I know a boy who was on several ADHD drugs for many years and he told me that he wished he had never taken them. This boy then went off the drugs because he was getting pretty bad migraines and nervous tics. He still had some of the ADHD classic symptoms such as hyperactivity and impulsiveness and felt that he had got himself back. But the ADHD medication side effects had robbed him of a happy adolescence.

Look at the warning labels on any of the well known ADHD drugs such as Adderall, Cylert, Ritalin and Vyvanse and you are most likely to be confronted with warnings about cardiac arrest, psychotic events, psychiatric problems and so on. There may be other warnings on the information sheet that might include loss of appetite, restlessness, irritability, mood swings, insomnia and hallucinations. It is true that any medication is going to have a long list of side effects but the ones caused by ADHD medications seem to be more alarming than most, especially as we are dealing with children’s brains that are developing and will go on developing until they are about 25!

The short term side effects of ADHD medication are listed but what about the long term effects? There is very little data about this which is quite alarming. We know from the warning boxes on these medicines that there could be long term effects on the developing brain but that is as far they go. They will not reveal what these effects are which I find appalling. Just think that Ritalin has been on the market for over forty years and we still do not know what the long term effects are !

Many parents are not really concerned though about ADHD medication side effects and they want a quiet life. They dedicate all their attention to trying to minimize the side effects of these drugs at home instead of thinking of the real behavior problems which the drugs are not going to resolve anyway! They are in for a rude awakening. They make sure that the tablets are given with food so that stomach aches and headaches can be avoided. They have to jump all sorts of hoops to make sure that healthy snacks are provided because of the side effects on appetite. Then they have to invent routines for going to bed to get over the awful insomnia problem. It just goes on and on !

Now if parents were to consider (without any bias) a homeopathic remedy for ADHD, they would learn quite a few things which they did not know about. The effects of these remedies , if combined with ADHD behavioral therapy, are just as effective as ADHD meds and there are no side effects and the health risks are non-existent. Choosing a remedy like this saves you loads of time which you can spend with your child and you need never worry about the awful side effects of ADHD medications which are so alarming.

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