ADD Medication

ADD medication? Do we take it? Do we need it? Is it the best thing for me, or my child? What are the side effects of this? Is this the only way forward from here?

These are questions that I am asked every day as Head of HET (the Holistic Educational Therapy programme), so let’s look at what is going with you or someone in your life who has been diagnosed with ADD.

 After an ADD diagnosis then conventional medication is often available from a medically qualified practitioner. However, such medication is known to have many noticeable side effects. 

The first thing to consider with ADD is that symptoms may include, things like Short Attention Span or being easily distracted, restlessness and impulsivity, negativity and difficulty in staying focused and completing tasks. Someone else in the family may also show similar behavioural traits.

Very often the form of medication prescribed is called Ritalin, Concerta, Risperidone, Metadate-ER and amphetamine Dexedrine, Dexedrine Spansules, and Adderall and can have some very unpleasant side effects, which include:

Reduced appetite:  worsening behaviours, Headache:

Jittery feelings: Gastrointestinal upset:; Sleep difficulty;  Irritability;  Depression; Anxiety: Blood glucose changes; Increased blood pressure; Tics and repetitive type  movements: Psychosis or paranoia and Seizures.

It is understandable that many adult patients and parents of children who have ADD diagnosed are looking for alternatives. The truth is that no one really knows the underlying reason for the type of challenging ADD behaviours in children and adult individuals but having this condition can be damaging and prevent people from reaching their true potential in terms of learning, achieving and relationships.  

What is understtod now is that these problems are growing, with more and more families being affected and a whole generation of young people are affected. These children may be showing us the answers when we are prepared to  listen.

So are there any alternatives available other than the medication route?

A complementary support system known as Holistic Educational Therapy (HET) has been successfully introduced and evaluated as an outstanding success within the education system in the UK. This HET programme accepts that the underlying reasons why an individual may show ADD type symptoms are many and varied and the way they react in certain situations or circumstances is also unique to that person.  This therapy is completely natural and doesn’t conflict with any given medication but has proven to be consistently over 85% successful in achieving personal aims set with and for the individual concerned about how they see themselves, their own improvement, health and well being.

The approaches focus on YOU and provide a support programme, which is introduced at different stages:

Addressing emotional issues – behaviour is a barometer of the emotional state

Addressing Diet and nutritional issues. Through monitoring personal dietary intake – eliminating toxins, accessing pure food and introducing supplementation as a basic programme

Core – Issues. This aspect of the programme looks at releasing associative data, which is stored via the trauma on a cellular level

Addressing negative patterns – this process utilises Universal Frequency Therapy, this is an art based therapy based on nature pictures which has been developed in to a system of therapeutic support for children and adults.

Realigning sensory experience: this approach covers sensory therapies e.g. aromatherapy (using only the safe oils of lavender and chamomile). Peer massage, Hopi ear candles and colour therapy via the Rainbow Journey, which uses colour sensory equipment in an emotional context.

All of these stages are each looked at and assessed for its effectiveness. It has a proven highly successful impact on ADD sufferers.

The HET Programme was pioneered by Linda Porter ( BA., Cert.Ed.,MIPTI, MFSHG, BFRP,MACTA, Dip.Phy. ASSOCIAT reg.) Who is a specialist in behaviours / psychology / Education and complementary therapies. Based in the UK she is available to advise and support parents, patients, therapists and educational support units in complementary approaches alongside ADD medication.

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"Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of life's longing for itself. They come through you but not from you, And though they are with you yet they belong not to you. You may give them your love but not your thoughts, For they have their own thoughts. You may house their bodies but not their souls, For their souls belong in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams. You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you. For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday. You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth". -Kahlil Gibran

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