I think we do have the right to be high-functioning. I certainly hope we do because it makes sense if we buy all that other nonsense about everyone being born equal and whatnot, and it's part of what makes me not want to tolerate someone like Benji, because that is what he is saying, isn't it? We don't have that right because people think we are faking all this shit. And I guess that must mean I'm not faking it all that well either.
You think in extremes. I never said everyone was born equal, or that people are faking it. You're taking stuff personally, and you're misunderstanding my points. I was saying that we don't know enough about the alleged conditions (as in, the label, and not that the person doesn't have a problem) or the treatments.
But the same holds true for many natural treatments and conditions that are not understood. For example, it was not known until recently that St. John's Wort reduces the effect of the anticoagulant Coumarin, or that grapefruit juice could interfere with your allergy or pain medicine.
If we continue to use diabetes as an example, then we can say that before we knew about insulin and how blood sugar worked, the symptoms in some cases were considered to be fabricated/laziness or the individual was diagnosed with something that required treatment with, say, leeches, or further back in history, things like urine or human blood.
While it's true that we don't know everything about ADHD and about the medicines that treat it, we can alleviate pain with what we know. When you say we don't know enough, you say that the years of scientific testing are not valid, that something more is needed. "Enough" is arbitrary. If "we" is a body of experts then I am willing to hear what is their standard. We (meaning psychologists, psychiatrists and researchers) actually know a lot about the chemistry involved in ADHD and its treatments. A point for your side is the current introduction of brain plasticity into the mix. We certainly don't know "enough" about brain plasticity, which is why its use with ADHD is limited at this time. I am hoping for fast development of this alternative since I hate taking meds.
I dislike labels as much as the next person who's covered in them, but they are useful. They are useful to me (as a psychologist) as heuristics for constellations of conditions that otherwise might require too much decoding time. It gives me a place to start. We find each other and our remedies with labels. I agree that the labels are often misused, but that doesn't mean they don't have meaning for those for whom they are appropriate.
What is "anticoagulant Coumarin"? I've taken St. John's Wort in the past, but really didn't think about any ill effects as it's herbal, though it says to consult your GP if you're on other medication.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but every condition or illness is different. We're not talking about patients faking it here, we're talking about patients being used by pharmaceutical companies using people. And it isn't "testing", it's just labeling people and giving them drugs. " brain plasticity", could you explain more please? I hate taking meds too.
Yes I know labels can be useful, things have just gotten out of control in my eyes.
Coumarin is a medication taken by people with risk of blood clots - it thins the blood.
Most people don't think about the ill effects of herbal preparations - my mother is one of those folks who takes dozens of pills a day - herbal remedies all - without much research into what they do. She does err on the side of organic, which protects her from some of the stuff they spray on the herbs, but she doesn't know how they might interact with each other or with the heart medication she was taking at one point.
You are talking about patients being used by pharmaceutical companies - while it's true that these meds were pushed in the past, it's also true that there were some with legitimate issues addressed by those meds. It's not as black and white as the herbal enthusiasts would like to believe.
I used caffeine most of my life but my psychiatrist became alarmed when I told him how much. The withdrawal symptoms were wicked. He's a stellar guy - he listened to me rant about not wanting meds and reminded me that caffeine is a drug. We tried an anti-depressant first (if anything you should be targeting those and not ADHD meds which are a controlled substance and well understood - see below), then stimulants at very low doses. Big Pharm wasn't involved in my case. In fact, big pharm wasn't around when ADHD was identified and the standard treatment was coffee.
There are forums for people who do legitimate research (not funded by big pharm) with drugs. These are good places to get information. Here's an example:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1874438/That one is on interactions with St. John's Wort. Why is the issue unfamiliar even though the article (and others like it) was published in 2002? Guess who is involved in producing those herbal remedies that everyone swears by? We won't escape big pharm. What we need to do is find good clinicians like my psychiatrist who know about the alternatives and can make an educated decision about what course to take. ADHD isn't an alleged disease. It's a developmental disorder, one of several that can be alleviated with medication.
Regarding anti-depressants: you would be amazed at how little we know and still use these. Some of them cause awful, irrevocable side effects. They cause depressed people to become suicidal - that's a standard warning on some of the medications. Yet we not only use them, but increasingly they are being approved for off label use. I was astounded to find them used for shingles, which is a medical condition. Granted that it's exacerbated by stress, but anti-depressants? That's a stretch. It's also becoming a practice to use anti-psychotic medication for depression - yet we know those are dangerous and we have only limited knowledge about their efficacy for depression.
