ADHD in Adults. Yes, it’s real. Yes, you can do something about it. | Rick Green and Dr. Ahmed

so raise welcome rectory I'm going to set my timer to go fifteen minutes because otherwise it'll be 11:30 and I'll still be telling my wonderful story I I know but they the janitors want to close the place up at some we could talk forever I know ah so hang on said this so it started we have 15 minutes so first of all I want to acknowledge everyone of you for coming out here because this is the last place anyone wants to be a mental health facility they unless you been around one for a while they're scary at first and then the more you around them they're actually amazing places so I've had the opportunity to be around kmh I've had a couple of people I care about very much go through there with different things and it's I know mental health issues can look scary but so does a broken wrist when it's hanging there so anyway so I knowledge you for coming out here I know also that there are probably some people probably men who are here under duress if you're not coming there won't be any nookie for two years and so you're here if you're under duress and don't want to be here you have my permission to leave but I'll tell you what this is going to be fun and it's going to be interesting and that's the thing that I that I keep coming back to and why I've stuck with this is that it's interesting the Oracle of Delphi said know thyself and this is interesting and with ad/hd it's not completely and fully understood not even close they've identified a bunch of the genes they're learning all kinds of things but we're miles away from really understanding this and there's already three subtypes there's the ADHD attention deficit there is the predominantly hyperactive subtype we have three subtypes and that's the bouncing of walls and as a child Restless interrupting teachers go nuts what nobody tells you is that they also interrupt all the other kids they poke they prod they tease they pinch they hit because they're impulsive and they have no friends early on when we were doing a DD and loving it we interviewed a doctor who said one mother gave her child medication on the way home she couldn't wait and she said we actually had a conversation and he hugged me for the first time in his life he could hold on to me not be squirming kid was eight imagining me an eight-year-old you've never been able to hug because they're so busy so that's the hyperactive then there is the predominantly inattentive subtype the daydreamer the stereotype is the girl not necessarily but lost in thought geography is kind of interesting but writing the next Harry Potter book way more interesting so they're off in dreamland and the teacher says get out your pens and papers to draw and they are lost and then they hear the noise of everybody getting out their pens papers and they are we allowed to use crayons and the teacher goes bruit not very bright they're actually diagnosed as kind of nice but space see flaky could pay more could do better if they paid attention more see this Paralympic athlete could do better if got up and ran seems to have some kind of crutch called a wheelchair anyway then there is the combined subtype yeah that's that's those of us who are both hyperactive by a dull toad they don't call it hyperactive because we're not running around although you'll notice I'm pacing if you're ADHD and you pace on the phone because you just do then that's that's there's a lot of things we do we drive too fast we're actually better drivers when we're going faster we think we are I don't know in the show tomorrow night as part of the thing I talk about the fact that when we go to the go-kart track hyper focus kicks in we are we get a rush of adrenaline and so it makes up for the dopamine that we're missing and the norepinephrine or whatever else is missing that's still up for debate but whatever it is adrenaline is a great substitute and so when my son and I got out there we went to one place where it's the guy from red green go as long as you want so we went around for an hour everybody else left finally the owner came out in his go-kart which was way faster and knocked us off the track into the head and we had fun with that for five minutes until we ran out of gas but to get to that go-kart track my wife should drive us because it's kind of a plain boring drive and we'll just drift off to be whoa sorry so under certain conditions I'm fine I'm calmer here than if I have to sit and listen to my accountant or follow my accountant as he goes over paperwork we can be adrenaline junkies we can self-medicate with sex with shopping with work with alcohol well I don't believe in taking a stimulant I would never give my child a stimulant medication I'll give them another can of coca-cola now we don't want to have any stimulant man so caffeine cigarettes alcohol marijuana ADHD kids have three times the rate of heavy marijuana use it the problem is the marijuana they're getting is from somebody it's not organic and it's laced with stuff so they tell the doctor yeah the dogs are fairly open yeah I do some cocoa puffs that means there's cocaine in it and the doctor does the blood screen and it's crystal meth I don't do that doctor yeah you do it you think the drug dealer is going to put cocaine yeah how expensive that is how many pesticides there are and whatever anyway don't get me started so by adulthood we are all on medication especially the people who don't know it it's self medicating we find something that works for us that makes us feel good for me it was writing escape comedy and performing 700 episodes of it and that was easy for me cashing the checks I got negotiating the contract I'll just write more material so when we play to our strengths if we figure out what they are were awesome when you hand off the stuff you