DMX as treatment for ADHD

[altair1972m]

I have Bad ADHD and Bi-Polar and had unnacceptable side effects from Strattera, Paxil, Trileptal, Lamictal, Abilify, Lexapro, and Focalin.  I have a low tolerance for drugs, but seem to be able to quit cold turkey with no issues from addicted drugs.  Past suicidal ideation is an issue.

Everytime I take dextramathoraphine for a cough, I seem to be a little happier, can focus on work better, and don't spill my guts to all my co-workers.  my primary said he did not like the studies he knew on DMX as an ADHD treatement.  Does anyone have any information that might indicate a safe dose and success at treating ADHD or bi-polar?  Are there long term effects of DMX used in low doses (as opposed to the doses used to get high)?

[thebabyalex]

I have submitted in my other posts on this site that ADHD is not a disease state, but a complex, socially contigent label. I would suggest, whether you ultimately decide to take on the disease model of ADHD, or not, to at least broaden your understanding of the social nature of psychiatric labeling and stigmatization. If you persist in looking at your "condition" as biopsychiatry would lead you to believe, as something defective in your brain, and not something wrong with your self-concept and social reality, then you will perforce be left running the medical treadmilll. Most adults who seek out psychiatric labels are in fact seeking, at some level, a degree of moral absolution in one's perceived failure to flourish. So in a sense, being labeled "ill" is conflictual! I might suggest reading Thomas Scheff's "On being mentally ill", a book that does a great job of fleshing out the social nature of being labeled and stigmatized as mentally ill and disordered. I would submit that as long as you forego any examination of your psychosocial state, you will fall short of your mark in understanding why you feel so bad. The upshot to being labeled mentally ill is that, for many, the label itself forecloses any further search for "truth" and personal reconciliation. However, for many the moral absolution to be had by such a cut and dried "medical" approach (labeling and treatment) does allay anxiety and doubt...at least for a short while. For some, alas, stigmatization becomes an entrenched feature of one's self-concept.

[specialmom]

Hi, I think thebabyalex has an agenda that is not helpful for families and individuals seeking help for issues they face.  Agendas mean that information is of a biased nature and not credible.

Stigmatization comes from people like thebabyalex as that is what they would desire. It is part of the agenda.  A "label" helped my son get on track and become the successful guy he is.  Labels are not branded on our heads but actually a way to understand what is going on with us and to find a direction to help the situation.   Awareness decreases the stigma and thank goodness for that.  

With that said, altair1972, do you see a psychiatrist?  How old are you?  It is very difficult to treat someone with a complex medical history such as yours.  I would encourage you to not give up but to seek refining your current regimen to one you can tolerate and that decreases your symptoms.  Talk therapy and medication work best rather than either alone, so make sure you are seeing someone for this as well.  

I can't say enough about the link between the nervous system and physical activity.  It soothes the nervous system and can decrease symptoms. Do you like to swim?  It would have great benefit for you.  Weight training is also excellent for he nervous system and soothing it.  If my son had add/adhd, I'd recommend these for him and really any form of physical activity they enjoyed from biking, to hiking, to soft ball, to running.  As "they" say--------- just do it!


DMX is actually addictive when used in large doses and for the purpose that you've found for it.  I would strongly suggest that you not use DMX to self medicate.  It is similar to an anxious person using alcohol to numb themselves out.  While they briefly feel better, they'll eventually feel worse and have other repercussions if they being to use alcohol regularly.  It's just not a good idea.  

[specialmom]

One final note, I see that you are asking for some clinical data on using DMX at low doses for add/adhd.  One of the reasons why that information is not readily available is because the data was not sufficient to warrent using it for such.  There are numerous drug trials that go on in this country in which the end result is not favorable to the drug.  I think the tricky part with DMX is that fine line of dosing and its addictive nature.  It would be like many other addictive meds in which a larger dose would have to be taken over time to sustain its effect.  Obviously, that can get dangerous.  I wish you all the best on your journey to feel better!

