Wow, this was a GREAT thread. Excellent arguments on both sides. I can see that there are some highly intelligent folks around here!

I do not have ADHD myself, but I am looking into the possibility that my 4 year old son does. He currently has a dx of mood disorder NOS/anxiety/ODD. We started him this week on Trileptal, an anticonvulsant med, used off-label to treat mood disorder/bipolar. If you had told me 2 years ago that I would have made this decision, I would have told you you were nuts. But when your 4 year old son goes into violent rages and tries to hurt anyone/anything in his path, and threatens his teacher that he's going to get a knife and stab her in the heart, well, your outlook tends to change a bit. To medicate or not was the hardest decision I've ever faced, but I had tried everything else and nothing was working. I hope I've made the right choice, and don't end up later regretting it.

I have a question for those of you with ADHD. What were you like as a young child? Did you have rage attacks and violent behavior? His rage attacks seem to result from frustration and being told no. I'm doing my own research by asking adults with ADHD/Bipolar/Asperger's, etc what they were like as children, since these illnesses can present differently at different ages.

Thanks for any input you can give,
Jen

Quote from Rhiannon163:

Wow, this was a GREAT thread. Excellent arguments on both sides. I can see that there are some highly intelligent folks around here!

I do not have ADHD myself, but I am looking into the possibility that my 4 year old son does. He currently has a dx of mood disorder NOS/anxiety/ODD. We started him this week on Trileptal, an anticonvulsant med, used off-label to treat mood disorder/bipolar. If you had told me 2 years ago that I would have made this decision, I would have told you you were nuts. But when your 4 year old son goes into violent rages and tries to hurt anyone/anything in his path, and threatens his teacher that he's going to get a knife and stab her in the heart, well, your outlook tends to change a bit. To medicate or not was the hardest decision I've ever faced, but I had tried everything else and nothing was working. I hope I've made the right choice, and don't end up later regretting it.

I have a question for those of you with ADHD. What were you like as a young child? Did you have rage attacks and violent behavior? His rage attacks seem to result from frustration and being told no. I'm doing my own research by asking adults with ADHD/Bipolar/Asperger's, etc what they were like as children, since these illnesses can present differently at different ages.

Thanks for any input you can give,
Jen

My nephew ADHD diagnoised never had rage but Adderall did make him more aggressive/definant when he was on it. He's on nothing now.

We had a violent type neighboor kid like that who wasn't ADHD so I'm thinking he outgrew it or maybe when he was able to override his mothers' very strict diet techniques(she was hypoglycemic and decided the whole family had to measure food and no sugar whatsoever) when he turned into a teen and was able to get ahold of different foods, that his increase in food and some sugar did make him feel better or less violent, because he is fine now.