Occupy ADD

Sunday, November 20, 2011 3 Comments

Is Your ADD-Doc GREAT?

We wanna’ know about competent ADD professionals.

How come?  Sadly (shamefully!), we see mounting evidence of a retreat to the ADD Dark Ages, and we need to jerk a knot in its tail and cut off its ugly head!

I have been disheartened, often appalled, by the accounts of patient/doctor and patient/therapist interactions that have been showing up recently on the ADD sites — in increasing numbers!

To say it plainly:

  • If the extent of ignorance we who are looking for help are finding among doctors and therapists who CLAIM to be ADD-specialists existed in any other field, we’d see malpractice suits and lost licenses!
  • There seem to be few AMA “watch dogs” with eyes on what the ADD doctors are doing.
  • Uninformed, non-medically trained government regulators seem to be more concerned with preventing drug abuse than safeguarding access to pharmaceutical interventions for those whose lives are derailed by legitimate, diagnostic disorders, made manageable through consistent access to medication.  Medication shortages are unconscionable.
THIS is not OK with me — and I hope it’s not OK with you, either.

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Filed under A2a Your ADD Treatment Team, ADD | ADHD | Attention Deficit Disorder, E2. Making a Difference, E2a. Rants; Ruminations, E2c. ADD Community Support Tagged with , , , , , , , , , ,

Top Ten Stupid Comments from ADD-Docs

Saturday, November 19, 2011 19 Comments

The Top Ten Stupid Comments
from [supposed]  ADD Professionals

Ten Unfortunate [and recent]  Examples of Ignorance masquerading as Information – and
uninformed personal opinion presented as medical FACT.

First Things First:
Let’s not lump the good ADD doctors and the ones who made these stupid comments together!

They are not the same species AT ALL!

There ARE Many Good ADD-Practitioners:

  • Those who keep up with the latest information, are aware of the studies shortly after they are published, read the journals, participate in practitioner-support lists, and more (and, by the way, most don’t receive a penny for the time it takes for them to stay current!)
  • The ones who attend CH.A.D.D. meetings or ADD conferences to meet more of the population they serve (to hear first-hand anecdotal report of the ADD experience) – again, not activities that help them feed their families or pay their bills
  • Doctors and therapists who host or speak at local support group meetings - mostly pro-bono
  • Many who listen from belief, and perform crackerjack differential diagnoses
  • Others who write books or develop podcasts to educate ADDers and add to the ADD knowledge-base of all ADD Professionals - and BELIEVE me, nobody gets royalty rich from those books!**

Those good ADD Doctors would not only be as appalled as I by the comments below, they will most likely find it difficult to believe that ANY doctor would think, much less say, many of them.

Unfortunately, far too many of you out there in ADD-land know differently.

FAR too many of you have been unable to locate a doctor willing to diagnose or medicate what you are pretty darn sure is ADD – and you have heard one or more of these very comments out of their reluctant, misinformed or down-right IGNORANT mouths.

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Filed under A2. ADD Treatment, A2a(1) Your ADD Doctor, E2a. Rants; Ruminations, F1. ADD Top Tens Tagged with , , , , , , , ,

Differential Diagnosis – Part 2

Sunday, July 10, 2011 3 Comments

Archery target with arrow in center of bullseye

Differential Diagnosis - What is it?

– and why would I care?

To answer the first part of the question, click on “What is it” (above) and read the first part of this article.

Click the link at the end of THAT article to come back here to read why you really need to care.

The answer to the second part?

In a nutshell: as with everything else in life,
“The Name of the Game™ determines the rules!”

If you don’t have the correct diagnosis, there is NO WAY you will be addressing your problems in a manner that will be successful.

Pretend you are a former college marathon runner in his late 30′s.  Lately you’re having problems completing your morning run.  You can barely breathe after about ten minutes of what used to be an easy warm-up.

Obviously, you’d be headed for trouble if you were treated with asthma medication and the source of your shortness of breath turned out to be a problem with your heart.

Since you aren’t sure what’s going on, you’d want to feel confident that your doctor knows enough about “shortness of breath” conditions to make a referral to the correct specialist, even if your particular doctor specializes in sports medicine, right?

When you’re dealing with a differential diagnosis that has few quantifiable measures to identify it, it becomes all the more important to work with a doctor who has the depth of knowledge it may take to distinguish between a daunting number of possibilities with similar presentations — yet very different treatments.

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Filed under A. Hopefully Helpful
, A1. The Attentional Spectrum, A1a. Executive Functioning Disorders, A1c. Dances with Diagnosis, A2. ADD Treatment, A2a(1) Your ADD Doctor, ADD | ADHD | Attention Deficit Disorder Tagged with , , , , , , , , ,

Zebras, hoof-beats and Dr. House: Differential Diagnosis

Tuesday, June 28, 2011 11 Comments

Differential Diagnosis: WHAT is it, and WHY do I care?
(To find out how the Zebras relate, read the article!!) 

Fairly realistic drawing of two zebras

A differential diagnosis is one which examines all of the possible reasons for a set of symptoms in order to arrive at an identification of the cause (or combination of causes) of a presenting problem.

It’s a fairly simple process of elimination that can become unblievably complex in an eye-blink, “simply” because so many diseases and disorders present with similar symptoms,

Although the term “differential diagnosis” initially referred to issues of physical health, today many doctors in the mental health field also use this system of diagnosis.

Diagnosticians specialize in differential diagnosis.

Everybody’s favorite Diagnostician 

And who would that be?
Why, House, of course!

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TYPES of Attentional Deficits

Tuesday, June 21, 2011 Leave a comment

Drawing of a brown-skinned man in a hat, walking through a shallow body of water, cat-tails growing in the background. He is about to be surprised by a crocodile because 100% of his attention is on a book in front of his face: Safety Tips.Attentional Deficits: Three Biggies

While ALL attentional deficits are, strictly speaking, neurological events – meaning that they are marked by changes in the pattern of brain waves and the location of area doing the work – it is useful to think about them in three separate categories:

  1. Physical
  2. Neurological
  3. Situational

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Filed under A1a. Executive Functioning Disorders, A2a Your ADD Treatment Team, A5a. Attention & Focus, ADD | ADHD | Attention Deficit Disorder, G5b. The Challenges Inventory™, G5d. Intentional Attending, H. Brain Based Coaching/Training Tagged with , , , , , , ,

10 Questions to Ask to find a GRRRRreat! ADD Doc

Friday, March 25, 2011 4 Comments

ADD* & Looking for a Doctor?

Ten great questions to ask in the initial interview

Cartoon of a Doctor in a white lab coat with clipboard, glasses. and doctor's bag

Most of us are desperate for help by the time we look for it. 

ADD affect combined with a shortage of time and money means we often approach the process as beggars at a banquet, accepting a crust of bread as eagerly as a balanced meal.

If you don’t want to have to “Return to GO” when you find out later that things aren’t working (leaving your $200 on the table with the first doctor!), take some time to think first about what you need, and to find out whether your needs will be met by the care provider you are considering.

—————–

SEE: ADD: What’s in a Name? for why I don’t use the “H” – even though you ADHD-ers are definitely included in the articles you will find here.

© Updated 2011, Madelyn Griffith-Haynie,CTP, CMC, MCC, SCAC-orig. on ADDCoach.com – 07/05/95

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Filed under A. Hopefully Helpful
, A1. The Attentional Spectrum, A1c. Dances with Diagnosis, A2. ADD Treatment, A2a Your ADD Treatment Team, A2a(1) Your ADD Doctor, F1. ADD Top Tens Tagged with , , , , ,

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