[thebabyalex]

I am cynical, and quite frankly, I haven't the patience with websites and its members who dispense with  pseudo and quasi-medical mysticism. The accusation leveled at me, that I have an agenda, can be as easily assumed onto those who persist in the reductive-biological of the moral and social. I lived for years with the stigmatization of mental illness, when all along, the "real" answers lay before me, just short of reach. However, this business that is life, with its problems in living and social conflict, it is easy to be beguiled and hoodwinked by those who claim some holistic approach or other.
The real stigmatization is not solely to be understood by observing how culture at large treats such. The real stigmatization-and a fact that the MH profession has carefully masked-comes from the very professionals who call out for greater understanding and "compassion" for the mentally ill; and to look at mental illness AS one would physical illness. However, anyone who troubles him or herself to read into the discourse of psychiatry, will soon realize that the MH profession says one thing and does quite another.
The transformation, in our modern culture, of moral values into health values, has seen a veritable mushrooming of mental illnesses, each with its respective treatment. I disagree with the assertion that the pharmaceuticals are on board, solely to churn a profit, however, the shoe does fit! Again, stigmatization comes by way of the "patient" accepting his biological lot, of assuming himself to ill, with no cure possible. The labeling of ANY deviant act, and its reification by a consensus, between patient/client and doctor/counselor, is the first step of many on one's career as mentally ill. Some are able to rend themselves from the chains of such label, while others are forever enthralled by the debauchment of language that is psychiatric discourse.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adSPZX22I3c&feature=email

[specialmom]

I was in the business of helping people overcome mental illness for almost two decades and saw a tremendous amount of success over the years.  I also have a son with a developmental delay very similar to add/adhd called sensory integration disorder.  

A label is not a stigma.  It is a reason why someone seeks help.  It helps define a path to getting that help.  It helps someone understand what is going on with them. This label is in a file perhaps at the doctors office or school.  This label is NOT worn on their chest like a brand nor is it tattooed down their arm.  My goal has always been to help someone to recover to the point that no one would know they had their disorder or challenge unless they chose to tell.  

Pharmaceutical companies are business and, of course, they want to make a profit as any business does.  But they are valuable in that they come up with things that improve the lives of those who are suffering.  While the SSRIs and Snri's are far from perfect, they are a vast improvement from the generation of medication that came before them.  While the anti psychotics on the market today are not perfect, they are a vast improvement over what was offered to those suffering schizophrenia in past decades.  

My goal has always been to help people whether it was in my chosen profession or here at med help.  Concrete things they can do to improve the situation.  It is not always medication but other things within their control that they can do that are known to improve symptoms.  What exactly is it that you offer folks by referring to out of date sociological theories?  The 70's are over and that book is old.  Maybe people are just suppose to "snap out of it" or something.  Is that what worked for you?  To believe you have no mental illness anymore made it go away?  If you followed your theories with more than just your vast vocabulary, I'd be more impressed.  I don't take away from your recovery ----- that is great.  But you must know that in order to help someone, you need more than just big words.  Give them other ways to help themselves and their family.

My child has sensory integration disorder.  Every teacher he has ever had is told of this prior to meeting him.  It has worked really well and he is doing great.  Embracing the developmental delay that affects his nervous system has been the key to making him a happier, well adjusted kid.  If I did not have the education and knowledge I did, I'd hate to see someone choose something else for their child such as you suggest.  It would be a crime.  My kid does not take medication------  we do other things.  But understanding sensory and getting on board that it is real and help was needed made all the difference in the world.  

Just remember people come here for help.  And yes, you have an agenda.  And . . . I'm positive that this discussion has not helped the poster one bit.  Sorry to them.

