Like medications for any other mental or physical condition, medications for ADHD can also have some side effects.
Unfortunately many doctors are not properly trained on ADHD in medical school. For example, here in Vancouver BC Canada, UBC medical students only get one hour on ADHD. So unless they went out to learn more about ADHD on their own time & dime, many aren’t that familiar with the condition of ADHD, let alone the medications which are one ofmany ways to manage ADHD, let alone how to manage some of their side effects.
Ideally, your doctor will tell you about the possible side effects of ADHD medications, how to manage them, and realistic expectation (pills won’t teach skills), but if they don’t, here are some tips from WebMD. Of course, before doing any changes to ADHD medications, ALWAYS discuss them with your doctor. If your doctor doesn’t know about ADHD, point them to CADDRA’s Canadian ADHD Practice Guidelines so they can learn. Read more...
More than a few people with ADHD have. You might enjoy this response by Chris Matthews who is the host of Hardball, a political talk show on MSNBC who was on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno show. You might enjoy Jay’s response even more. It starts about 3.35, and I think it was on May 20th, 2010.
I’ve done a one question anonymous survey on kwiksurveys.com
If you’re an adult with ADHD and you haven’t gone public with it (public as in being able and willing to talk about having ADHD with your family, friends and work colleagues) please consider answering the one question survey. You can skip the explanation part and go right to the survey question or read the explanation for background on WHY I’m asking the question.
Update2: Maybe the new opening of the The Robert Lee YMCA in downtown Vancouver might have something to do why their apology is not on the front page of the Greater Vancouver YMCA’s homepage. Saw their 8 page advertisingsupplementonitin Saturday May 8th’s Vancouver Sun.
UPDATE Someone emailed TBWA \ Vancouver (no company Twitter account but here’s Stefan Hawes, Managing Director) & explained why the ad was a problem & asked them why they created it. They told me they emailed them back, admitted they created the ad and gave them basically the same apology that the YMCA did that I mentioned in my previous post i.e., basically sorry ADHD families were offended with the ad but didn’t admit they made a mistake. Still nothing on TBWA\Vancouver’s website or anywhere online about this. My apologies for not posting this sooner, read his initial email, but missed the 2nd one with TBWA\ Vancouver’s response. I’ve updated the original post
Update: I’ve done a follow up post to this with new information.
The YMCA has done many good things for many people, they’re a large multimillion dollar organization with a big impact on many members of the community in a very wide variety of ways. I can’t think of any negative media mentions about the YMCA I’ve ever come across before this ad. That’s why this highly controversial and stigmatizing ad was so shocking to me and to others with ADHD.
This post and all content on my website, blog and twitter account are solely my opinions.
The YMCA has worked hard to build a great brand reputation and this is very “Off Brand” as marketers would say.The YMCA is not like some shady supplement company trying to pass off their concentrated horsetail extract as a fake “cure” for ADHD that you see far too often on Twitter. People with ADHD were very shocked to see this ad was approved by and paid for by the YMCA.
Can your BC doctor / psychiatrist / psychologist diagnose ADHD? If not, let them know about this workshop.
As an Adult ADHD Coach who’s often asked where can I find a doctor / psychiatrist / psychologist who know’s enough about ADHD to diagnose it, who’s heard far too many horror stories of what happens when people with ADHD DON’T get diagnosed and who emails out many copies of a list of people known to diagnose ADHD in the Vancouver area on regular basis, sometimes several a day, I’ve very, very happy to let you know about this.
If you medical professional doesn’t know enough about ADHD, you might want to tell him about this one day workshop in Vancouver next week to teach people how to diagnose adult ADHD and associated comorbid conditions by Dr. Anthony Ocana, Dr. Cyril Melck, and Mr. Lawrence Sheppard April 21st at Robson Square. Currently UBC medical students only get 1 hour on ADHD.
Here’s a short video from NBC’s The Today Show titled Does my child have ADHD? Today show host Matt Lauer interviews Dr. Steve Kurtz, the clinical director of New York University’s Child Study Center, Assistant Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry; and Clinical Director, Institute for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity and Behavior Disorders, and Beth Kaplanak is the parent of a child with ADHD via @ADHDBrevard
Matt: and in terms of your interactions with your son what was that interaction like?
Beth: A roller coaster of emotions he was very on the go, constantly into things had trouble attending, he was distractible to every level on a scale of 1-10 I’d put him at about the 8-9 range of his hyperactivity and impulsive characterisics and inability to attend… the school issues started happening when he started going to school but he was also easily frustrated and had a low frustration tolerance and that low frustration tolerance was very frustrating as a parent
