Stimulants help many children focus and be more successful at school, home, and play.
Myth: Stimulants can lead to drug addiction later in life.
Fact: Stimulants help many children focus and be more successful at
school, home, and play. Avoiding negative experiences now may actually help prevent
substance abuse, addiction, and other emotional problems later. In fact, 3 of 4 recent
studies suggest that such medications may in fact protect children with ADHD from future
substance abuse.
Myth: Responding well to a stimulant drug proves a child has
ADHD.
Fact: Stimulants allow many children to focus and pay better
attention, whether or not they have ADHD. The improvement is just more noticeable in
people with ADHD.
Myth: Medication should be stopped when the child reaches
adolescence.
Fact: Not so! About 70-80 percent of those who needed medication as
children may still need it as teenagers. Fifty percent need medication as adults.
Myth: Stimulant medications may cause fatal heart problems.
Fact: Despite a recent highly publicized anecdote by one coroner,
these medications have over 30 years of well-established safety. For children suffering
from ADHD, this treatment greatly reduces suffering and improves functioning. For some
children with severe ADHD, it is likely to be not just life-enhancing, but even
live-saving.
There are several stimulant medications available. The most commonly prescribed
stimulants are dextro-amphetamine (Dexedrine), methylphenidate (Ritalin), and pemoline
(Cylert). As a class of medications, stimulants are most widely researched and commonly
prescribed for children with ADHD, but are also sometimes used to treat other conditions,
such as narcolepsy, a sleep disorder.
Stimulant medications typically improve a child=s attention span, ability to follow
directions and ability to think before acting. In addition, they decrease
distractibility, hyperactivity and excessive motor activity. Initially, the child is
given a small test dose that is gradually increased until the symptoms are in control.
The dose usually takes effect within an hour, and its effects peak within two to three
hours of administration, except for slow-release preparations which peak within four to
five hours. Therefore, multiple daily dosages are necessary for consistent response
throughout the day.
Side effects of stimulant medications are short-term (lasting about two weeks) after
which they usually subside. Such side effects can be corrected by simply lowering the
dose or stopping the medication altogether. Side effects include insomnia, weight loss,
decreased appetite, abdominal pain, headaches, muscle twitches or tics. In some children,
a slowing of growth in height and weight is temporarily noted, but longer-term use does
not appear to affect longer-term height or weight.
One of the stimulants, pemoline, can cause liver problems, which in several instances
has proved fatal. As a result, it is generally not used as a first-line treatment. When
prescribing pemoline, the prescribing physician should obtain baseline liver function
tests and then periodically re-test the child's liver function (serum
glutamic-oxaloacetic transaminase [SGOT] and serum glutamic-pyruvic transaminase
[SGPT]). |