[thebabyalex]

I also have a son with a developmental delay very similar to add/adhd called sensory integration disorder. Is this a neurological condition? My sister-in-law's son seems to be "neurologically impaired", athough I have a hunch that he is just the result of watered down genes. As for your magnanimity, that you are "helping", I suppose that confirming what others have already confirmed for themselves (that one's problems have a biologically determined basis to them) can be operationally defined as "helping". However, it is nonsensical to introduce other conditions as a means of adding credibility to the assertion that ADHD is likewise biological. How many children, after all, are ever diagnosed while on vacation? As liberal psychiatry would have it, "Alter the individual and you alter the social." Such is the manner in which the MH profession, as our culture's social engineer, would have it. Wherefore the individual in such a reductive, collectivist take on human conduct?

[specialmom]

I really do with that during your years of seeking treatment for mental illness that you speak of that they had been able to help you.  I will say that it gives you a unique perspective that I try to decipher in your writing.  

And if your son truly has sensory integration disorder, I hope you have educated yourself in ways to help him beyond telling  him he has watered down genes.  

[thebabyalex]

I was originally diagnosed with ADHD when in grade school, when the moniker was that of MBD. Years later, the diagnosis was altered to that of Bi-polar, which is what the VA shrink determined, after about the first ten minutes conversation. The point is is that the VA is but emblematic of the push for biopsychiatry in treating mental distress, over that of traditional "talk" therapies. The issues going on right now, with regards to PTSD in our returning soldiers and airmen, is another case in point.
My insight is both anecdotal, and the result of a considerable amount of self-reflective study and examination of the nature and history of psychiatry, up to present. The truth is not always easy to swallow, and it is never easy to attain, especially when one discusses such a subject fraught with so many moral and social ramifications as that of psychiatric medicine. The mission of psychiatry is clear, but not widely appreciated by a captivated public and media.

[specialmom]

The traditional "talk" therapy that you mention works best when combined with medication and vice versa.  That is typically the standard of care for those in the mental health profession.

It does not sound as though you've had an easy life.  Those that have suffered become the harshest critics.  I had a different response all typed out and erased it because I will keep in mind where you are coming from which I think is a place of pain.  

I visit the add/adhd forum because of its connection to sensory integration disorder.  I have a personal interest in this due to my son and found that some young children can benefit from some of the strategies that we've used with success with our own child.  I try to share that as add/adhd are very similar.  

I wish you luck on your journey and hope you wish me luck on mine.  

[thebabyalex]

Are you a doctor? I take it you are drawing from a different source of literature on this discussion of "medicating". There has been an ongoing debate over the merits of medicating, and with more drugs than ever before for all manner of putative disorder, the polemics over drugging or no is well pronounced. I do not agree with the "drugging" crowd nor do I necessarily agree wholesale with the position of people like Breggin or Whitaker, both of whom advocate for the "proper" place of psychopharmaceuticals, and who both adhere to myth of mental illness. It might seem an academically moot point to ask but do the drugs merely mask or dull affect, or, does the respective agent treat that which has no physical basis? I have read Robert Whitaker's "Anatomy of an epidemic", and nowhere, do I gather that Mr. Whitaker, and his like ilk, are anywhere near questioning the very basis of medicalizing problems in living and social conflict. In short, the prevalent opinion, as reflected in the mainstream literature, is of a consensus that "somehow" the brain of, say, a depressed person, must be biologically abnormal, and the "selective" use of drug treatment will "restore" the imbalance. Such speculative pharmaceutical R&D has promoted such a biomythology, certainly in respect to the misapprehension surrounding depression and other affective disorders. Any challenge, it seems, of the biomythology of mental illness, has come and gone. And those who have taken up the critic's standard are just parroting what the mainstay of biopyschiatry has communicated for public and media consumption. This is no less than a propagandistic tour de force; where every one, at one time or other, "suffers" some form of mental illness. Very little is ever mentioned of the moral and social, unless, of course, such critique concerns itself with how much drugging is necessary.

