An input into the ADHD debate, from one of those who is part of the problem. (Tl; dr at the bottom).

Sour bump Incoming.

Adhd. It fills a lot for the time being. We have ~ 130000 Danes on ADHD medicine! There is a triple of 14 years! A professor is worried!! Oh no though! Alarm! Despite my sarcasm, both articles are really okay. If you read them thoroughly, and not just skimming or reading the headline …

Part 1. I agree, but …

Professor Julie Nordgaard has been part of the media, including in the above articles, and I just want to make something firm. I don’t know more than her. I agree with her … I think. I think she’s right in most she says. Yet I feel like a patient, put in a bad light of her statements, possibly without her wanting to. The increase in diagnoses is driven by adults, not children. Whether that is the following (DR’s article):

Julie Nordgaard, however, does not believe that whole The large recovery in the curve alone can be explained by the fact that you now discover all the people who have previously struggled with the symptoms without help.

"There has been an underdiagnosis in the pastBut I think that can’t explain that the whole picture. There are also evidence that there has been an overdiagnosis at the same time"she says.

My highlight. So, Nordgaard recognizes that part of the increase is probably due to under -diagnosis. I think it is worthwhile to make a mark in. What about the rest? Part of the picturei unknown scopeis due perhaps Overdiagnosis. It is frankly slavish that no indication of the scope of the problem is not given, or elaborate on what signs of overdiagnosis are. But they are there! The reader is almost invited to fill the gaps himself, and guess how many are misdiagnosed (2%? 10%? 50%?), Although we know nothing.

She also states:

"There are many people who are very much affected by their ADHD and who benefit from the medicine. That’s not the problem. The problem is that we see such a large increase in the number of people with an ADHD diagnosis and medication consumption that we cannot explain"she says.

"The great demands that we as a society make can give the experience that there is something fundamentally wrong with one’s self if one cannot live up to them in one way or another"she says.

I agree. There -is – much we don’t know and the climb must come from somewhere. Rising demands from society are actually an excellent bid! Svend Brinkmann here presents how it might be connected.

But… ADHD is a disability. It is not contradictory that the degree of disability (and thus the number of people on medicine) depends on the environment. And yet Nordgaard makes the community’s possible influence sound like a misdiagnosed self -esteem problem.

I feel a little spoken down to.

Part 2. Breaking News: Medications are drugs

ADHD medicine is psychoactive drugs. It stimulates the brain (so does coffee and alcohol), and it is reminiscent of amphetamine. And that’s a problem, says Professor Nordgaard. From TV2’s article:

"So it is a huge problem that so many people in such a short time get an amphetamine -like substance that affects the brain at risk of side effects"she says to Politiken.

Huge problem! Do you hear? That’s a huge problem!

… sigh. 14 years is not a short time. For many of us it has been tiring long time.

Of the side effects Nordgaard mentions, there is also a risk of long -term side effects. They have not been examined enough, obviously, and therefore it is dangerous that so many are on the drugs. Okay, fair enough. It would not be the first time that long -term side effects have not been investigated enough. See smoking, lead zine, etc.

But … e.g. Methylphenidat is from 1944. And long -term side effects are problematic Regardless Whether the figure is 10,000 or 130,000. Either the drugs are safe enough or they are not. If that’s her concern, then that concern was real 14 years ago.

Well, but she wants more research on the subject – and maybe a look at whether we can change society so people like I don’t have to take drugs to work.

That’s an excellent suggestion! Well roar, Professor Nordgaard!

But she also just mentions that it is a huge problem. Despite the fact that we know nothing is a huge problem. And that’s the framing I’m tired of. Maybe it’s the journalists’ fault, and not Nordgaards, but how many read articles like these and get the context with? When ordinary people read "Huge problem" and "300% increase" and "Possibility of overdiagnosis" In turn, the “logical” conclusion is that after all "We put healthy people on drugs, 50% of diagnoses are wrong, aaaaaah".

