chamomile at night (no caffeine). Before my evaluation I was at 4-5 cups
per day easy.
As for natural supplementation, I think I would have been more accurate
to say I'm just "balancing my diet". ;-) The pills I take each day are
omega-3 oil and a high quality, timed release multi-vitamin without
iron. Natural supplementation can be just as dangerous or have adverse
effects just as prescribed medication, I agree...but that's not my
approach and certainly not what I'm suggesting.
I've gotten the most profound results from a low carb diet...but I find
it difficult to maintain...especially when I kick in long hours at work.
I can't stress this enough...once you've got stabilized blood sugar
levels it's much easier to maintain focused for extended periods of
time...at least in my experience. The effects of blood sugar spikes (and
the lows afterwards) from my old "tak-out" diet used to send me into
la-la land. I pretty much resemble a vegetable at that point. :-)
I don't feel I'm I'm 100% yet...but I've gone from doing 30 - 45mins of
actual work a day to a solid 5-6 hours. Sure I still have days here and
there where I'm out to lunch, but doesn't everyone? Hehe
I have no doubt that if I were to start on Ritalin, I'd feel like a
million bucks...but ask a person who's just done a line of coke the same
question and you're likely to get a similar answer.
Cheers!
Stace
_____
From: Larry C. Lyons [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: September 27, 2003 2:26 PM
To: CF-Community
Subject: RE: Genetic?
>Hi Larry,
>
>
>
>I don't doubt that whatsoever...and I've been tempted many times myself
>to opt for the Ritalin path myself rather than struggle with natural
>supplementation. While I've seen improvement...there are times I feel
>like I'm right back where I started. My point is that I can't believe
>folks (including myself) need to rely on an artificial stimulant the
>rest of our lives to keep our dopamine levels in check.
Stace,
How much coffee do you drink, or Coke or Mountain Dew or tea etc ever
day? Regardless of its source drugs are drugs, whether they are from
a "Natural" source or synthetic, either in pill form or thinly
disguised as a beverage. Besides if you look very carefully at what
you ingest, you're relying on stimulants to regulate your domamine
levels anyhow. Moreover natural etc does not necessarily mean safe.
Look at the ! problems with ephedra or Tryptophan supplements.
A psychiatrist friend told me once that although the effect of
Ritalin on kids had been know since the early 70's/late 60's, the
thought was that it gradually became ineffective with late teenagers
and in early adulthood. That is until one psychiatric resident (with
ADHD) was studying for an exam, and took some amphetamines to help
keep him awake. According to Rox, the resident was very surprised
over how well he could concentrate. Later he was able to show that
stimulants like Ritalin had similar effect with adults with ADHD.
>
>
>I feel your pain about school...my grades were widly
inconsistent...from
>60% in classes where I was bored out of my mind, to top marks in others
>where the material was challenging. Not to mention being in the
>principals office every second day. ;-)
Exactly that sounds like me. ! ; After I finished my master's I visited
Winnipeg and made it a point of dropping in my old high school. As it
turned out the principal who was my tormenter there, was still there.
I showed him my diploma and gave him a photocopy, just so that he
could remember how wrong he was about me.
Its not that I am either for or against drugs like Ritalin (darned
glad I took that course on psychopharmacology) what they are good for
is one part of a complete treatment approach. They allow the kid to
have some breathing room so that the efforts he or she is making in
terms of the educational and psychological treatments have an
opportunity to be effective.
I am just very skeptical of nutritional approaches to treatments.
Very often there is no empirical support, only anecdotal evidence. On
those occasions where the research has been methodologically
adequate, all too often the nutritional approach has been shown to
be little better than placebo. I suspect that is why the sup! plements
industry managed to push through that legislation a few years ago to
prohibit the FDA from applying the same standards to supplements as
what new medicines have to go through.
larry
_____
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