“Research Shows How Ritalin Affects Brains of Kids With ADHD: Medication activates areas associated with the disorder, scans show”

The cerebellum is largely responsible for coordinating the unconscious aspects of proprioception. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Article Link

This May 31, 2013 article on the Health Day Consumer News website talks about recent findings that show Ritalin affects the parts of the brain in kids with ADHD that have been long suspected as the areas where deficiencies have been long thought to be.

Related articles

• Ritalin: Affects Brain of Children (Attention-Deficit-Hperactivity Disorder) (childreninprison.wordpress.com)
• How Ritalin Affects Brains of Kids With ADHD (webmd.com)
• Research Shows How Ritalin Affects Brains of Kids With ADHD (news.health.com)
• Study: ADHD medicines do not increase risk of substance abuse (myfox8.com)
• ADHD stimulant medications do not increase substance abuse risk, study claims (cbsnews.com)

“Study: Younger patients more likely to skip medications”

Article Link

This April 9, 2013 article on the USA Today website talks about a recent study on medication compliance compared between patients over the age of 65 and those under 65 it also looked at the difference between private insurance and those on Medicare and Medicaid.  the findings are interesting yet not overly surprising when I look responses I’ve heard to medication in general when talking to others. The article mentioned an estimated cost to Medicare when they compared the dollars spent on someone taking medication versus someone who didn’t take the medication as prescribed, which I found interesting as well.

“Balancing Work, Medication And Mental Illness”

Article Link (Page also has a link to an audio broadcast of the NPR program that Elyn Saks was interviewed on)

This January 30, 2013 article on the NPR website talks about Elyn Saks and discusses her views about how mental illness can be both disabling and at the same time create a sort of super thinking.  She explains that some had told her to maybe consider working as a cashier for a couple of years and then decide if she wanted to pursue something else, but Saks found that for her, work offers a way for her to harness her brain and give her a bit of a break from her delusional thinking.

“Grapefruit Linked to Medication Overdoses”

This image was selected as a picture of the week on the Farsi Wikipedia for the 22nd week, 2011. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

 

 

Video Link

 

This video published on Nov 26, 2012 by ABCNews, talks about the dangers of mixing grapefruit with medications.  For me, this is old news, because I actually experienced a situation that could have been fatal had I not gotten medical treatment.  This happened to me about 6 years ago, and it caused a very serious serotonin overload, so I know first hand it isn’t anything to mess around with.  My advice is that if you are on medication simply avoid eating grapefruit altogether, but if you do eat it and start noticing unusual symptoms/problems, go to the emergency room.

 

Here’s some other resources for more information about the interaction between grapefruit and some medications.

 

• Mayo Clinic – http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/food-and-nutrition/AN00413
• Rx List (Grapefruit information includes a list of many meds that can be effected by grapefruit)  – http://www.rxlist.com/grapefruit/supplements.htm

 

 

 

 

Related articles

 

• Grapefruit causes dangerous interactions with Medication (drysdaleosteopathy.wordpress.com)
• Grapefruit, medicine interaction warning (abc15.com)
• Grapefruit, Medicine Interaction Warning Expanded (abcnews.go.com)
• WARNING: Grapefruit reacts with expanding list of drugs – NEWS.com.au (news.com.au)
• Researchers warn mixing grapefruit with drugs can kill you (rawstory.com)
• Grapefruit and pills mix warning (bbc.co.uk)
• Warning over risk of grapefruit clash with prescriptions (independent.co.uk)

 

“Prescription drug-opposed therapists plan to meet Friday”

Article Link

 

This November 2, 2012 article on the Philly.com website talks about a meeting to discuss ways to treat people with mental illness without medication.  It’s an interesting article, but my concern is that there are people who truly need medications who may read this and stop taking them.  My view of medication and mental illness is that medication is a tool to aid in recovery that needs to be used in conjunction with other forms of treatment, and not something that should be viewed as n end all solution to mental illness.

 

I base this opinion on my own personal experiences, and seeing first hand how just taking pills doesn’t fix my problems, but when I combine them with things like exercise, getting the right amount of sleep, and utilizing other tools such as writing, among other things, medication can be useful in helping me to remain stable.

 

“Antipsychotics Prescribed To Treat ADHD In More Children And Teens, New Study Finds”

 

Article Link

 

This August 9, 2012 article on the Huffington Post website talks about recent

English: Symptoms of ADHD described by the literature (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

studies indicating a rise in the prescribing of Anti-psychotic medication to teens and children with ADHD then had been seen in earlier years.  It seems like the researchers aren’t clear about why there has been an increase, but they suggest it may have something to do with an increase in the number of meds available or that more kids are being diagnosed with ADHD or Autism Spectrum disorder then what we have seen before.  I’m not real sure what to think, other than it is an interesting article, but I don’t know enough to form an educated opinion on the subject.

 

Related articles

 

• Antipsychotic Prescriptions in Children Have Skyrocketed (recoverynetworktoronto.wordpress.com)
• Antipsychotics for ADHD Skyrocket (madinamerica.com)
• Antipsychotic Prescriptions in Children Have Skyrocketed: Study (healthland.time.com)
• More Kids Taking Antipsychotics for ADHD: Study (dprogram.net)
• 1 in 3 youth psychiatric visits results in an antipsychotic drug prescription (medcitynews.com)

“Heat and medication can be a prescription for problems”

 

Article Link

This July 17, 2012 article found on Philly.com talks about how heat waves can affect folks who take medications.  If you know someone who takes medication, consider checking on them to make sure they are OK and that the heat isn’t having a dangerous effect on them.  This article explains some of the symptoms people may experience as a result of hot weather.

Related articles

• Heat and medication warning (cbc.ca)
• Asthma, allergies made worse by heat (kshb.com)