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Children On Drugs

neitherday
Date and Time  - Dec. 7th, 2005, 05:55 pm

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Child psychiatry researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have identified a small group of preschoolers who appear to suffer from bipolar disorder, also known as manic-depressive illness. The findings, presented this fall at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, highlight symptoms that distinguish bipolar disorder from other mental health problems in very young children.

Diagnosing bipolar disorder in children is difficult because the manic phase of the illness can be confused with the more common attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The confusion arises because mania and ADHD both involve hyperactivity, irritability and distractibility. These issues may be even more difficult in young children who display some of these behaviors and emotions normally. However, Joan Luby, M.D., an associate professor of child psychiatry, found mania symptoms, as defined by psychiatry's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-IV), did not occur in healthy preschoolers and that three main symptoms distinguished bipolar disorder from ADHD in preschoolers: elation, grandiosity and hypersexuality.

...

Researchers are comparing how well different medications and medication combinations work in making bipolar children between the ages of 6 and 15 feel better. Qualified participants are randomly selected to receive either lithium, a drug commonly prescribed for adults with bipolar disorder; valproate, an anticonvulsant drug that has been related to improvement of manic symptoms in a few smaller studies; or risperidone, an antipsychotic medication used in adults with schizophrenia that also is being tested in children with autism.

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Now that they've gotten a couple drugs through the door, they're going throw the lot them of them down little kids' throats. I don't know how anyone could not see that there is something inherently wrong with giving kindergarteners antipsychotics! I'm sure having tardive dyskinesia in middle school will help their mental and emotional wellbeing immensely. The people doing this are monsters. They have no soul, at least none that I recognise. It doesn't take a doctorate to figure out that the first thing you do with a preschooler that displays "hypersexuality" should not be to drug them into submission. These kids can't say no, someone has to stand up for them! This can't continue. What the fuck is wrong with people!

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Comments:
[User Picture]
From:[info]cvisors
Date:December 7th, 2005 - 11:48 pm
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jesus christ, that is awful.. kids that young shouldn't be on anti psycotic meds, or any psycoactive medications at that age.

I don't know, it looks like society now wants a quick fix for badly behaved children. When I was diagnosed with ADHD, a long long time ago, it took ages.. for examples I was connected to an eeg for days. and as a 6 or 7 year old that was horrid.

But then that was with the NHS at its best, they never went for quick fixes.. and to be honest, was was reccomended for me, was ritalin for six months only, and then fixes to diet (which no one thinks of theses days) which I carry on to this day..

But this is fucking insane...

-Ivy
[User Picture]
From:[info]obvious
Date:December 7th, 2005 - 11:49 pm
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GRR.

Bipolar meds suck like there's no tomorrow. It's next to impossible to find the perfect combo of drugs that will work in a bipolar adult, I can't imagine what it must be like in children.

I'm dismayed.
[User Picture]
From:[info]lilliah
Date:December 8th, 2005 - 12:00 am
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I find the War on Drugs to be the most ridiculous thing in the world when there's no more persistent drug peddlers in the world than the U.S. Government and the doctors that benefit from the spoils of the drug conglomerates.

These are kids. Kids are not even fully mentally developed. People are just trying to find a way to shirk the responsibility of dealing with a "difficult" child or hell, ways to subdue their children early on.

Gag me. Sometimes, I want to have a child just to make sure that one of them out there doesn't get screwed by the system as badly as the rest.

I hope I came across coherently, my thoughts are rather enraged.
[User Picture]
From:[info]sammka
Date:December 8th, 2005 - 04:23 am
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I hate that our legal system gives kids virtually NO autonomy even over their own bodies and brains. Fuck.