Signs of a really bad doctor ... | ADHD Information

What are yours?  I just thought it might be a good idea for us, as ADHD-cognizant folks, to swap stories about bad experiences with professions who perhaps should know how to handle ADHD, but somehow fall short.

 

(Besides, I'm dying to share my Ritalin Fiasco story. lol!)

Five years ago, my son went through his second full psychological work-up and was diagnosed with ADHD.  (No surprise to us, by then.)  Our psychologist and my son's pediatrician both had an "in" with the local ADHD guru -- a guy with forty-plus years experience with ADHD cases, with a waiting list as long as my arm.

We pulled a few strings, waited a month-and-a-half, and got a coveted appointment.   The illustrious doc prescribed Ritalin, and everything looked fine. My son would ramp up from a very low, to a medium, to a moderate dose, over the course of a few weeks. 

Except ... when my son ramped to the medium dose, his hallucinations started.   And the specialist told us to "stay the course." "Ramp his dosage up, and see what happens." Meanwhile, my son spent several days running away from imagined creepy things on the preschool playground.   And my son's doctor treated me like a not-very-smart, hysterical Mom.   (Which I wasn't.  Concerned?  Yes.  Hysterical?  Held at bay by sheer force of will.)

That's when  I decided that that doctor was a great doctor... but not for my son.  The lesson we learned?  There's no such thing as one-size-fits-all, even when it comes to high-powered, golden-resumed specialists.

So we stopped meds for a couple years and explored other options, long story short. And later found a doctor who wasn't so emotionally invested in Ritalin (I intend no offense to Ritalin, btw.  It just doesn't work for DS.)

I guess my question is this.  In your own experience, what are some really stellar and some really, really bad interactions you've had with healthcare, education and/or career professionals?  And what lessons, if any, have you learned about navigating through life with ADD?

emergent39092.7951157407I have not gone the psychiatrist route....can't afford it.  But my son's ped is great!  We have been seeing her for years, since Jake was 5 months old, so she knows both boys well.  She asked at each appointment (even prior to the ADHD dx) about how things were going with Chase at school,home,etc, so she was probably not as surprised as me when I turned in the questionnaires. 

She listens to me, talks to Chase like he is an aware of his condition, aware of what the meds are supposed to do and wants to know how HE feels while on them.  She totally left it up to him last summer whether or not he stayed on them.  When she asked, he said he felt calmer and would like to keep taking them, so she agreed.

I just love her....she has 6 kids of her own 4 natural and 2 adopted, special needs children, so she is a font of information.  I drive an hour each way to go to med checks, and pay over 0 a visit, because out insurance does not have copays for dr. visits, but she is worth every penny!

Yep.  The psych workups are WAY expensive, in time and money.    (Oh.  SO many new thread ideas!   )

 

Yeah.   If you've found a good doctor, you have a good thing going! Thank goodness, my son has had three really caring, conscientious GP-type pediatricians in his life.   The rest of it has been a nightmare -- just trying to find our way through the labyrinth (sp?) to the good ones.  We'll get there, eventually... and then my son's needs will change. lol!

Ds's first grade teacher told us after 4 days that ds "had adhd and needed to be on ritalin."  (I wondered why she settled for a teachers pay when she obviously was a doctor)  anyway, we make an appt with his ped and end up waiting in his waiting room for an hour and a half.  We get shown into an examining room and wait there for 45 min.  Now ds has always been good about being able to wait and not climb all over the furniture etc, but by this time he was going nuts (so was I)!  Ped walks in to exam room and says "what can I do for you today?"  I told him the teacher said ds had adhd.  Ds is close to climbing the walls because he's been waiting for more than 2 hours, so ped says "of course he is.  Just look at him!"  That was our last visit.

Our ped now is pretty good, but I had to bring up the patch with her and she had to go do research on it before she prescribed it.  I've talked to her about supplements and diet and all she's said was "well, you know, there aren't any studies backing that up."  She has an adhd kid who's so severe he's in a really good, really expensive school for adhd/ld kids.  Of course, it could just be that she has the money to send him there, so that's what she does.

When my ds first had issues in school, they sent us to this psych who told me my sons couldn't focus on what he should.  The analogy he used is "suppose I was talking to you and all I could do was look up your skirt!"....gee is that sexual harrassment!!!

Then he told me about meds and showed me all the meds he takes...

 

wow I left there pretty quickly.

One Psych I took dd to in the beginnning spoke to ME for about 5 minutes, then got out his RX pad. I left without another word, and with no RX.

 

DD's ped when asked about her ADHD symptoms informed me she was a"body Dr" not a brain dr and referred us to our current psych, he is wonderful, and the evaluation could not have been more thorough.

 

I guess for me the signs of a bad Dr would be the ones who don't do a thorough eval, don't do the bloodwork and EEg's, EKG's etc before coming to a conclusion

[QUOTE=susieb]Ds's first grade teacher told us after 4 days that ds "had adhd and needed to be on ritalin."  (I wondered why she settled for a teachers pay when she obviously was a doctor)  anyway, we make an appt with his ped and end up waiting in his waiting room for an hour and a half.  We get shown into an examining room and wait there for 45 min.  Now ds has always been good about being able to wait and not climb all over the furniture etc, but by this time he was going nuts (so was I)!  Ped walks in to exam room and says "what can I do for you today?"  I told him the teacher said ds had adhd.  Ds is close to climbing the walls because he's been waiting for more than 2 hours, so ped says "of course he is.  Just look at him!"  That was our last visit.[/quote]

 

Yikes!!!!

 

I had the same experience with a hearing screening.  The woman who was administering the hearing test (I'm still not sure if she was an actual doctor or not, but I don't think so   ) diagnosed my son with ADHD and told me that he needed meds ... all in a 35-minute HEARING screening.  Did I mention that her son had ADHD and meds?  Sheesh!