ADHD Treatment Options Can Be Confusing
If you are like many people with ADHD symptoms, you feel a little confused and overwhelmed with your ADHD Treatment options .
Are ADHD Treatment Options Overwhelming You?
What’s the best way to make sustainable improvements in your life? Will psychiatric drugs fix you? What type of ADHD treatment is best for you? It’s easy to have a ton of questions.
But I hope it will be helpful to you if we start with one question. What have we learned about what helps people with ADHD?
ADHD Treatment Options- Weighing The Risk Of Drugs
Nothing comes without a cost. But what does the evidence show? Sadly there is a general lack of information about dangers of long term risks of using ADHD drugs.
A recent study was published in Neuropsychopharmacology has alarmed many. Researchers reviewed a cohort of 32,000 individuals who had been diagnosed with ADHD. Their work showed that patients who received drug treatment with stimulants had movement disorders, like Parkinson’s at a startlingly higher rate. In fact, movement disorders skyrocketed. They were diagnosed at 8.6 times the rate of the control population.
It’s studies like this one, combined with the everyday experience of patients that give one pause.
ADHD patients have reported the following concerns to me:
- Withdrawal symptoms when drugs begin to wear off
- Stimulant drugs works for a number of months before their efficacy fades
- stunted growth (suppression of physical growth),
- increased aggression
- mood swings especially from drug rebound
- headaches and sleep problems
Psychopharmaceutical researchers have cautioned us about neurotoxicity and damage to the brains dopaminergic system that can be caused by ADHD drugs
Many patients are never told that neurofeedback training is an effective treatment ADHD treatment option. So you might not know that:
- a 2012 meta-analysis published in the Journal of Attention Disorders found NFB to be more than twice as effective in treating the core symptoms of ADHD as compared to drugs
- In follow-up studies, NFB resulted in significant improvement in core ADHD symptoms that were sustained when reassessed at six months49 ,53,64 and 2 years65,66 after treatment termination
- The American Academy of Pediatrics’ ranking of research support for child and adolescent psychosocial treatments, awarded biofeedback/neurofeedback the highest level of evidence-based support for the treatment of ADHD
Ask Yourself, Which ADHD Skills Are Most Important For You?
Often when I’m with a client, I pose the following question to myself “What hasn’t this brain/nervous system mastered yet”. You also might find it helpful to contemplate this question:
So let me ask you. “What would be an important brain skill for you to improve?”
Would it be:
- calming yourself
- focusing your attention
- waking up and increasing your brain’s energy
- managing your time
- completing tasks
- regulating emotions
- organizing
The other day in a session a client said to me. This person spent years trying to find the magic pill that would solve his ADHD problem. He said “I know they say this all the time, but it’s true. Pills didn’t teach me skills“.
ADHD Treatment Should Be Grounded In Building Your Skills
Whether you choose an effective ADHD treatment option like Neurofeedback, or work with therapist who coaches you and teaches you how to build more effective behavioral habits, it’s important to know that you can prevail over your ADHD symptoms.
Remember, good therapy is an education for you- and your brain.
Learn more about how I help clients with ADHD here.
Learn about my work with Neurofeedback brain training here.