.png)
.png)
.png)
Your Child's / Teen's Brain On Drugs
Big Pharma companies produce medications that can be used to treat ADHD, such as stimulants like Adderall and Ritalin. While these medications do help reduce the symptoms of ADHD, it comes at a huge cost to you and your children.
-
Side Effects & Domino Effect: Taking ADHD medications often encourages the need to seek additional medications to treat the side effects which include insomnia, headaches, stomach aches, decreased appetite, irritability, and changes in mood and behavior.
-
Loss of Self: Many people have complained that ADHD medications changed their child's personality or altered their essence by stifling their creativity, spontaneity, and other aspects of their personality.
-
Drug / Alcohol Addiction: Long-term use of ADHD medications can be addictive and lead to drug and/or alcohol abuse and addictions later in life by:
-
developing a tolerance for the drug, therefore, requiring the body to need more or stronger drugs to do the trick.
-
drug dependence as a person loses his or her ability to function without taking ADHD medications.
-
and withdrawal symptoms which is a clear sign that the body is addicted to the drug.
-
A growing number of people have started to realize the cost and are speaking out about their concerns of:
-
Overreliance on ADHD Medications: There is an overreliance on these medications as the primary treatment for ADHD, they are overprescribed, and too many children and teens are being diagnosed with ADHD and medicated unnecessarily.
-
Marketing and Advertising: Big Pharma uses marketing and advertising tactics that overhype the benefits of their ADHD medications and downplay the side effects and risks in order to increase sales and profits.
-
Cost and Accessibility: For many people, other treatment options for ADHD are inaccessible for them which leads doctors to prescribe medications rather than pursue other interventions. This goes back to the concern about there being an overreliance on these ADHD medications. But, on the other hand, these medications are expensive which further promotes marketing and advertising motive.
Children / teens with ADHD / ADHDish often exhibit overactive theta brainwave activity, underactive beta brainwave activity, and underactive alpha brainwave activity in the prefrontal cortex. This is the area of the brain that is responsible for:
-
working memory
-
attention
-
planning and decision-making
-
impulse control
-
emotional regulation
-
cognitive flexibility
-
self-awareness
While ADHD medications can be an effective treatment for many individuals with ADHD, there are also potential negative effects on the brain that should be considered. Some of the potential negative effects of ADHD medication on the brain include:
-
Changes in Brain Chemistry: As a child's / teen's brain is developing the levels of these neurotransmitters naturally increase and fluctuate, shaping the development of neural circuits and connections in the brain. By simultaneously taking ADHD medications these processes are negatively impacted, leading to changes in how the brain functions.
-
Alterations in Brain Structure: In a 4-year study (2011-2015) published in 2019 in "Radiology", a peer-reviewed journal of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA), reported that MRI scans revealed that children taking ADHD medications experienced alterations in the distribution of white matter in their brain. White matter is responsible for communication between different areas of the brain.