My six year old son has today been diagnosed with adhd. We now have the touch choice wether to medicate or not. Opinions please and can we control with food instead
My six year old son has today been diagnosed with adhd. We now have the touch choice wether to medicate or not. Opinions please and can we control with food instead
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3 Replies
The diet thing has been overblown. Most people try the diet to avoid the medication but end up on the medication anyway. Honestly we were trying diet modifications prior to diagnosis.
Ive had adults say to me that it's like there brain goes to fast. Even when they are trying really hard to focus they can't.
If you are going to do diet, set a time limit on it. Say 6 months, if nothing has changed in that time it's medication.
The medication in my experience was a game changer. He wasn't a zombie, he could just think and concentrate. We still needed to parent him and provide supports but because his brain wasn't going so fast he could learn from those supports and parenting. He went from being the naughty to kid to people being able to see his good qualities. It helped his self esteem.
As a dietitian I can tell you there is very limited evidence linking diet to behaviour in ADHD.
The diet changes helped for my brother. He still had to go on medication for his ADHD because it was only a small improvement, but my mum noticed the change when she cut out sugar and added colours/flavours.
The sugar, colours or flavours always set him off (as they do with most children) so cleaning his diet helped.
My sons on a clean diet because the sugar and additives make his ADHD worse, too.
Its mostly a "consuming this makes me extremely hyperactive and therefore irritable when I'm coming down" thing, but it was worse than normal because of the ADHD. So it's not an improvement by cleaning the diet up, moreas a preventative of making it worse by allowing these foods.
I can also tell you that the medication was absolutely amazing at helping my brother, and turned him into a completely different child, but didn't help with my husband at all when he took it.
Its something that you need to discuss with a pediatrician and decide if its worth trialling out.