[steve8714]

Hardly anyone serious says ADD does not exist, however overdiagnosis is rampant. Side effects of long term use include severe sleep disorders, irritability, hallucination, depression and other long term adult problems. As the father of one who was drugged by the ed-est in 1990, I can tell you that no one has yet been able to tell me the physiological cause of this "disorder". His symptoms? Inattention, disobedience, unruliness, and other things I did 30 years earlier whenever I was confronted with ill-perpared or incompetent teachers. Such teachers were rare in the fifties and sixties, unfortunately common in the eighties.

[Lazamataz]

Hardly anyone serious says ADD does not exist,

Al B. does.

however overdiagnosis is rampant.

Unquestionably.

His symptoms? Inattention, disobedience, unruliness, and other things I did 30 years earlier whenever I was confronted with ill-perpared or incompetent teachers.

Your child was probably one of those erroneously diagnosed. I was diagnosed pre-ritalin days, and they hit me with tranq's. I knew something bad was in those little pills so I would hide them, refuse to swallow them, etc.

Decades later, someone who was important to me at the time suggested I had it. I went to a doctor, and soon enough he had identified that I was a genuine sufferer of the malady. I was perscribed ritalin, and EVERYone around me IMMEDIATELY noticed a major increase in my ability to concentrate. Most of them were unaware of my diagnosis, but noticed a drastic change for the better. On ritalin, my life is MUUUUUCH more manageable -- although my current doc is convinced one of the other drugs might be better for me. Fewer long-term health risks, side effects, etc.

[Pan_Yans Wife]

"Side effects of long term use include severe sleep disorders, irritability, hallucination, depression and other long term adult problems."

Is adult depression highly prevalent in those who were diagnosed as having ADHD in childhood?