Wednesday, September 19, 2007

ADHD Awareness Day


8 comments:

Kellyology said...

Now that's a lot of happy!lol

Stacey said...

My bosses daughter might have ADHD. She's only 3 though and so they are saying its hard to diagnose at such a young age.
What age did NB get diagnosed ?

Kristina said...

ADHD Awareness Day AND International Talk Like a Pirate Day!?!?!

exskindiver said...

seriously?
then i must celebrate too because amy, if you only knew what is locked in my head...with words and thoughts and drunken stupor...ok scratch the D.S. part.

cute picture.

Butrfly Garden said...

Kelly - this was on one of his old "non-pill" days - he was EXTREMELY happy - for a minute or so. :)

Kristina - I mentioned to TM last night (when I found out about ADHD Awareness Day) that I thought it was a little more than coincidence. That led to a long collabrative story about how Pirates were just misled hyper children.

Worker Mommy - He didn't get diagnosed until 2nd grade. He made it through most of that grade and then 1st, K and PreK just being the "bad kid." It wasn't until we moved to a suburb school that the teacher mentioned it to us. For some reason, we had never even thought of it! He was always very hyper - not only in a sugar-high, physical kind of way, but in an "EVERYTHING IS DRAMATIC" kind of way, too. The hyper-activeness I always chalked up to him being a little boy. And the moods, well, he was going through some rough times. But no other teacher ever told us the things he was doing in class - like being loud out of nowhere, or just getting up and leaving. Or hiding. It was really obvious to this teacher what was going on. So, that year we got him into the program - that included meds, paraprofessionals in school, meetings, special education. The next year he was still having a little trouble doing his work, but he was staying in class. Then, last year and this he's pulled almost a 180 from when we started. In the beginning, he never finished his standardized testing (or he'd fill in random bubbles because they MADE him finish), so he always got VERY low (think bottom) scores. At his last conference last year, his test scores were mostly average plus above average in a couple. I CRIED. I have a lot of issues with the meds. They do create a lot of problems for us - but I really hate switching him, too. Our biggest problems have been his loss of appetite and his headaches. He's a skinny kid to begin with - not wanting to eat is a HUGE problem. (PS - he looks much skinnier in this pic because he was doing his "Look at my bones" trick - he's not malnurished! I swear!)

It's definitely not to be taken lightly. A lot of kids are misdiagnosed and then the drugs won't work for them. For your boss, since her daughter is so young, I would recommend that she really wait to start treatment. It's never too early to teach her some basics like how to remember stuff or how to stay focused, but I would wait to medicate her until it actually becomes a problem - like when she starts school (or, if she's in daycare, it could already be neccesary). There is also a way to control it by diet (I'm not well read on it, but I do try to avoid red dyes in food and corn syrup - those make it worse), but that just isn't an option for us because you have to control EVERYTHING they eat and his BM would never stick to it.

So...very long explanation. Um. Hi. :)

Chesca - are you referring to ADHD day or Pirate Day? HAHAH.

Stacey said...

Thanks Amy. I really appreciate the information you've shared. My boss's daughter is in the preschool room in daycare and they've brought up a lot of different issues. So of course she's been concerned.
They've got her seeing a specialist because she's also hitting some of her milestones late so who knows it could be something else all together. But this helps.
I'll share it with her .

Pageant Mom said...

Try living most of your life as a super ADHD then getting diagnosed at almost 40!!! I didn't believe in "adhd" until a teacher mentioned something about my son... well, I never make my kids do anything I haven't tried first, so to test out the tests I had the doctors administer them to me first. He was fine, I had 99% of the symptoms!!!

Getting meds was the greatest single moment of my life. I can now sit through meetings without either daydreaming, or fiddling, or scribbling etc. It's incredible to actually remember things without having to write EVERYthing down in order to focus, to keep the mind busy and on the current subject. When you are bright you can make up for it and pass for normal, but now I am finally able to excel at work!!

Go figure...
**********************

He looks like an adorable happy kid!!!

Canadian flake said...

I certainly understand a LOT of this...my EX was diagnosed with ADHD when I was 9 months pregnant with our daughter...which was not great news...now my daughter has ADD and ADHD...it has always been a struggle....but we keep on going on...what more can you do eh?