My son is 10 with ADHD. We don't want to medicate and havng read the threads on this forum on strattera I've been horrified. A 10 year old with his problems wouldn't necessarily be able to tell me even if he knew thought something wasn't right.

Has anyone taken a food intolerance test like York Test labs. Has it helped reduce some symptoms of ADHD or not. I think apple juice has been having an effect and have cut it out. He's become better over the last week so I'm wondering, is it worth it?

I don't suppose that it would hurt to have him tested for food allergies - I Googled York Test Labs and they appear to use a blood test based Food Intolerance test that seems reasonable enough to me. Food can have an influence on ADHD - Based on anicdotal evidence I have read - but it's not the root cause of ADHD and I don't feel that it's reasonable to expect a huge improvement in symptoms from changes in diet, although there are probably people who have had such an improvement. If diet changes were all that was necessary, one would expect that research would have identified this by now.
What does your son's doctor have to say on the subject? Has he/she recommended any treatment options?
I bristle everytime I hear a parent flat out say that they don't want to even consider medication, and this is because I was, at one time in the past, the child at the centre of a "to medicate or not to medicate" decision.
My parents did not medicate me - I got mega doses of vitamins instead - and now, as an adult on stimulant medication, I am fully cognicent of how much that medication would have helped me, how much happier I would have been due to improvements in sociability & how much better I would have done in school - I likely wouldn't have been the child that had to sit directly in front of the teacher, with a completely emptied desk, constantly watched and pushed to get any work done, called lazy by teacher after teacher. Perhaps I wouldn't have life long problems with self esteem and perhaps I wouldn't still be single at age 40 - because I'm afraid to approach women, always expecting rejection because every single female role model in my life - my mother included - thought I was a lazy unmotivated child who could do "so much better if I only applied myself".
It's not an easy decision to make, there's no question about that. Parents, including my own, agonize over such things and suffer many sleepless nights weighing possible risks vs potential benefits. The desicion is made much more difficult by the barrage of negative, often poorly researched and biased media reports regarding ADHD medication, that appear on an seemingly daily basis.
If you read many of my posts on this forum you may notice that I am rabidly pro-medication, and the reason for this is detailed above - medication has helped me so much that I view unabashed opposition to it as a form of McCarthyism.
Perhaps you will find that changes to your sons diet alleviate his ADHD, or that diet in combination with behavioral therapy does the trick, and if that's the case, I will be very glad to hear it, but if his ADHD is still an issue despite attempts at non-medicinal treatment, I would respectfully suggest that you not dismiss medication without researching it fully.
Sincerely,
Greg

READ THE BOOK: "Allergies and the hyperactive child"

Thank you Greg.

Just wondering about the diet thing. I have asked a great many people and can get little info on it apart from the sites promoting it. I have tried looking for negative things too!

We have had the same thoughts that you have had, Greg, about medication. Are we doing the right thing by not medicating. We don't know. The Drs at Gt Ormond Street say that nothing but medication helps. He took ritalin when he was 6 and it did help for a time with school but he lived much more in his own little world when he was on it and then when he was 8 he became severely depressed and talked of suicide and/or running away. This subsided when he came off ritalin. Now he has been offered strattera which the consultant says has no side effects. That plainly isn't the case. We don't know what to do for the best. I don't think he is capable of telling us that he is experiencing certain things. As an adult he probably could distinguish between what was normal and what wasn't but above all he would probably think to mention it.

The other thing of course is that some things may be natural but that doesn't mean they are safe either. Much of the stuff talked about food and diets is total rubbish and you tend to find that things are popular for a time and then they die off.

Fighting Boredom: I'm a bit confused about your post. There are more food and allergy books and adhd books than I could ever read in my lifetime. Is this one somehow better or did it make a difference to you? Or are you saying that I want to find an allergy so I will?

