I just checked the V8 site, and printed myself off a coupon to save $1 on it. I gotta find something to get DGS to do his work!!
Our psychiatrist says they no longer differentiate ADD and ADHD. He says ADD doesn't exist as a diagnosis anymore.
I bit the bullet yesterday. My son had an appt just to check up for his meds. I asked if they would fit my daughter in and they said, Yes. Who can figure that one out. So she started medication yesterday. It will take some time to find it if it works. Please pray for her and taking it. She hates having to take anything. I told her to thank God that he has blessed us with medication. I would much rather that she didn't have to take it but like I said to the Dr. I can't keep getting upset then resulting into yelling. Thats not fair either. So here we go.
I am ADD and had trouble in school with attention, disruption the works. Was not a trouble maker, just chattered, and lost focus that sort of thing. I could almost always listen and remember what was said no matter what. I had great recall and learned quickly. This help me overcome. Anyway I discovered something accidently while stuggling in college. I was up late many nights trying to read, or write papers or the like. At some point I had put a CD_ROm in my computer. That was big new deal at the time costing about 3 hundred dollars for the cd rom, speakers and nice sound card. I had purchased a couple of music CD's to play in it. The novelty of having a stereo system in the computer was very cool and I played it every chance when studying in the room with the computer. I only had a couple of disks and after a while I had them memorized. I noticed at some point that certain nights I was able to stay awake, a bit more focused and get way more done. Other nights it was back to the same old drill. I figured out that if I played a CD of music that I knew very well, and did so softly, that this music would sort of occupy what I call a "distraction circuit" in my brain. It served kinda like a white noise that helped me to filter out other noices also. At the age that your children are, I would also let them chew gum while doing school. If they are competent gum chewers, this will possibly occupy another distraction channel. Listening to radio, or tv did not work the same for me as there is new stimulus that takes attention. They were not out at the time, but those large balls that some people sit on for exersice while working would have been great. I could have sat on that and used a physical channel with out leaning back in the chair and rocking on the back legs, or some equally bad habit. The constant need to rebalance when sitting on those balls, works for restlessness. Diet: reducing sugar altogether did not seem to help. What does make a difference for me is eating tree nuts, fish and taking a b-complex vitamin. Eating fish makes a big difference for me. A bit lower carb diet and eating eggs also seems benificial. Eating a diet similar to a Type II diabetic diet wherein I eat more smaller meals and space the carbs out during the day is the best thing I can do. I don't altogether give up anything, but space things out and balance carbs with protien and fats. This would look like: Small breakfast, mid morning snack, lunch, after noon snak, dinner. By spreading the carbs out and not over carbing at any one meal, you avoid the sugar highs and lows rollercoaster ride. It is very hard to concentrate for example about 90 minutes after eating a primarily carb only breakfast like cereal and milk, or juice and toast. The unbalanced carbs cause a dump of insulin, that is followed by a low sugar period, that may or not be corrected by the liver dumping glucose in the blood stream.
I did not know that Fusion had caffienne. That explains alot. I went to a church funtion in a state of needing a caffienne hit. We had v8 Fusion as a refreshment and I remembering feeling surprisingly refreshed. Hmmm. I also have a picky eater that will drink anything that has caffienne as if it were forbidden fruit. We monitor the kids intake pretty close. Cant wait to tell her she cannot have a drink of carrot juice blend becasue it has too much caffienne. LOL
The problem with my dd is she doesn't even get through a math problem without loosing focus. She eats extremely well fish, nuts etc. she isn't a sugar hog as much as a salt. I find my ADHD kid is the sugar hog. She could careless
The regular V-8 Fusion doesn't. This is a relatively new line in the Fusion group that's called V-8 Fusion Energy. The Energy line has the caffeine in it.
Here is what I did in times like that. Fortunately we did not stay there super long each time. I had the student tell me what the next step was and I did the arithmetic. We would discuss the mathmatics this way and the stress of getting the answer was taken away. It was an opportunity to teach some of the lanquage of math also. What is the problem asking me to do? What is my first step? Okay I did that, now what is the next? What collumn should I put it in? I have more than one digit, what should I do? This number is too small what is next. I copied the problem on to paper, now what? Can I do this? or That? Okay I have (some) number,( sometimes wrong) does that seem right? WHat is this thing called? I would work a few like that, then give a small page of skills problems that were very basic, like single digit adding, or substraction. I would grade them despite them being super easy stuff. Other days I would do old flash cards we had used in the past to freshen up multiplication. I have a "War" card game where you have to add or substract to know the value of the card. And we would do that sometimes. You could make such a thing with index cards, just make them so the answers give 4 each of like 1-12
cherryridgeline I totally get your frustration!!! My DD hits all my buttons too. Hope the new meds help you both have less tension in the day. Maybe once the meds are working she'll be able to learn more coping strategies and handle things better. Then if she does come off them one day, she'll be better equiped to handle things. ADD/ADHD runs in my husband's family. They have all learned to overcome their worst symptoms and are all doing very well in their chosen professions. Praying for peace for both of you!!
Thank you..... That is my prayer as well. I don't think she will need it forever but for the time being - YES
