Doctors and pharmaceutical companies might make it seem as if ADHD medication is the only treatment option that effectively diminishes the symptoms of ADHD. What these experts probably won’t tell you is that ADHD is a disorder triggered by certain lifestyle and environmental factors, and it affects individuals in different ways. ADHD Health Center The same can be said for ADHD treatments – not every child with ADHD will respond to the same treatment option the same way. While medication may have brought benefits to some individuals, it will not do so for every person with ADHD. And what we need to be critical about is how long these benefits really last, and whether ADHD medications are really the best long-term treatment option. But before answering this question, we need to understand how medications work and why they are prescribed in the first place.
Western medicine views ADHD as a disorder resulting from an imbalance in key brain neurotransmitters, such as dopamine and norepinephrine. ADHD medications are legal stimulants that are thought to momentarily restore the balance among these two neurotransmitters. Once this balance is achieved, the symptoms reduce and the child begins to function like a “normal” child should, with less uncontrollable daydreaming, talking, or moving around as if driven by a motor.
However, ADHD is not merely caused by a deficiency in neurotransmitters; the biological explanation is but one tiny piece of the larger ADHD puzzle. ADHD emerges in an individual when certain lifestyle choices and environmental conditions interact with that person’s predisposition to the disorder. With that in mind, ADHD medication only addresses the chemical imbalance without doing anything to change the environmental factors triggering the disorder in the first place. And not only are medications unable to provide a holistic solution to the disorder; their effects only last a few hours. Children as young as six years old usually have to take pills at least two times a day! In other words, medications are an inadequate long-term solution for ADHD.
Children and adults with ADHD are better off without medication. In fact, a long-term study on the effects of ADHD medication called the MTA Study revealed that ADHD medications are, after three years, no more effective in treating the disorder than taking no medications! There is also a lot of research which shows that when used in the long term, the side effects of ADHD medications outweigh all of its benefits. Is it really worth taking a drug that may cause heart damage, stunted growth, and hallucinations really worth receiving little or no benefits in the long run?