[thebabyalex]

"It does not sound as though you've had an easy life.  Those that have suffered become the harshest critics.  I had a different response all typed out and erased it because I will keep in mind where you are coming from which I think is a place of pain."

And what have you labeled me as? Please, spare me the disingenuous feelings and your clinical assessment.

[specialmom]

At some point one has to realize when they are dealing with an injured party and I'm at that point.  Disingenuous or not, good luck.

[thebabyalex]

I was in the business of helping people overcome mental illness for almost two decades and saw a tremendous amount of success over the years.  I also have a son with a developmental delay very similar to add/adhd called sensory integration disorder.  

Mixing your apples and oranges? SID is similar to ADHD? You say you had a career of helping individuals overcome mental illness? No less helping those individuals to accept the biological reality of his sickness? No where in your posts do you mention anything of the psychosocial in the one labeled. Your reductive-biologistic take on problems in living is consistent with that of clergy of the church of mental health, with sin being supplanted by the medical sounding term "mental illness". No matter the change in nomenclature and of the vestments of the profession, you have no less taken on the career of dispensing with your sacraments of (mental) health. The means by which such a transformation has taken hold in modern culture, of such notions as sin to that of "illness" and, redemption to that of cure and treatment, has been some three hundred years in the making. Our culture has long since dispensed with the demonological in explaining all manner of sinful and bad behavior. Now, the sacraments of mental health and wellness concern themselves principally with the medical: a form of biological predestination, as with ADHD? The mental health profession concerns itself with the moral order of man, yet, the language at its disposal has run afoul.

[specialmom]

Um, okay.

Good luck.

[Sandman2]

The people who start posts on this site do so (I believe) with the specific intent of getting some advice on how to deal with their specific problem.  Most of us who respond to these posts try and offer advice (based on our experience or research) to help the initial post.  I would love to see you offer some specific advice to help people.  Or,  if you want to offer  your philosophical agreements with Dr. Breeding please start a separate posts where people will have a chance to respond.  As it now stands, you are doing a disservice to the initial poster.

[thebabyalex]

Most of us who respond to these posts try and offer advice (based on our experience or research)
Speaking of personal experience, I have found that the mainstay of sites dedicated to the "discussion" of ADHD do not admit for anything but the reductive take on (mis)behavior. The conclusion I have drawn, and one I think most consistent by word and deed of members on those respective sites, is twofold. One ostensible aim of these sites, that of sharing knowledge and experiences, cannot allow for anything other than that of ADHD as a disease (disorder), of a determined course. Secondly, the confusion of "symptoms" with that of (disease) "signs" allows for a considerable amount of obfuscation and, generally, much confusion over the etiological. And I am the one who is said to have an agenda! There are now well over ten million children on some psychotropic drug or other. In the book "The god delusion", Christopher Hitchens's posits that for every twelve individuals who never break free of their strict, fundamentalist, religious upbringing, only one individual free himself from the imprisonment of the mind. I wonder, given how pervasive the myth of mental illness is in our culture, with the blandishments of psychiatry to dazzle and dumfound, if the above statistitic holds true for those who have been labeled at an early age? There is every reason to believe that being labeled as a child is as dour as being hammered with religious indoctrination.

[specialmom]

I think it is best if we leave babyalex alone.  

I am so happy I can speak from a place of success with my child and found his diagnosis of sensory integration disorder to be a blessing that enabled him to accomplish what he desires.  I am eternally grateful for his label as it allowed us to help him where he needed help.  I wish that for all families who are trying to find their way.  Having a child that is content, happy, well balanced and succeeding in the world they live in should be every parent's goal.  

