DISCLAIMER
Information on this website (literallyausome.com.au) relating to medications should not be used in isolation when making decisions about medicating your child (for ADHD, anxiety etc). Professional opinions and recommendations must be sought and carefully considered. Information on this website (literallyausome.com.au) is not and should not be used as a replacement to information provided by your child's doctor (GP), physicians, psychologists, psychiatrists, specialists, therapists or any other certified health and/or Allied Health service providers.
Introduction to Medications
You can't cure ADHD and you don't grow out of it, however, there are various ways to manage your ADHD through therapy to support emotional dysregulation and low self-esteem.
Life coaching has been helpful to assist adults with their executive functioning challenges and providing strategies on being organised, learning how to plan effectively and managing all the daily challenges that come with being inattentive, hyperactive and/or impulsive.
Images Source: Understood.org
Another way to support those of us with ADHD is stimulant or non-stimulant medication daily. (You can opt for therapy support without medications or medications over therapy; it's based on your personal preference).
Images Source: Understood.org
How Medication Works
ADHD brains are working really hard to produce more neurotransmitters (as we have less than neurotypicals) by moving constantly (instinctively or not) as our brains are attempting to fix the deficiency and inability to regulate our neurotransmitters by constantly attempting to produce dopamine, serotonin and noradrenaline (norepinephrine).
In our attempts to produce more neurotransmitters, ADHDers will seek out fun, exciting, interesting and sometimes dangerous or risky things being the quickest and most effective way to try to produce those needed neurotransmitters.
Image Source: Understood.org
Stimulant medication takes over the process of producing the very necessary and needed neurotransmitters so we don't have to struggle all day, every day, in a brain vs body struggle trying to produce our own neurotransmitters by non-stop moving, acting out (usually children, but we all know adults that do this too), making rash decisions and other behaviours.
When medicated, our brains have one thought at a time, each thought is finished before another one intrudes, we get to finish what we start before being interrupted by fast irrelevant ideas, distractions or interruptions and allowing our brains and bodies to pause, calm, focus and to get things done.
Stimulant and Non-Stimulant Medication
Image Source: Understood.org
Possible Medication Side Effects
Image Source: Understood.org
The Decision to Medicate Your Child
The decision to medicate your child that has and Neurological condition to make their lives & their functioning easier, or at least more manageable, is a personal issue, a family decision and no one else's business.
To judge or have an opinion about this choice, about the medications themselves, about the dosages or about the need for them has got nothing to do with you unless you are the child's parent, carer, guardian, therapist or Paediatrician.
Before you judge a parent/guardian/caregiver for medicating their ADHD child/ren, please know we don't make this decision flippantly.
None of us would medicate our children unless we knew that the benefits for them were beneficial, both from a neurological and emotional perspective.
Once the decision is made, then there's the process of starting medication and some (potential) trial and error until you find the right medication. No parent enjoys watching their children endure possible adverse side effects trying to find the best option.
ADHD (and other neurological differences and mood disorders) parents don't want to lose the essence or spark that their child radiates, nor do we want to have an artificial version of the child we once knew before life got harder for them and we sought treatment.
Medicating our children not because it suits us, or makes things easier for us. Medicating our children is purely for our children. It's for them. Not us.
ADHD Medications are NOT gateway drugs
Proposing that stimulant or anti-anxiety medications are gateway drugs and that our children will be drug addicts when they're older is preposterous.
To say that any medication that our children are on to support their functioning is a gateway drug is unhelpful, inaccurate and plain dangerous.
There are specific links between children experiencing negative, disturbing, painful and/or traumatic events that look to drugs to self-medicate to dissociate, cope and numb their pain. It's our hope that early intervention and supporting our children via therapy and/or medication will provide them with the coping mechanisms and strategies, and not look to self-medication and the risks associated with this as the solution.
Safe medications, stringent laws about its use, distribution (i.e. prescriptions and controlled medications) and is overseen by authorised medical professionals means that our children are not pin-cushions or experiments, but children being supported so that they can benefit and enjoy a life that neurotypical children and their families take for granted.
Drugs are NOT the same as controlled and legal medications. Drugs are addictive, medication is not. You can rely on your medications, but you don't need to depend on them.
Medications to support our children's functioning is not a gateway drug that will result in future addiction.
The only gateway drug to addiction is trauma.
Image Source: Various
DISCLAIMER
Information on this website (literallyausome.com.au) relating to medications should not be used in isolation when making decisions about medicating your child (for ADHD, anxiety etc). Professional opinions and recommendations must be sought and carefully considered. Information on this website (literallyausome.com.au) is not and should not be used as a replacement to information provided by your child's doctor (GP), physicians, psychologists, psychiatrists, specialists, therapists or any other certified health and/or Allied Health service providers.