Wednesday, April 11, 2007

Not the road less traveled

Ever since this mind boggling realization that ADD was real and it was not my son's fault but a real malady, I have been on the search for a cure. I want my son to live a long and happy life free of any disability that would diminish his enjoyment of this gift we call life. We have seen many doctors, counselors, psychiatrists, therapists, educational specialists, neurologists, neuropsychologists, read books, gone to seminars, joined CHADD and gone to meetings, and even started a parents help group for the local area not served by CHADD, gone to AA and alanon meetings to try to stem a natural desire to self medicate and control the symptoms that the doctors are failing to alieve. I even came up with some cute T-shirts designed to show my son it was okay to have ADD and start accepting it rather that fight it and deny it because the books and tapes available to do this just were not getting the message accross. It is through more than a decade of this windy often rocky road that I have come to beleive some key fundamental things regarding ADD. ADD is an umbrella term that encompasses many different maladies, and to top it off, the list of comorbid diseases that often accompany ADD are enough to confuse all but the most knowledgable and highly specialized doctors around. In some uncomplicated cases people respond quite well to medicines and psychotherapy. Some just need a diet change or allergies addressed properly. For more difficult cases brain scans seem to be the only hope for an effective solution to the various aggrevious symptoms. In the future we will not so much address these problems as ADD som much as we will more specifically diagnose the problems to various specific parts of the brain through brain scans. This is fast becoming a more effective solution for such a confusing problem. This personally has been the most miraculous breakthrough in our entire ordeal. Finally we got answers to our most perplexing dilemmas. The tools are now becoming available and the experts in the field are earning more credibility from the medical community all the time. (no small feat at that!) Soon even the medical insurance companies will cover these proceedures and we all will feel like it has become commonplace to deal with mental infirmities just like we deal with the physical ones, which by the way we are far from conquering. Psychology is exiting the stone age, and we are now looking at the organ involved and understanding so much more. I am glad this was available for my son.

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