don't do like to an agent well I don't really trust myself can I trust an agent when you find people you can trust an accountant I used to pay more in fines than I paid my accountant in fact I think quarterly it was sometimes it was $200 every three months in fines for my GST being late I think my accountant is not my wife would know it's like four or five hundred dollars to do everything but I resisted resisted resisted anyway so I went through life I kind of knew I was weird and different but it wasn't until my son was diagnosed and I saw a list and went if this is ADHD then I've got ADHD and within a very short time I was sitting in my doctor's office a psychologist who was an ADHD specialist and like many ADHD specialist has ADHD himself and we went over the checklist and it was oh my god and it's a little weird because you're going oh god I've got this mental illness it's not an illness which is too bad because illnesses can be cured we come wired this way it runs in families it's heavily genetic your height is 80% heritage ADHD the best study I've read is 79 percent heritable you should have met my dad oh you're just like your dad just like your dad my grandfather was on the English musical stage for a while so getting the diagnosis for me was an explanation for some people I shouldn't say just a flat explanation it was really relieved in some ways I was also we'll all go through this oh my god if I'd known sooner if I'd known sooner I'd have more money in the bank maybe my first marriage would have worked I could have followed through on that I should have delivered but eventually you know that gets after about nine years of that know after who have a year or two of just the regret it's like you know what now I know and everything shifting when you get a diagnosis of I won't say but whatever you get it a diagnosis mental health or physical health you do say they put a cast on you don't really need to know what the plaster is made of or what's happening in the bones you get an ADHD diagnosis and I think it's see I don't know if there's any other diagnosis that is like this the more you know what ADHD the better it is and then you get to go figure out your flavor because it is complicated there's 18 symptoms the DSM for now they have the dsm-5 and there's 18 symptoms and adults let's put up the ones are 18 symptoms and children and now they're working on them for adults but they're adding things for out but the symptoms in children often makes mistakes doesn't pay close attention the list goes on and on you only have to have six out of nine of these to have the inattentive part of it and the weird thing is or the frustrating thing is there's nothing on here like toes frequently turned green for no reason right everybody well people go well everybody has this yeah how often that's the issue when it gets to the point that it's at with us the top say four it's four point four is the number of use let's say the top four percent one in twenty five we're at the extreme end it's not a lovely little quirky trait it is ruining and undermining our lives you are in a wrestling match with an invisible saboteur and you don't know you're in a wrestling match and then they say you're fighting ADHD what and there's like this explains what life is like this is so frustrating and then way sometimes I've got like pinned to the mat and I'm doing great and then it comes back at me and I thought I got this handle up and down up and down and then you have to start figuring out your flavor but you are dealing with all of these different symptoms and then by adults would you've figured out some ways to manage them like I'll write comedy for a living but I won't write a screenplay that takes six months are you kidding me no way and then it looks different in adults because mentioning anger issues and life when you've been dealing with this for a long time there's a whole long list here we don't need to go over at all it's on the website you can find it it's everywhere but here's the thing about this if you don't know you will fear the diagnosis and I'm really big on and the reason I'm doing all this is because life got way better once I knew what was going on because before that what am I going to tell myself I got an entire film crew waiting for me at location camera makeup hair props costumes production manager a cast and I'm at home trying to find my car keys I didn't when it costs a minute to shoot a TV series and I can't find my car keys I'm an idiot I am an idiot and they're going to give us half a million dollars to make a season's worth of this and I can't find keys how am I gonna handle it my thinking is I'm driving there idiot idiot I found them they were downstairs on the dryer oh yeah I went down there first and finally then when you find out you're not an idiot you're not stupid you're not lazy you don't have weak willpower you're not an underachiever ruied if you think your underachieving that's a big one with us a lot of us have that one because we know we can try capable more because at moments I'm writing skit 700 episodes and yet there's the check and now I got to tell him I forgot to cash it from last year and they're gonna have to issue a new one I've got to make a phone call and it's just you know what it's 300 bucks screw it I'll just go write something else so it's this bell curve remember the bell curve in school like that if it was height the bell curve would look like this number of people who are four feet high for it I Lots at five five six seven eight nine six feet six four six five six five and up seven feet six foot nine now you and I can argue over whether six feet tall anybody here thinks six foot nine is not tall okay so there is a cut-off point even on a spectrum where we all go yeah that's ADHD okay let's that top 4% let's take six foot nine imagine being six