ADDclasses.com

Some time ago, I stumbled onto this website and found it to be immensely helpful in our continuing quest to treat and manage ADHD. ADDClasses.com offers virtual support and continuing education in the field of Attention Deficit Disorder. The teleseminars are free for a period of time (registration is required) and also for a period of time, you can download the mp3 recordings of the seminar for a nominal fee. Not only can I store it on my computer for future reference, but I can burn a CD so that my husband can use his workday commute to keep up with the information and direction that David and I are trying to incorporate in our homeschool and our daily lives. A huge thumbs up for this one!

I recently listened to a teleseminar hosted by ADDClasses.com and the guest speaker was Laurie Dupar of Coaching for ADHD. Her topic was "The Top Three 

ADD/ADHD Medication Pitfalls and How to Avoid Them." Not only did she offer a wealth of information about medications, she also offered a couple of tools to the seminar participants. One is a list of key questions to ask the prescribing doctor for ADD/ADHD medications. The other is a medication log to assess the effectiveness of a change in medication. Since we are in a medication evaluation mode right now, these tools will be invaluable!

I thought I would pass this along. Hope you find it helpful :)


Cheers,

leapinlily

Experience vs. Knowledge

NPR recently published an article that was originally published in The Lancet journal on the topic of ADHD and diet entitled Study: Diet May Help ADHD Kids More Than Drugs. The study suggests that kids with ADHD could experience a significant reduction in symptoms with a very restrictive diet. Have we heard this before? Yes, we have.

The link to the article itself is posted below. I have no particular comments on it except that our personal experience leads me to believe that diet can greatly exacerbate the symptoms of ADHD but is not the cause of the disorder. Our experience says that, for us, the elimination of artificial colors (food dyes are petroleum byproducts), nitrates, soda, sugar and MSG makes a big difference in David's hyperactivity and focus. Could a diet entirely free of additives and chemicals cure David of ADHD? Maybe? We have not done a complete elimination diet, although I've wanted to for several years now. Maybe, it's time. Just to know... for sure...

What is most interesting about this article are the comments. I read almost all 238 of them. Like forums, I find the comments sections of these types of articles much more beneficial than the opinions and findings of the experts that the article is about. The expert could be viewed as a general but the people who are commenting are the front lines. When I have to choose between the expertise of one person over the collective experience of several hundred people who are living the question, I'll take the experience every time.

Just a thought. Here's the link:

Study:Diet May Help ADHD Kids More Than Drugs

The comments are fascinating!

Cheers,

leapinlily

...and Work Your Plan...

This is my kitchen table. It is minus the camera with which I took this picture. Before taking the picture, the camera with which I took this picture was on the kitchen table, along with all the rest of that junk. Really?

This is the way I live and it has become downright ridiculous.

In addition to the kitchen table, I have a desk in my bedroom that is much smaller but looks very much the same.

 Then, there's the office downstairs.In my defense, whatever I have in the office that I share with my husband and belongs to me is in neat piles. Three of them. That's after doing an hour of filing...

I never intended for this blog to be a rant but I guess I'm going to cave right now and rant on. In the last few weeks I have experienced a slow and dawning realization that I am up against the wall of my own ADD. The wall has always been there. I've always been up against it. For most of my life, I have been able to manage. Not to the level that I would like but just enough. I rarely finish what I start. There are always too many irons in the fire. I've managed, sort of. But, I'm getting pretty sick of it. Sick of the mess, the confusion, the planning my work - at which I'm pretty good - and not really working the plan - at which I excel. Same struggles, different day. I can no longer seem to manage in spite of the wall. Familiar frustration!

The latest issue of ADDitude Magazine has an article entitled Stand Up to Symptoms. In the article, author Katy Rollins speaks of "the minutia of daily life." In speaking to non-ADHDers she says:

"Understand that the mundane details mean more to us than they do you. These are the devils that regularly frustrate us. You may not think these are real chores for us, but that's the point. It is in the nature of ADHD, and its impact of people's lives, that the small things are difficult, that we must approach them mechanically... ADHD isn't about the big disruptive things that people do. It's best defined by the little things that shouldn't be so hard."

I never saw it in those terms. And, yet, that is exactly the way it is and always has been.

sigh...

As I have circled around the thought of trying to figure out yet another way to get it together so that I can home school the boy, have a life and stay sane, one thing has become quite apparent. I am resisting the planning of my work because I know in my heart of hearts that I will not be able to carry it out. My kitchen table does not change, no matter how hard I try to make it different.

It's time to turn to treatment process to myself.

I shall see my doctor about meds and I shall look into a coach of some sort for myself. I've often joked that an ADD mom homeschooling her ADHD child is like the blind leading the blind. It's become not so funny.

That's my plan...

Cheers,

leapinlily