during the trip he lost his Nintendo DS system that he took along for the plane ride.  He called me hysterical crying; to the point that I couldn’t understand him.  He wasn’t upset over the fact that he lost it; he was upset over my reaction.

Then this past weekend we discovered a new problem.  He seems to be stashing food that he did not finish eating all over in his room.  When asked him why the food was in his room, he stated that he didn’t finish eating it because he wasn’t hungry and was afraid of being punished for not eating everything.

He suddenly seems to develop high anxiety to certain situations, like described above with “getting in trouble” as well as other situations.  I or my ex-husband never use physical punishments such as spanking.  Usually it is a lost of certain privileges for a week. 

I think it’s time he goes to some sort of therapist/psychologist/, but I don’t know what type of therapist I should be looking for.  Ultimately, I am looking for someone who can:

·         Help with his ADHD, and take over writing prescriptions if necessary

·         Help enhance self-esteem

·         Offers stress management to reduce and deal with anxiety and stress

·         Can help him teach him strategies for organizing

What type of doctor should I be looking for?

T.I.A. for all who reply!

I have a son, now 14 who was classified with ADHD back when he was 7. We had alot of problems with him in school as well as socially.  Our son was on Ridalin, Strattera, Aderall and so on, but they made my son into a zombie. We have found that children with ADHD, ADD have lack of minerals in their body and with extensive research we have come up with some natural vitamins that have worked. My son had a "C" average up to 6th grade on all the ridalin and other drugs until we put him on these vitamins (with NO ridalin or any other drugs) in 7th and 8th and he was on the honor roll. He was a true success story for the school. They are all liquid because my son cannot take pills. Fish oil (omega3), Body Balance (high anti-oxidants) and OsteproCare (calcium/magnesium) are the 3 liquid vitamins we give him along with a multi-vitamin. If you are interested in reading more on the Body Balance and the OsteoProCare the website is www.lifeforce.net/20458118. The Fish Oil website is http://www.vitacost.com/CarlsonTheVeryFinestFishOil-500ml. Vitamins are not the only antidote though, it takes alot of work of the parent as well. The parent must understand that self esteem if the most important factor of a child with ADHD/ADD. If that goes you will have an extremely hard time bringing it back up. Sports, kickboxing and any other active activities are very important in their lives. Sports for the activity, kickboxing for the discipline. My son is a very active soccer player and also takes kickboxing. He does not have alot of friends but these are issues that need to be dealt with as well. I hope this helps.

Hi and welcome to the board.  To answer your question, I don't think one doctor will handle all those items.  You need an MD to prescribe meds for ADHD and/or anxiety and depression.  We use a developmental pediatrician for meds.  You may need an ADHD coach to teach him how to deal with social situations and organization.   Also there are social groups out there where ADHD kids get together and role play some social scenarios and are facilitated by a psychologist.  Our dd is going once a week to a psychologist(one-on-one) to help her with some social issues.  We've been going about 3 weeks now.

And from what I have read, to boost self-esteem, he needs to develop an "island of competence".  Find the thing he is good at, and support him in it no matter what, even if it has no redeeming value whatsoever (like Gameboy!).  And also make home a haven for him.  Keep the criticism to a minimum, and keep the atta boys coming.  Make sure you notice all the things he is doing right and tell him.

HTH and keep us posted!

creativenergy - you've put the same post on many topics.  The link appears to be for a multilevel marketing company.  Please don't use this forum for that purpose.

I'm going to try to touch on a few things, and hopefully not miss anything.

First, long term memory....this is tricky. Medication does not actually help improve long term memory, exactly. The goal though is to retain information long enough that it can really stick in the short term memory, and then be moved to the long term memory. So long term memory may never be real great, but hopefully you are seeing some improvement with short term memory and attention, which will somewhat improve long term memory. Your example though, of the test taking, I'm not sure is a long term memory problem. If he remembers it at home, but not in school, it could be one of the many other common things that happens to those of us with ADHD. Sometimes, when under pressure, our brains shut down. So while we may remember the answers in a calm environment, we may draw a blank in a stressful one. Another common problem is just being to distracted, to bored, or having to concentrate on to many things at once, so we don't do well with the challenges of timed tests.

Organization is usually helped a great deal with medication, but this is still something that is a learned trait. What I noticed when starting medication is that I still have to force myself to get organized, but I can actually organize the steps in my head now. Before medication, I could not organize the steps in my head, even while trying to force myself to organize. Or, I would get distracted while trying to organize and would end up with 50 starts, and no finishes. This has improved with medication a great deal.

Low self esteem is usually one of the things that most of us with ADHD suffer from. ADHD leaves you with a lot of frustration, and a lot of failures, and it beats you down, and damages your self esteem.

Anxiety is also a very common co-morbid disorder of ADHD, probably because of the things I mentioned above. Just from all the failures, and frustration, and feeling incompetent. Anxiety and Depression are the two most common co-morbid disorders of ADHD.

Be sure to write all this down for his new doctor. He may need a medication adjustment. All these things will help the doctor decide on that. A Psychiatrist would be the professional to go to if you want them to be able to prescribe medication and do therapy. A Child Psychiatrist would be the best, but sometimes they are hard to find in some area's. Just be sure to ask how much experience they have with children with ADHD, and medication management with them. Some are great, some are not so great, as in all professions .

Good luck!