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Areas › Focus, starting, and ADHD › Medication and how it works
Where parents disagreed about it, the disagreement was frequently about control and about each other. A child in the middle of that absorbs a position long before they are able to weigh it. Setting the story down does not decide anything either way. It lets you make the decision now, on the evidence and on your own life, instead of finishing somebody else's argument.
This explains how treatments work. Never start, stop or change a medication because of something you read here.
'Consult with them about matters, then, when you have decided on a course of action, put your trust in God' (Quran 3:159). Taking counsel, deciding, and then letting it rest is a better sequence than inheriting a decision from someone else.
آل عمران
فَبِمَا رَحۡمَةࣲ مِّنَ ٱللَّهِ لِنتَ لَهُمۡۖ وَلَوۡ كُنتَ فَظًّا غَلِيظَ ٱلۡقَلۡبِ لَٱنفَضُّواْ مِنۡ حَوۡلِكَۖ فَٱعۡفُ عَنۡهُمۡ وَٱسۡتَغۡفِرۡ لَهُمۡ وَشَاوِرۡهُمۡ فِي ٱلۡأَمۡرِۖ فَإِذَا عَزَمۡتَ فَتَوَكَّلۡ عَلَى ٱللَّهِۚ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ يُحِبُّ ٱلۡمُتَوَكِّلِينَ
By an act of mercy from God, you [Prophet] were gentle in your dealings with them- had you been harsh, or hard-hearted, they would have dispersed and left you- so pardon them and ask forgiveness for them. Consult with them about matters, then, when you have decided on a course of action, put your trust in God: God loves those who put their trust in Him
Qur’an 3:159read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
A study of why young people stop taking ADHD medication found the reasons clustered around side effects, changing need and family attitudes, that last one meaning stopping is not always a clinical decision. It describes discontinuation at the time rather than adults revisiting the question years later. It does establish that family feeling is one of the forces at work, which is what makes the question worth asking.
Wong IC, Asherson P, Bilbow A, Clifford S, Coghill D, DeSoysa R, Hollis C, McCarthy S, Murray M, Planner C, Potts L, Sayal K, Taylor E. (2009). Cessation of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder drugs in the young (CADDY)--a pharmacoepidemiological and qualitative study.. Health technology assessment (Winchester, England) doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
A position picked up inside a family conflict tends to get defended rather than examined.
Some substances go further than slowing the clean up. They get the pump to run backwards and empty the cell out all at once, which is most of what separates a prescribed stimulant from a drug taken for a high.
Much of the progress in these medicines over the past twenty years has been in how the drug is delivered rather than in new molecules. So if one version did not suit you, another form of the same drug can still be worth a try.
When a dose wears off, things can feel worse than they ever did untreated. A good deal of that is contrast rather than the medicine leaving a debt behind.