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Areas › Focus, starting, and ADHD › Treatment and medication
Managed sounds like a disappointment until you look at what it means in practice: treatment that fits your life now, adjusted when the life changes, kept going in the seasons when it is needed. Plenty of good things work that way. The reason the word cure matters so much is not that hoping is wrong, it is that the word appears reliably in the places where the selling has got ahead of the evidence.
This explains how treatments work. Never start, stop or change a medication because of something you read here.
God does not burden any soul with more than it can bear (Quran 2:286). A condition that stays with you is not, by that measure, more than you can carry.
البقرة
لَا يُكَلِّفُ ٱللَّهُ نَفۡسًا إِلَّا وُسۡعَهَاۚ لَهَا مَا كَسَبَتۡ وَعَلَيۡهَا مَا ٱكۡتَسَبَتۡۗ رَبَّنَا لَا تُؤَاخِذۡنَآ إِن نَّسِينَآ أَوۡ أَخۡطَأۡنَاۚ رَبَّنَا وَلَا تَحۡمِلۡ عَلَيۡنَآ إِصۡرࣰ ا كَمَا حَمَلۡتَهُۥ عَلَى ٱلَّذِينَ مِن قَبۡلِنَاۚ رَبَّنَا وَلَا تُحَمِّلۡنَا مَا لَا طَاقَةَ لَنَا بِهِۦۖ وَٱعۡفُ عَنَّا وَٱغۡفِرۡ لَنَا وَٱرۡحَمۡنَآۚ أَنتَ مَوۡلَىٰنَا فَٱنصُرۡنَا عَلَى ٱلۡقَوۡمِ ٱلۡكَٰفِرِينَ
God does not burden any soul with more than it can bear: each gains whatever good it has done, and suffers its bad- ‘ Lord, do not take us to task if we forget or make mistakes. Lord, do not burden us as You burdened those before us. Lord, do not burden us with more than we have strength to bear. Pardon us, forgive us, and have mercy on us. You are our Protector, so help us against the disbelievers.’
Qur’an 2:286read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
A fifty two week open label study followed adults on extended release methylphenidate who had already completed a shorter placebo controlled trial, to address how well benefit is maintained over time. Studies like that exist because the useful question here is about the long run rather than about a finish. Being open label, with everyone knowing what they were taking, it carries less weight than the controlled trial that came before it.
Buitelaar JK, Trott GE, Hofecker M, Waechter S, Berwaerts J, Dejonkheere J, Schäuble B. (2012). Long-term efficacy and safety outcomes with OROS-MPH in adults with ADHD.. The international journal of neuropsychopharmacology doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
A condition that stays is worked with over time, so treatment is an arrangement you keep adjusting rather than an event.
When a child with ADHD and a parent get stuck in daily rows, the rows themselves start doing damage. Getting the ADHD properly managed early takes some heat out of those exchanges before defiance settles in as a habit.
Rather than memorising which treatments to avoid, keep a few questions you can put to any of them. New products arrive faster than anyone can keep a list.
Magnetic stimulation of the brain has been tried for ADHD and has not yet shown anything. The studies are small, often single cases, and not built in a way that could give a trustworthy answer.