foot nine but you don't know it it's invisible like ADHD so you're in grade 3 you go out in with the kids in the schoolyard to play and let's play leapfrog kids are this high you're this high they don't know no one can see and every kid gets hurt imagine what this boy her aggression issues probably so check at home situation put them into some kind of anger management program and the anger management program doesn't help because it's not an anger issue it's six foot nine and no one can see it and in grade seven you pick sports and you look at the gymnastics it's all the girls having and you over there you were seeing a six foot nine gymnast right and it goes badly and the girls all laugh and the guys laugh and they said once you try basketball you go yeah do I want to be laughed at again by now I'm more of a chess club kind of person that's yeah sports your first a shallow jocks and you never try and then you go to visit grandma and every time you go to visit grandma you hit your you spank her chandelier Dorf that's that's the one grandpa brought back from Italy which he looted during the wars and you always have to you almost broke at one time and grandma says just don't bring them anymore please cars doorways you're hitting your head all the way through hitting a door but you have to wear a helmet and yeah you just it's a thing I do it's religious or something I don't know I just I wear a helmet because you're and then you're 47 and you're at a party and someone says you know what we need the chip and dip bowl you go okay here you go Wow how did you do that what you didn't need to use the stool well here's the dip bowl oh my god you just got the mucky hey Gracie didn't how did you do that without you a step stool or a chair you know what it is you know I've heard about this it's called tallness it's just you have tall disorder they have a test you can take it's called a tape measure so you go and take this test at Home Depot and they and you measure you take the test and you score six foot nine oh my god well no that can't be right can I'll take the questionnaire there's a special tallness questionnaire you found online do you freak are you able to see the top of refrigerators yeah and everyone do people often compliment you on your nostrils yeah do you frequently bang your head 47 give me a basketball to do to do good did you do oh damn I got a grandma but grandma died you weren't even allowed to see her in the hospital and they have high ceilings and hospitals she didn't want you to come cuz she knew you hated her you didn't hate her you were six foot nine so all this stuff comes up it's a lovely stew and you can get stuck there and people do the older you are the more likely and easier it is to get stuck because you have more to look back on and regret and I still have days where I go if only I'd known sooner now I know now I find out and then I have other days where I go mostly now I know now I found out and even now I'm constantly figuring new things out one of them is physical sensitivities we have a video on the emotional and physical sensitivity and I knew about the emotional stuff which is why we so often have anxiety and things like that but the physical sensitivity tag tags on shirts sorry and for me it was neckties like this just uh guys me I don't I like beaches sand everywhere sand gets everywhere it drives me nuts it's like fingernails on a chalkboard for me certain things certain smells for some people sights sounds and so on I thought when I figured out about a month and a half ago because we're off to Cuba next in a few weeks for our first vacation in four years so as I said it's interesting you keep discovering things about yourself and now I can either just yeah I'm not going to go to the beach or what I'm going to do is go I'm going to the beach and when it starts bothering me on the what's actually wrong not that I don't like beaches so that's the potential is to figure out what's going on and then you go on this journey the danger is the stuff comes up and it's really hard to deal with that all on your own nobody nobody I know can I don't think you should try our website has we're kind of like the Facebook for ADHD that you can create a profile you can connect there's thousands of streams on every topic you can name menopause an ADHD they'll be nine or ten streams on that topic you name it there's something there about it and you what humbles me is stories you read on there of people the suffering that people have gone through and the relief is amazing there are certain things if you've got something you take lithium and that's what you do with ADHD whether you go with medication or not there's so much you could do just to start with with your lifestyle but just knowing it's an absolutely huge difference so that's why I acknowledge you for being here because you've come to find out the truth of the facts and I'll say the facts there's facts as we know it all right my phone is dinging so that's it I went twenty five minutes good for me no twenty minutes instead of 15 alright let's get dr. Ahmed up and we'll round the clock and if you're restless and need to get up and pace there's an aisle at the back of the room how we going to see are we going to see go over to be hyper up uh I don't know that the sittings can you see us from here we're good okay we'll sit so yeah I'm good I'm sorry yeah I'm fine that's it no I find because I saw the inattention the phone was ringing oh I'm fine now I thought see I'm calm now if my mom calls yeah uh-huh yeah yeah yeah I'll load the dishwasher that'll distract me all right so first question that's up here first of all anything that you would correct on what I've said because you just saw anything I said that you'd say it's not quite right I think ah thank you very much - done I think you get you've given a very good