[thebabyalex]

I'm not trying to rain on your parade specialmom. My motives and aims can be distilled down to one thing: doing what I can to expose the myth of mental illness. You assert that, "a label is not a stigma.", and I would agree. However, a label carries with it the stigma of the deviant so labeled. Our culture handles "deviance" in many ways, and such doesn't necessarily result in the involvement of psychiatry, school, employer, or any other important social presence in the deviant's social network. Once the child or adult has reached the point of being labeled, many other things have happened to the individual. There is, as noted, the internalized notions of illness assumed in one's self-concept, that much is clear. Secondary deviance, as Thomas Scheff has called those forms of deviance that get the attention of the MH profession,  is no less a career for many who never manage to shirk one's trouble self-concept and social relations!

[Sandman2]

   Thank you for distilling down your motives and aims.  Mine are also simple.  To help people on this site who ask for it.  That is my agenda - pure and simple.  If they want information about meds, I give them a site to check out.  If they need help in working with their child, I try and provide that.  I have about 1400 posts on this and on the child behavior site.  Feel free to check them out.  Most people that post to this site have a desperate need for information, and I try to provide that.  Admittably, I also have my own bias's.  I am sure that you will disagree with some of my posts.  If you pretty much follow Dr. Breeding's work, I will disagree with some of yours.  I am also fairly sure that there are things that we both would agree on - as I really like some of Dr. Breeding's strategies.
   If you want, why not start a post on labeling kids in school and we can debate if it helps or not?

[Sandman2]

  Ya, specialmom was right.  this is a waste of my time.  adios

[thebabyalex]

I don't see how a child, early in its elementary school career, can grow up thinking he has a brain disorder, and yet, manage to grow up with no hang-ups. My entire life was marked by mouthing the excuses that I had come to see as my biological limitations. The counselors came later in life, to tell me that "maybe" I should consider this line of work, blah, blah. And I thought that the ethics of the counseling profession would have frowned on such prescriptions during my fifty minute sessions!
I was drugged for the first four years of my school career, and in hindsight, I wonder for what good: my grades did not improve, my attitude towards teachers did not ameliorate, and most important, my seriously dysfunctional family life (father an alcoholic, but spare me the correlative studies!).
As an adult, in my thirties, still unmarried, undecided with my career, and going to school part-time, for the third and final time, I frequented the university counseling services, and was given the "standard" battery of pencil to paper diagnostic tests. The MMPI is a joke! My career as one of the faithful in the church of mental health ended. I made a clean break of it; I should have seen it coming years before but loosing my religion was a totuous affair with fits and starts. I have read and studied diligently over the topic of ADHD, as well as the lliterature on the history of psychiatry.
Drs. Thomas Szasz, Erving Goffman, and Thomas Scheff, I think, have it right, about "mental illness", that is. But the irrepressable nature of psychiatry, as that of culture's social engineer, is well ensconsed in our social and legal insttitutions, and under the aegis of the state, serves at its pleasure, and vice versa. The coercions as cure and the excuses of psychiatry are many, and it is all but impossible to enumerate them in this post. However, any mention of any normative definitions of normalcy and mental illness, respectively, must take into account the legal, ethical and psychosocial judgements made of deviance. It is not merely the anatomical and genetic context, however compelling the science, that our culture must come to settle the score on problems in living and social conduct. The present course of psychiatry, since the early 1970s, has seen the pendulum swing toward the biological and the determined (as that in "progressive" disease). It is hardly cynical to see both the strategic and economic advantages that such a consensus can assume. No doubt the pharmaceutical companies are to be blamed for the biomythology of mental illness, with its "reverse engineered" , speculative science of brain function. No one knows exactly how the "mechanism" of action of these drugs works in the so-called "imbalanced" brains, but one is to believe that some therapy has been effected, when, one's behavior is altered; alter the individual and you alter the social.

[thebabyalex]

The pharmaceuticals are not solely to blame, but I think that a "reasonable" apportionment of blame is certainly forthcoming. However, not much will change; fewer might be pre-emptively drugged than before, only to be made up by more on the sick role.

[specialmom]

Again, I'm just going to say okay to you babyalex even though I don't agree with you.  You are actually making an excellent case for medication . . .

