I'm not confident that ADHD is the real problem and that makes me fearful of ADHD medication Hi. It's Dr. James Wiley with Focus MD. Another thing that makes parents fearful about giving their children ADHD medication is they're not really 100 percent sure that their child has ADHD in the first place. The diagnosis can be subtle. It's not always cut and dry. And parents often have a justifiable concern that they're starting medication for a diagnosis that they don't completely understand or that they haven't bought into. This is very scary for a lot of parents. And at Focus MD, we really strive to address this by doing more objective testing, looking actually at the patient's movement and attention and impulse control and then comparing those parameters to age- and gender-based norms. This way, parents really can see objectively… Read More »

Another horror story about ADHD medication How about one more horror story as we get closer to Halloween. The Adderall 25 milligram horror story is one that should make every parent fearful. But, it's completely avoidable. The story is that there was a college student who had been on Adderall XR 25 milligrams for 6 years. This particular medicine caused him to have mood problems and made him what he felt was boring and quiet. So, he took the medicine only when he had to, which, of course, made his symptoms worse, his side effects worse. He took the medication because it really helped him concentrate and get his school work done, and he wanted to do well in school. But, after six years he finally came to FocusMD. We were able to make two small changes. We knew that amphetamine… Read More »

I hear horror stories about ADHD medication Hi. I'm Dr. James Wiley with Focus MD. We're over halfway to Halloween, so it's time for a good old-fashioned horror story. We hear horror stories about medication all the time at Focus MD, and one of the ones that I tell most frequently is the Concerta 36 story about the child who was doing beautifully on Concerta 18 milligrams. And then the teacher informed the parents that the medicine wasn't working anymore, and the dose was increased to first 27 and then 36 milligrams, trying to help the patient. The mom had called the doctor, and the doctor increased the medicine on two occasions after discussing the situation with the nurse who was talking to the mom, who was supposed to be talking to the teacher. The problem is that nobody ever asked… Read More »

"I'm afraid of certain scary medications" Hi, I'm Dr. James Wiley with Focus-MD. Parents fear specific medications. Most parents have heard something negative about one or all of the stimulant medications. They fear Adderall in particular or Vyvanse in particular or maybe Concerta. It's important to note that the list of the good medications is exactly the same as the list of the bad medicines. All stimulant maledictions have similar side effects in general. But how each stimulant will work for your child and what side effects your child will have, varies on an individual basis. You can't tell how your child will respond to a stimulant medication based on the experience of friends, neighbors, or even close relatives. Relatives as close as brothers and sisters or parents may have a different experience on a given medication than your specific… Read More »

"It scares me that I am telling my child ‘something is wrong with you’ by giving ADHD medication." Hi, I'm Doctor James Wiley with Focus MD. Parents often tell us that they are afraid to use stimulant medication because they're afraid that by giving their child medication, they're communicating that something's wrong with the child to the child. And while this may be true, it gets back to the question of labeling. Very often parents say, "I just don't want my child labeled," and to that I always reply, oh, he or she is already labeled, the problem is that he or she is probably mislabeled. In other words, they're labeled as disruptive, or they're labeled as a behavior problem, or they're labeled, if they're adolescents, as lazy or disinterested. So they carry a lot of labeling already. They may… Read More »