When I talk with anyone about the "diet" my child is on to manage her ADHD, the discussion often turns to the ease of using medication as opposed to the inconvenience of nutrition. I once thought that meds were the easy way out myself, but I have learned differently.
Make no mistake, the Feingold Program is inconvenient. In order to avoid the synthetic additives that trigger exaggerated ADHD symptoms, we are limited in the brands and flavors of processed foods we can feed our child. Only certain brands are considered acceptable for products like potato chips, popcorn, pretzels, lemonade, yogurt, soy milk, cold cereals, and sliced bread to name a few food items. Convenience foods? Unless you shop at Whole Foods Market regularly, forget it. You can make many favorite foods from scratch, but it takes a great deal of creativity, ingenuity, and discipline to come up with easy meals that everyone likes. Additionally, salicylates, which occur naturally in many foods, can have an ill effect of those with ADHD, so in the beginning, we had to avoid many healthy favorites such as apples, oranges, tomatoes, peaches, and all berries.
The Feingold Program, like any nutrition program, is a lifestyle choice. My husband packs my daughter's school lunches. We import food to every birthday party and every other special occasion. We've all but given up fast food, with the exception of those establishments that the Feingold Association's Restaurant Guide recommends.
Like most lifestyle choices, this one has turned out to be healthier for the entire family. We know that our daughter can eat healthier and control her ADHD symptoms with nutrition, and it is a solution that will last her a lifetime. Still, the inconveniences are weighed against the ease of taking a pill or wearing a patch, aren't they?
Having explored the medication solution, we have discovered that it is anything but easy. Never mind that the process involves experimenting with dangerous chemicals with alarming and sometimes life-threatening side-effects. The first step on the path of treating ADHD with medication involves finding the right medication for your child. You can try one, and if it doesn't work, you can try another.
With fast-acting meds, you can start right away and stop right away, but it takes a few weeks at the very least to determine whether the medication is working properly. On the other hand, the fast-acting meds tend to wear out by dinner time, leaving you with a Jekyll and Hyde child to deal with. The teachers get Dr. Jekyll and the parents get Mr. Hyde. This does not help create a happy family life.
With the slower-acting medications, you must start with an extremely low dose and gradually increase it over time. It can take a few weeks to reach the appropriate dose, and then a month to see any result. If the medication is not effective, you must slowly reduce the dosage in order to stop the medication. Meanwhile, the clock is ticking, the calendar pages are turning, and once you find the right medication, you will likely have to start the process all over again as your child grows and changes.
For our child, it has taken us eight months to figure out that neither medication we tried was effective. During this time, we stubbornly stuck to the nutrition solution because we knew that whatever result came from the experiment, nutrition was the only long-term solution. It has also proven so far to the be the only easy way out.
Eventually we may find a medication that controls our child's ADHD symptoms. If we get lucky, that medication will contain none of the offending ingredients that send her over the edge. And if she's lucky she will only be taking them for a year or two. No matter what happens, at least we will eat well.
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