[Sandman2]

  Ok, your first sentence got to me.  And its partially why (I think) I spend time on this forum.
    I started teaching in 1970.  At that time there was absolutely no mention/preparation/resources for kids that did things differently.  You fit or you failed.  In 1974 I was offered 4 periods of a class that was labeled "modified".   So I had two different sets of 6th graders for English and History.  I got them or took them because the prior teacher moved them along at the same pace as his regular class and then failed most of them.  The man was almost sinfully inept.  The kids had labels like emotionally handicapped, dyslexic, modified, etc.  I don't think the term ADHD was used at that time.  The reason I mention this is that I got absolutely no training or help in working with these kids.  I was in a fairly wealthy district in California and I think that if it had been available, I would have been so informed.  This was pretty much the state of "special education" through most of the 70's.  Actually, the kids and I did pretty well.  I had spent most of college and high school teaching swimming.  I used the same techniques.  I broke things down to smaller steps, taught it till it worked and then moved on.  I also was lucky.  There were not mandated standardized tests so I could move at their speed.  They were successful - a hand full because they had a lot of other problems, but they were (and still are as I am still in contact with some of them) one of my most favorite classes.  And I've got lots more stories like that.  The point is that in the 70's if you were in school and didn't quite fit in - good luck.  If you were lucky you got a teacher who could help, if not you were screwed from the start.  There was nothing, I repeat nothing in terms of help for the
teacher.
    I moved to elementary school teaching in 1978.  Pretty much the same situation.  The only difference was that since I was the sole male member on staff, I got all the "discipline" problems.  Which included kids that I know would have been identified as ADHD today.  Somewhere in the late 70's or early 80's they started special education classes for kids that really had special needs.  Hopefully, these teachers had special training.  The kids were isolated in these classes and I don't think it was a very healthy situation.  The great thing about elementary school is that you have the time to get to know the kids.  If you take the time to know them, then its not that hard to work with them.   But once again, I don't really remember much help for teachers regarding techniques that would work with kids with special needs.  So I started doing my own research - because guess what, I was getting a lot of kids that needed a different approach to learning.  To make a long story short.  In 1990 I became principal and attended every IEP the school had.  We had a great psychologist.  He didn't push meds.  He pushed parental responsibility.  He gave techniques that I knew worked from my own feeble attempts.  He wasn't into BS.  I learned a lot.  After 4 years of  attempting to solve everybody's problems (found out I was kinda compulsive), I said screw it and went back to the classroom where I knew I could actually make a difference.  
    If you are still reading, one of the points I am trying to make is that in the 70's and at least part of the 80's if you were in school with any type of a learning problem - you didn't get much help.  I won't bore you with the kids I knew who got screwed by the system.  The kids who self-medicated themselves to death.  The kids who were abandoned by their parents because the parents were too busy or too screwed up to spend the time needed to help their kid.   All of that left a very lasting impression on me.  I don't give a damn (and frankly don't know much about) the mental health profession.  I don't look at ADHD/ADD as a "mental illness" (in fact there are recent studies linking it to pesticide exposure among other things. I frankly don't care much where it came from.  I look at it as something that has to be dealt with. I have no ties to MH groups or pharmacy groups.  In fact, if you were to look at my posts -  one of the things I am very consistent on is saying that meds are no magic potion.  You can't just give it and figure your job is done.  You need to work with your child and your teacher to find strategies that will make the child more successful.   Very early on you said, "I don't see how a child, early in its elementary school career, can grow up thinking he has a brain disorder, and yet, manage to grow up with no hang-ups."  That hit home because I have seen kids grow up and self medicate because no one ever took the time to explain to them how to work with what they've got.  I don't know if information will solve that problem.  But I do know that if they are just medicated and swept aside- its a long road ahead.
   Ok, this was a lot longer than I had intended.  Because I will probably be writing to this forum for a long time, I want you to know where I am coming from.  
   I appreciate you sharing your experience.  Our experiences shape us