My heart goes out to you Emma, you are in a very difficult, heart wrenching situtation. My perspective is from hindsight and it's easy to speculate from that vantage point. Would meds have helped me as much as a child as they are as an adult? Impossible to know. I was tested on Ritalin - once - when I was a child, and in the lab environment and it didn't seem to do much, according to my Mom, but this was at one dose and only on one occasion - no idea how much it was. And this occured about 30 years ago, when far less was known about ADHD. I lament lost opportunities but am not bitter about it and I don't blame my parents - they made the decision they thought was best for me, and you can't expect more than that.
I hope I didn't seem too harsh in my reply to your question - it's impossible to tell from a couple of postings what's going through peoples heads. Some parents take the position that "under no circumstances will they ever medicate their child, period" whereas others are in the "tried that, it was very bad, don't want to try it again" camp. I couldn't possible know what depression and suicide/running-away talk - at age 8 - must feel like to a parent - there are worse things, but not many.
When your son was taking Ritalin, did the doctor adjust the dosage and try to work out the problems with the meds - like withdrawing into his own world - or was it more of a "here's the prescription, this is the dose he should take, I'm the doctor" kind of thing? How experienced was the doctor - did he have a lot of other ADHD patients?
Some of the bad press that Ritalin has gotten is due to dosages that are too high. Because hyperactivity can be disruptive in the classroom, there is sometimes pressure on parents and the doctor to medicate in order to quell this hyper behaviour. High dosages of stimulants will often quiet this hyperactivity, but the price is high - I've heard of parents describing their child as "zombie" like, etc. The doctor I saw for my diagnosis explained the effects of medication in various stages. At initial doses you see impovements in focus and then at larger doses improvments in impulse control and finally, at higher doses the hyperactivity is effected. The problem is that at those higher doses the improvements in focus are long gone. He said that he treats the focus and impulse control issues and ignores the hyperactivity - most kids outgrow the hyperactivity anyway. With large doses of Ritalin, you are going to get very pronounced ups and downs, and the down phase as Ritalin wears off can be a real S.O.B.! It can be much worse for some than for others. I found that Ritalin did have a down component for me, but it wasn't too bad - but lots of people complain about it. I switched to Dexedrine to try and get a longer acting solution to my ADHD (Ritalin was lasting only about 2 or 3 hours for me) and I found that in my brain, it worked better with almost no down phase, so I have stayed with that drug and have found a dosage that works for me. Finding the right doctor - who was a real expert on ADHD - was probably the best thing that I could have done for myself, and I just happened to be very lucky there since I also found him at a time when he was actually taking patients - I was only on the waiting list for 2 months. If I'd phoned his office a month later, I wouldn't have even been put on the waiting list. If you can, try to get in touch with a bona-fide expert on pediatric ADHD. I know that in the U.K. you don't always have a choice of which doctor you can see, so it may be more difficult to do. I wish you the best of luck - God willing you will find a treatment that works for your son.
Regards,
Greg

Emma,

The book I am referring to is an EXCELLENT book to give you insight into how you can determine if food allergies are any part of what you are experiencing with your child. It's the best book I've read and I've recommended it to other parents who have found it valuable.

I don't have time to read all of the Allergy books either, so I can't tell you if it's the best one out there.

I have ADD and at least one of my kids has ADHD symptoms. I didn't start any medication until the age of 40. FYI, My life was working quite well and I was fairly successful, but I think my life took a nosedive after that!

My son is only 6 and the symptoms don't seem to interfere with his daily life so there is NO way I'm letting a doctor put him on medication.

On the issue of doctors and medication: I think it is nearly impossible to find a doctor, these days, who isn't pushing pills. It doesn't matter what the medical condition is, it seems as though they have a pill for it. So, instead of diagnosing they prescribe. It's frustrating!

If you can find a wholistic chiropractor and get their opinion that may help you. I've tried to find one around the Chicago are with no success.

The only comfort I can offer is that if medication IS the answer, finding the right combination is a TRIAL and ERROR process and NOT a science. If you face this situation with that expectation and know that you are about to become the worlds greatest expert on ADD medication and how it relates to your child...then you will fare well.

I've always thought that medicine was as much of a "black art" as a science! ;-)
I've not found that chiropractic manipulation has helped my ADHD, but it sure has helped my neck! Most good doctors won't push pills - quite the contrary - but then half of all doctors graduate at the bottom of their class..... I've been lucky, I've never been with a bad doctor for very long, but I've met a couple. Because medicine has always been of great interest and via exposure to close family friends who were/are doctors, I've become good at judging if a doctor is any good - at least so far.
Educating yourself is key so you can tell if you are getting the care you need - you will always get better care if you seek it out and demand it (in a nice way). A doctor with conections who can get you an otherwise difficult referal to the right guy helps too (my referal to the ADHD expert was just lucky timing and someone from this forum giving me a name and number in my area, for which I shall be eternally grateful!)

Gregster, I didn't mean chiropractic manipulation. There are some chiropractors that treat the WHOLE body using herbs and other treatments that go beyond basic chiro....
The manipulations are GREAT tho!

We had him tested in Toronto 2 years ago. He is ADHD too. They recommeneded these Vitamins that you can only get in the USA. We got a bottle of them, but he refused to take them. We did find out that he has 85 food allergies, milk,red and yellow dyes being really high on the list. I have a copy of all the allergies. He know drinks goat milk and his diet has changed alot. If you need anymore information I will gladly give it to you. We had to put him on Concerta so he could function at school, it has helped alot. My son is 10 with ADHD. We don't want to medicate and havng read the threads on this forum on strattera I've been horrified. A 10 year old with his problems wouldn't necessarily be able to tell me even if he knew thought something wasn't right.

Has anyone taken a food intolerance test like York Test labs. Has it helped reduce some symptoms of ADHD or not. I think apple juice has been having an effect and have cut it out. He's become better over the last week so I'm wondering, is it worth it?

I don't think I did the reply right, first time user. I guess I'll learn how to do this. I hope you got my reply,if you need anymore info I will gladly send it to you. Our son is 10 also. He had a Food test done and boy did we learn alot. Its worth it.