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The Science of a Medication Plan
If you have a common cold, it's easy to tell which medicine will work, how much of it to take—and they're fairly safe if you should make a mistake. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) lets you go to the drugstore and buy the medication you want without supervision. The dosage for an over-the-counter drug store medication is often determined roughly by weight or age. For example, the label might say simply, “Adults, 2 tablets; Children under 13, 1 tablet.”
When it's difficult to tell which medicine will work or how much to take, you need professional supervision.
A doctor may start with the lowest dose and watch for signs that both the drug and the dosage are safe and effective for your child. The process of checking, little by little, exactly how much ADHD medication is right for a person is called titration.
"This seems like just trial and error. I don't want my child to be a guinea pig."
"Trial and error" is a random process. A laboratory may test, by trial and error, thousands of plants from the world's jungles, to see if any might have medicinal properties. Testing chemicals for developing new medicines is medical research.
Titration is not random. Your child is receiving medicines that have been studied and approved already. For many disorders there may be only a few options to consider, not thousands. Titrating is normal in medical practice.
When you go to an eye clinic, the optometrist doesn't talk to you for a while and then reach in a drawer to hand you the right pair of glasses. The optometrist figures out a few lenses that might work. Then you try out samples: “Is it clearer this way—or that way?” “Is it better this way—or that way?” That's not “trial and error.” That's good medical practice.
All of us stand up and defend our own child as wonderfully special—like no other. This is true not only of the child's talents and personality, but also of their body's cells and biological systems. A prescription may affect your child differently than it affects other children. These wonderful qualities of being unique means doctors have to find the right medication in the right amount for each child. It is a process and it may take time. It's also the best way to treat your child's specific needs.
Types of Medication for ADHD
The symptoms of ADHD are inattention, hyperactivity and impulsivity: A person who has ADHD may have trouble focusing, trouble sitting still and trouble keeping themselves from interrupting.
Attention and behavior are controlled by signals that move through the brain, from one cell to another.
To carry signals from one cell to another, the brain makes various kinds of chemicals. These are natural chemicals. With enough natural chemicals in the right places, brain cells communicate.
Scientists believe when the brain fills the spaces between cells with natural chemicals it's like building a bridge for information to pass smoothly. ADHD medicines, both stimulants and nonstimulants, are thought to keep these natural chemicals in the spaces between the brain cells, making a better bridge for the information. That may be a surprise: stimulants and nonstimulants are not opposites. They do one thing the same:
Both nonstimulant and stimulant ADHD medications are thought to keep these natural chemicals in the spaces between the brain cells.
In addition, stimulants are thought to stimulate the brain to release more of these natural chemicals.
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