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medpundit |
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Thursday, February 09, 2006My hand already trembles a bit when it's asked to write those types of prescriptions. So much so that I rarely write them. They're too often turned to as an easy fix for problems that run much deeper than chemistry. And not only do I have doubts about their cardiac safety, I've got my doubts about the neurological safety. What kind of an effect do they have on a developing mind? I don't think we know. I usually insist that my patients see a specialist in child behavior before they start something like this, but, alas, I've found that they all end up on the drugs anyways - even when there are strong indications that their school and behavior problems stem more from family dysfunction than a miswired brain. It's just the easy thing to do. Like prescribing an antibiotic for a cold. Even more alarming, in the past couple of months I've had several adults ask me if they need to be treated for ADD. These are middle-aged people who have managed to hold jobs, pay mortgages, and raise families, and suddenly they think they have ADD. The sudden influx of queries left me wondering if Oprah had done a segment. It is certainly a very heavily promoted disease. The promotion of which is partially financed by the drug makers. So, I share the concerns of the FDA's safety committee. But, the numbers don't appear to be on their side when it comes to death and disability from ADD drugs: The votes came after F.D.A. medical officers described reports of 25 sudden deaths among people taking stimulants — the deaths were mostly children — and a preliminary analysis of millions of health records that suggested stimulants might increase the risks of strokes and serious arrhythmias in children and adults. The reports of sudden deaths never exceeded one in a million for any stimulant drug, although the F.D.A. usually receives reports of only a fraction of drug problems. As a comparison, the estimated incidence of sudden cardiac death in young healthy people not on stimulants ranges from 1 in 750,000 to 1 in 200,000. There's no doubt that stimulants for behavior problems are overused, but we should also expect our FDA safety panel experts to rely less on anecdote and theory and more on the evidence when it comes to issuing warnings, should we not? posted by Sydney on 2/09/2006 11:00:00 PM 5 comments 5 Comments:
I can't say I entirely agree with the notion that most medical treatment of ADD is unnecessary. We have no problem loading people down with 3, 4, even 5 blood pressure medications. This physical/spiritual division that says it is ok to treat for physical disorders but not for mental is not proven in medicine. Many neurologists feel emotional and behavioral problems do have a physiological basis. If they do, they should be treated as such.
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Treating ADD is like treating chronic pain. You get the gut feeling that prescribing narcotics is a cop-out, but for the right patient it can make all of the difference in the world. The problem is picking the right patients. Unfortunately a good number of the wrong patients get medication they should not be getting.
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I do not care much for a member of a government commission who admits to wanting people "to tremble" at his decision.
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puh-leeeze! Quit with the apologist stance on ADHD drugs already! Admit that -- at BEST -- diagnosing ADHD in most children is like spinning a roulette wheel. There is NO scientific justification for the VAST MAJORITY of these prescriptions being written! Just admit that you are GUESSING that children are afflicted with so-called ADHD. I would respect you a heckuva lot more if you did.
By Thank you for not being overly judgemental in your entry. Other blogs have labeled parents in an extremely negative way, but not all behavior issues are "normal, acting out" or the result of a dysfunctional family life. Sometimes the dysfunctional family life is a result of the behavior issues. I wish there were a blood test to help doctors diagnose ADHD and disorders with similar symptoms, but there isn't one. That doesn't mean it isn't a problem/disorder/whatever you want to call it . . . I don't know if it's ADHD, Asperger Syndrome, or the host of other disorders with the same symptoms, but in my son's case, it is definitely real. BTW, it doesn't help when teachers and other parents blatantly ignore my request not to give him food items containing artificial flavors/colors . . . People need to be more supportive and less judgemental.
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