expose of what ADHD is and the different types of ADHD with all the action I think is something you're absolutely correct majority of physicians or clinicians that treat ADHD psychologists that's why more psychologists treat ADHD because they have more of ADHD they do have it and that's that's something that can show that is very common I think you've given a very good summary of the presentation of ADHD thank you all right so the first question then is can you comment on ADHD and substance abuse in trouble with the law it's a big one it is very interesting I mean as a forensic psychiatrist this was actually what got me into ADHD I run a special clinic here where I look at individuals who are anger problem and when we started the clinic about 12 years ago you couldn't get into the clinic unless you've come in trouble with the law standard because those are the people did I really associate Lee until family physicians began to ask the question what don't you understand about prevention what's wrong with you guys since forensic do people have to get in conflict with the law before he starts seeing them and that was the story about now seen individuals all over the place who are neither in trouble with the law but who are anger problem but you be so surprised that if you go to correction over 70 percent of our patient to have substance related problem and of these L a significant proportion to have ADHD but you know what because ADHD is a stimulant forensic psychiatrist and correctional sky dragon was paranoid set of soft specialists they won't prescribe the medication because are we afraid afraid abuse they afraid of abuse so substance abuse is very common among individuals who have ADHD Rick you mentioned you were talking about coke you were talking about how many cups of coffee a lot of people drink some people end up drinking about 12 cups of coffee a day and what did wonder how did I diagnose them before they have caffeine ism because yeah that's what they have your caffeine misuse disorder but this individual are actually taking care of their tall height because I don't want to bang their head you're saying so substance abuse is something that is very common among these individuals what about the law the community offenses there was a study they finished study then look at about 3,000 more than 3,000 individuals who have committed offenses they were treated with ADHD medication this guys were released into the community it stopped taking the medication what happened recidivism increased they started committing more crime so there's no data body there's a higher prevalence if you treat this you reduce recidivism anger aggression irritability these are very common so the guy who butters his wife or the woman who battles our husband when they get into the clinic I to judge say that timer can you give a Pinot if you listen carefully and you look for what you looked the right thing it may well be the treating dis individuals off this tend to coexist quite commonly I heard of a doctor in Washington or Oregon who had two boys with ADHD and kept seeing these kids his kids were getting getting into trouble and the kids who came before him in court were getting into the same kind of trouble and not master criminals because that requires planning and executive function skills so I want that well give it to me and he said to these kids I won't sentence you if you'll go get tests I started saying the kids I will suspend sentence if you'll go get tested for ADHD and kids oh sure and it was shot he was shocked the percentage that were ADHD you know there's one of them things is impulsive whenever you have someone asked what were you thinking I'm going to do a big thing about this tomorrow night but what were you thinking when I see a Hollywood starlet or star what were they thinking yeah whatever it was they were thinking they won't they won't remember 20 seconds later because the mind has gone to another whole place all right let's jump to the next one what about ADHD anger and aggression impulsivity is one of the characteristics because individuals who have ADHD may not have that time to actually think for the ad and therefore they engage in impulsive action and we're done when you don't understand them and they make this demand that you understand them what happens when there's that conflict the emotion that you present to it is anger you're right you then send them for under management but you've not treated because no wonder rates of recidivism Charles stop battery is why sorry Charles top bartering his wife when he was in anger management group six months later is back in front of the judge why because Charles wasn't treated for the primary problem so we did think to that to start looking the basic cause of this presentation so hungry is very common is one of the symptom that an aggression is something that is very common here all the kind of aggression is impulsive aggression not the kind of aggression that you work plan okay like you said they're hopeless sorry you know very good criminals yeah well and it's we don't blind well part of that's just a structure of the brain that you've heard of the reptile brain the fight-or-flight it's right at the bottom so everything that goes through go through that first so when you meet a new person you don't know it but party goes okay they both uh there's a always a little that's why a little mouse whatever we jump right it's unexpected and the fight-or-flight just gets us ready so then we have all these other there's like four or five different really layers of the brain that top layer they stuff back in here your prefrontal is designed to go it's okay that's mom or he seen he's a nice person or yes that's alright he's a doctor you can trust them or whatever it is there's so when that isn't there when you're so fast you don't have time and