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Current Treatments for ADHD (or How to Create Your Future Drug Addict)

When I was in gradeschool and junior high, I remember being a very squirmy, uncomfortable kid in class and church - actually any place that I had to "sit still." Had I lived in this drug-driven society I would have been handily diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and probably put on Ritalin or the newer drug, Adderal. Back then, in the dark ages, we didn't have drugs for teacher- perceived misbehavior, just the principal's office, where I was sent a few times for "disrupting" class. I had had rheumatic fever when I was 7 for which I was given a daily penicillin pill for a year, so my yeast levels, unbeknownst to my well-meaning parents and me, were through the roof.

I didn't discover this until my 40's when I also discovered that I was sensitive to wheat. So, for years, I had horrible digestion and a Leaky Gut thanks to my double whammy, a yeast overgrowth and wheat sensitivity. Which in turn, meant that I was malnourished and probably lacking important minerals, EFA's etc.

Wheat sensitivity and an overgrowth of yeast are both infamous for causing brain allergies ( which is really a swelling and inflammation of the brain), so up went my brain allergies which as a kid manifested as an inability to sit still, and as an adult, morphed into the the potential for panic attacks which are no fun at all. Not until I got rid of my dysbiosis and stopped most gluten did my body heal enough to stop the anxious behavior.

ADHD is a terrible thing for the kids and the adults who suffer from it. Noone wants to feel so squirrely that they feel like jumping out of their own skin. They aren't being bad - they really can't help it. Believe me, it's really uncomfortable and hard to deal with day after day after day. But, now that we have Big Pharma on the task "helping" us with designer (read: expensive) drugs for virtually everything, most of us will run straight to the drug to treat the symptoms of ADHD rather the cause. You know by now, after listening to me and reading my Newsletters and Hot News' that it is essential to find the cause rather than to treat the symptoms.

Right now, about 3% of school-age children - over 2 million (mostly boys) are taking Ritalin. "Ritalin and similar stimulant-type drugs used to treat the symptoms that are called ADHD simply snuff out vitality, curiosity, imagination and sociability - all the higher mental functions - and replace them with narrowly focused obsessive behavior." Peter R. Breggin, M.D., director of the International Center for the Study of Psychiatry and Psychology in Bethesda Maryland.

And what about the very well-known connection of Ritalin activating those same brain receptors that crave speed and cocaine and "Hillbilly Heroin" (oxycontin)? Are we creating Gen-X druggies who will be running dangerously rampant in the years 2005 through 2030 knocking down LOL's (me) for their Medicare checks? A new study by the European Pediatric Hospital in Paris (2004) has revealed that perhaps ADHD has something to do with low ferritin levels. They took 80 kids between the ages of 4 and 14 - 50 had diagnosed ADHD and 30 were the control group. They found this: 1) the ADHD kids had lower average ferritin levels 2) 85% of the ADHD kids had abnormal ferritin levels and 3) the most severe ADHD kids had the lowest ferritin levels.

So if my Mom had just give me a daily iron pill, would I have been able to sit still in Miss Guiseppe's 4th grade geography class? Well, maybe not. Ferritin levels have not only to do with iron levels, but general nutrition. Most ADHD kids suffer from malnutrition, no matter how much money their family has. Maybe some dessicated liver tablets would have helped, or the other option would have been calves liver, but . . no thanks. Maybe some B12, folic acid, and digestive enzymes? I think the whole ADHD complex is more labyrinthine than just a lack of iron.

Other reasons for the symptoms such as the inability to sit still, jumping up in class, a short attention span, poor memory, coordination deficits, distractability, social problems, failure to complete tasks, lowered IQ, and not listening could be due to the following: 1) Heavy metal body burden (Lead? Cadmium? Mercury? 2) Simple and easily correctable nutritional deficiencies (Minerals? B Vitamins? Iron? Essential Fatty Acids? Vitamin E?) 3) Chronic ear infections treated by many rounds of antibiotics (causing increases in yeast).

To continue: ADHD could be exacerbated by a 4) Sensitivity to food additives - like colorings and/or all those big chemical words on the labels of the packaged foods you buy. Or 5) Specific foods like wheat or milk or 6) our old bete noir - SUGAR. Sugar can very easily cause a reactive hypoglycemia with all the attendant ADHD symptoms. Eggs for breakfast, folks, not Froot Loops!

See, if I eat wheat or or too much sugar and/or allow my yeast to rise to pathological levels, even at my ripe old age, I will get all the above symptoms! I don't have ADHD, I have a bunch of psychological symptoms and behavioral problems which come solely from toxins affecting my brain. And which can quite easily be controlled.

How? By 1) Finding out what is causing the symptoms that your friendly drug-pusher is calling ADHD 2) By going through the appropriate detox if necessary 3) By making the necessary dietary changes and sticking with the new plan 4) By eliminating sugar and bad carbs and 5) By finding the correct nutritional supplementation.

I can help you with all this.

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