Right must be right, that’s not what Julie Nordgaard says, but you could easily draw that conclusion if you read her statements too quickly. Or If you are called Mette Frederiksen and would like to save money on medication supplements. It would really dress Nordgaard (and for that matter DR and TV2) to be a little less alarmist.

Part 3. Is the overdiagnosis of space with us now?

It is true that misdiagnosis happens and diagnoses are worth looking for in the seams. Even if you have ADHD it may well be that you can live well under right conditions – maybe even without diagnosis. It would be fatter if life wasn’t so hard that 130000 people have to be sickened and on medicine to live.

Nevertheless, I am (as a regular layman) skeptical of overdiagnosing. Image Wikipedia depends on the prevalence of ADHD in people under 18 markedly of diagnostic criteria, but fluctuates between 2% to 6-7% of the population in most countries. ADHD is lifelong, so one has to assume that the number for adults is comparable.

So after the rampant increase, are we well above both of those numbers? Well… also from DR’s article:

According to Per Hove Thomsen, professor of child and adolescent psychiatry at Aarhus University, it still is "when" 2.1 percent of the adult population receiving ADHD medicine. However, he believes that there is also reason to investigate the background of the increase.

"Maybe we are too fast, where you should instead see if there are other reasons. Whether one could organize one’s life, work or family life in a more appropriate way so that one does not need the medicine to be able to live and be to"he says to Politiken.

2.1% of the population. That number could then triple again, and we would still be within the aforementioned framework. Does it really imagine overdiagnosis? Try to compare the two professors’ announcements! “Maybe we are too fast” to “it is a huge problem”. Also notice that Professor Thomsen is focusing on over -medication and not Overdiagnosis. Overuse of one particular treatment is not the same as overdiagnosis. Of course, it is quite one -eyed that the diagnosis is almost only made if you think pills are necessary, but we can not do this. We need treatment and we take the one we can get.

Part 4. If you don’t want us on drugs, give us alternatives!

I will now quote pretty much the whole part of the DR article where Camilla Ganzhorn, director of the ADHD Association, says. I think it’s spot-on.

In the ADHD Association, director Camilla Ganzhorn welcomes it if psychiatrists and experts in "The professional space" will discuss how to print medicine. But she is upset if the public debate – again – is about whether there are too many on ADHD medicine.

"It worries me most that this debate will continue to take place in public space. For those who are all about actually getting a little sore stomach"she says.

She says that many who get the ADHD diagnosis as adults have already had a difficult life with many defeats and a weekday where they feel they "hang in with the outermost of the nails".

"They feel in advance wrong and "Now it is also wrong to have this diagnosis that I have and who have finally helped me""says Camilla Ganzhorn.

"Those who have been diagnosed do not feel "for many". They feel they are being seen for the first time, she says."

The problem isshe means that a psychiatric diagnosis and A prescription for medicine is largely the only help that society offers ADHD affected.

My raising. Of.

Understand me right. It is interesting why the climb has happened. Increased focus on ADHD, maybe, but apparently also Increased needs. It allows Julie Nordgaard, Camilla Ganzhorn and Svend Brinkmann to agree. Society makes demands that people with ADHD symptoms cannot fulfill without help. And as Brinkmann says, they may well have changed, perhaps the similar increase in diagnoses.

Glings in the press about “overdiagnosis”, right or not, make it sound as if the increased need is not found. And it does. We have an increasing number of adult people who not thrive for comparable reasons, and can be helped in the same way. Most often, they have been dissolved for a long time and are on the verge of collapse. The modern world is stressful, especially for people like me. We need help and we are many. It’s no longer.

Recepts are basically the only thing the community offers. If I had the means to hire a lifecoach I might have done it, but I haven’t. So medicine.

It may well be that if one made society easier to live in, medication consumption, and maybe even diagnosis, would fall. I have to be the first to shout cheers when my personality is normalized. But…

TL; Dr:

In until more research is done in the subject and we no longer talk about professor’s guessesthen, can’t we help insinuate across Denmark’s largest transmitting surfaces that sick people are not sick?

It would be nice. I’m hard enough in advance.

Edit: Lots of formatting.