Over the past weeks I have focused my attention on the traps and special problems people, like me, who have a diagnosis of ADD/ADHD. I have tried to point to the humorous side of these situations because, well, that is how I perceive life and the way a lot of us deal with stress. There are serious sides to these same issues, and I have been confronted with many of them through my readers.
Recently I have come across another risk factor, especially for children who are taking Ritalin or Adderall for their concentration estimated to be over 2.5 million with sales topping 4.8 billion dollars last year. We all know that there are significant health risks of growth stunning, consequential problems from lack of sleep, cardiovascular complications (especially hypertension, heart attacks and stroke) and a number of behavioral issues of severe thinking patterns related to anxiety and depressive symptoms. There have been many other risks noted and recommendations to diminish such side-affects, such as having a full cardiovascular evaluation before administration.
The bottom line is that the study, sponsored by the FDA, when children with these medications were compared to healthy children, the children with the ADD medication was 6 to 7 times more likely to die for unexplained reasons.
Wow! Granted, the study needs to expand to its conclusion, the list of traps gets longer and longer. Although the world loves the inventiveness and creativity that relates to the brain dynamics of ADD, it is always trying to bend us to a conformity that runs so many risks. Medicine doesn't like us; authoritarian teachers bring out the torture weapons when they see us enter their domains and our spouses who once thought we were cute now fret about our responsibility commitments.
Our own parents (some of them anyway) are willing to give us pills that up our chances of dying six or seven times rather than deal with our behavior, even if we aren't clearly diagnosed with anything better than a list of questions our teachers fill out. I am beginning to feel a little paranoid as I read my own words. Then I start to remember the look in my father's eyes and how that "look" is becoming similar to my spouse's. Where is the standard for tolerance? Doesn't it say something in the Bible about loving your neighbor, even if he does have ADHD? We don't (at least not unless we have a good reason) steal money, abuse little puppies, shoot guns at anyone (no record anyway), and I suspect if the truth was known we would have a splendid record for seeing both sides to an argument.
Have you ever thought that it might be feasible to file a discrimination suit based on diagnosis? I wonder if that fits under race or creed, or age.