that's one of the phrases that we hear again and again with doctors is we're trying to get people to be able to put in the pause to take a moment so that you have choice because if you're jumping in and it's a knee-jerk reaction and you're automatically actually you don't have choice I remember a lot of people say well I'm worried about medication because it'll make me less of Who I am and what I said was how can you be who you are when there are seven radios going on in your head at the same time how can your child be who they are and figure out what they want if there's all of this noise and they can't finish not just a project a sentence so many people who I know who tried medication and it's work for them and it doesn't work for everybody have told me well one fella said I looked at my wife and I burst into tears because I could see her for the first time she was so when medication what's that phrase pills don't build skills with ADHD it levels the playing field though so it levels the playing field which is great because you've been fighting all the time on an uphill playing field and didn't know it you still have to go out on the playing field and play the game and play to win but that can make a difference exercise can make a difference there are many different things that can make a difference but arrays let's jump to the next did I tell you this was going to be interesting isn't it interesting it's just interesting is there a cure for ADHD yes they saw part of the head off it no how does it it's controversial her business is very care for ADHD unfortunately there is no cure and I mean it's not a statement of hopelessness how many things that will kill embed us in the last 200 years probably antibiotics are the only thing we kill otherwise we try to regulate things is enough treatment or pharmacologic Asian and non medication treatment you can help individuals but the question of Keogh is not what we're talking about and in psychiatry we're heading towards there as you know in DSM for because the way we I mean the way we've done our diagnosis by symptom when we start understanding the brain wall then when we understand what we're really heading towards to provide better treatment just that's a life for MRI MRI PET MRI the more we understand it the more we won't know how to should this but is no cure for ADHD no and I remember at university sick kids in Toronto dr. Russell Shakur showed me two brain scans and the kids were playing a game and they had to push left red if they saw a number whatever it was eight to do but they if they heard a ding they had to stop and the brain was lit up here here and here and this little thing here was to get ready to stop and over on the ADHD kid it was here here and here no it wasn't it work this is not morality it's neurology right it just if there was no and what was the result the non ADHD kids the normal everyone wants to be normal no one wants to be typical or average right but anyway none of us are average we just aren't any way these kids stop very quickly like 1/4 a second or a third of a second and these kids were going for a while before well my phone went and I didn't even hear it for five full minutes thank goodness Jennifer at the back waved caught my attention all right yeah we called the second video we did a DD and mastering it that's that's what you want aim for what accommodations can be made for ADHD whoa we could be here till Thursday yes in summary I mean there are a lot of accommodation that can be made for ADHD like you talk about building have an a at all a door so that a person can get in without hitting their head right and a lot of people can make accommodation the fears that doctors have is that people come to you to get either for medication or because the want accommodation the guy is lazy that's why he wants to get a letter from me that you would take to Algonquin College or to take University of Ottawa so that the professors can give him more time yes in individuals where you define you really gone through the process of establishing the diagnosis accommodation can be made in time of time so that a person will have more time to do their job they can do it in this and in a special place where it less distracted yeah if it's the work I know one of my clients we were talking about accommodation well this is a successful teacher in adult education did great job he knows how to be creative but what did the Papa the adult education system do right they forced him to say he has to do it the way they've always done it and this man is so creative so we had to write special later and say you know what you're not going to do this to this guy it has them right where they took the letter or not but with every accommodation you can make accommodation in terms of the kind of job that you allocate the person that you thought you can write about what you place the person on so there's so many type of accommodation you can make and there's a thousand little things like it just we did a webinar a few weeks ago with dr. Russell Burnham see University of Pennsylvania where positive psychology started and they have a book out with full of we have a number of things and there's many books full of strategies but one of my most interesting is he said if you have a clock and do not have a digital clock have a hand so you can see that's how much time I have 11:43 to 12 is not that's visible there's these little things that you can do that are astounding one tip I give everybody is if something is just too much can you do your taxes Oh God for an hour okay an hour could you do them for half hour 15 minutes well did you do three minutes what can you three minutes of your taxes just maybe just go looking for the at least eliminate some places where the receipts might be and you get up and you start you get up you're moving you've