5 Year Old DX'd With ADHD and Anxiety Disorder

[mom2cjc]

Really happy to have found this board. Our son was diagnosed last fall at age 5 with ADHD/Anxiety Disorder and in the last several months have been quite a journey, to say the least.

We have taken a very holistic approach with him - eliminated all food dyes and annatto and did 7 months of weekly neurofeedback therapy, which helped IMMENSELY. In just the last few weeks we have started using essentials oil (both topically and aromatically) and he has shown significant improvement with that as well (finally showed an interest in reading and started sitting still and paying closer attention at school - whew!)

Yesterday we went for an assessment at a private school for kindergarten and he wouldn't even perform half of the tasks put before him. His anxiety level kicked up immediately (something we have not dealt with in months!) It was like we were back at square one all over again! He stayed pretty aggravated for about an hour afterwards, but once he was back in his familiar environment, he calmed down. I knew that transitions were always going to be an issue, but maybe I was naive to think that they would be better.

We have never been closed off to the idea of medicating him, just wanting so much to try everything else first! Would love to hear from anyone with similar experiences.

[ccom5100]

Originally Posted by mom2cjc

Yesterday we went for an assessment at a private school for kindergarten and he wouldn't even perform half of the tasks put before him. His anxiety level kicked up immediately (something we have not dealt with in months!).

That sounds like it could be a very stressful situation for any kid at that age, especially one with anxiety issues. How much emphasis was placed on his performance? Were you anxious about how he might do? If so, he could have picked up on that. Is Kindergarten going to be the first school setting he will encounter, or has he been in a pre-school setting already? Maybe this school is not the right fit for him.

[beltoller]

Alright, I'm very keen to hear more of the neurofeedback, fooddye elimination and the rest of the wholistic approaches that helped your son IMMENSELY.

I'm assuming that there were no medications administered - no controlled stims, no antideppresants, nothing that required a prescription from a doctor.

If that is the case, I think your situation all the more remarkable ( in the positive sense ) because we have been at this for a while and we've come to the conclusion based over the years on the many, many interactions we've had with our son's counselors, doctors, psychiatrists, psychologists; looking at the actual numbers that the controlled studies being done by the scientific community as well as our own observations, that evidence based treatment is, unfortunately, the only treatment that has been found to show verifiable improvement over a meaningful period of time. At least for now.

I say 'unfortunately' because evidence based treatment has got a long, long way to go before it has the precision accuracy that is needed to treat the spectrum of disorders truly satisfactory.

What I'm saying is the science of treating the disorder(s) is still in its relative infancy and that will manifest itself to you and your son as hit and miss, trial and error. It will require you to take a very proactive role as a very patient, scientifically objective researcher with a keen sense of being able to statistically connect the dots.

That sounds nice but when your son has suddenly gone mad as a March hare right in the middle of dinner, are you going to be able to reason that it was actually a rebound effect from the medication wearing off - and often the effects are pronounced early on before therapuetic levels are reached - or are you going to yank him off of the meds first thing??

And I'll tell you, the doctors WILL yank him off if you scream loud enough. Even when they know that the medication has not been given a fair chance. Mums can be shrill when it comes to it... but what if, in hindsight, that particular hypothetical compound turned out to be the only one of its class that would have benefitted your son, but due to his particular biochemistry, the true effects would not have manifested themselves until therapuetic levels had been maintained consistently for two weeks?

Lets throw in another - what if this would have been your THIRD go at meds and you had patiently and carefully observed your son react terribly to the last two - and he, if fact, did turn out to be intolerant of them?

You follow??

So much... depends on us.

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The part you had in regarding how neurofeedback worked for a specific amount of time and then, suddenly stopped working sounds so much like how medications will work, often fantastically for a period, and then inexpliciably cease. I think the 'failure' of neurofeedback, in the way you describe it, actually does more to validate the potential usability of NB, at least in certain situations/conditions, than anything I've heard about it or similar methods yet.

[sarahsweets]

Unfortunatley in most cases, medication is the first line of treatment for adhd. In your son's case as hard as it would be to medicate him(and i get that, it was a huge weight for me and my son)its worth a shot. You want to set him up for success and offer him the best chance at a level playing field. There have been some good studies regarding the use of stimulants and children although these studies dont meant that your child will have the same results, but its a really solid basis for using the meds. If he needed glasses,cancer treatment,a band aid, cold medicine, etc, wouldnt you do you offer the appopriate treatments?