got a game it's a game now right make it a game it's another piece of advice I do with everything I do is time myself or make it somehow interesting and time and again I have to prepare a thing for Ottawa a show it's got to be two hours okay I need a full week free to do that yeah like a who has a full week free ever anywhere could I start could I just create the word document with a title just well at a couple of the ideas I do want to do that I want to do this oh and I want it three hours later I have to be I gotta go damn from half asleep in to hyper-focus and it's okay I always get their time alright next one what if I what if I don't want medication are there other remedies certainly there there's so many other other remedies that people can engage in without medication basically being able to establish I mean there are cognitive behavioral therapy that you can engage in on mindfulness that you can engage in and the mindfulness is not the yoga type of mindful although that is useful as well but is the question of being aware of thinking about your thinking yes before you open your mind start thinking about your thinking before the next sentence that's very helpful individually you have the top researcher in that is dr. Lydia's Alaska who's now on maternity leave and she wrote a book and we've done a video with her and and so on on the site and that what's neat about mindfulness is you can do it while you're scraping the carrots you can do it while you're driving you just you're noticing you're not trying to get to absolute stillness like that's ever going to happen but you're just going boy I worry about this a lot right and it's it is very powerful and there's me you know the MRIs are starting to show what happens over a length of time the brain change is more gray matter or white matter what like it's it's it's changing it changes the brain the moment you start doing this kind of non pharmacological intervention mindfully itself helps you to achieve with the kind of things that you need to do so instead of making impulsive decisions you're able to set yourself down and engage in the action guitar appropriate or the form of accommodation I'm sorry another problem of none I'm Troy McClure John Formica logical intervention exercise is something that is very useful one of my clients used to come and talk about rumba dance and how much he enjoyed it it goes for rumba and all the rest of their money comes in see you know what it's very relaxing I'm able to organize myself other things include planning setting would tend for yourself making sure that you have the routine you have the rhythm a routine you have the rituals those kind of things are the characteristics it helps you to move on with non-pom collage achill treatment yeah and and you've got to figure out there's certain strategies in books that will be more be more productive and they're they're really designed for the ninety six percent or ninety five point six percent of the population who are not us and so they'll say take frequent breaks yeah if I take a frequent bait I ain't coming back I'll take a break just to go upstairs and get some raisin toast because my office is in the basement so that there's no distraction and I'll end up at Canadian Tire looking at snow shovels cuz right so yeah on some level this is the fun of this is you figure out your own stuff and then you try stuff that other people have done yeah I tried that didn't work at all I bought an agenda every year for 20 years and literally one in nine pages would and there be a spurt worried be really good and then I get bored and month of nothing month and a half and then I'd find it and start again and now I make a list I used to make long lists I'll just list everything I could do today and then I'd add times up well it's 14 hours well this is today and tomorrow oh well if I'm doing two days I could add and now I've got 44 hours and that I plan out eventually I would plan out the whole month it would be 2:00 in the afternoon so how tired I am now I'll start tomorrow next morning I come down okay I should make a to-do list I have days that went by making now I do three things if I get those done because what happened in the other list was I do 123 small things oh yeah emptied the dishwasher did this did that did that did that did you start on the script for the Royal you have a look at all the other things I did so tricky anyway all right the questions that I one time yeah that's all I thought arrived on time I'll think of something all right what is the future like for a kid with ADHD individuals with ADHD if they receive I mean don't let my future scare you the key here is an early diagnosis it bugs me when people come in until the anger disorders clinic and they say I was diagnosed at the age of 10 I took medication for two months a mom said I couldn't take any medication again why because I may become addicted by the time they start seeing me the complication has set in they're now addicted they've been to jail many times it's too late so was the future what is life but it for the kid with ADHD we know that 70% of the individuals who are diagnosed with ADHD respond to the first trial of medications 70% if they do not respond by the time we do the second trial for another medication 90% or more respond to it if you copy that with this enough for mycological you have the individual to capitalize on their strength the future can be very bright however if you do have a keep it has all the complication the kid is OD d oppositional defiant disorder has conduct disorder is not becoming with a garnish of substance abuse the future can be very bleak now what tends to happen the individuals I have this blip feature are individuals who have never been treated so what am I saying if you recognize this on time and you treat this individual you cover the letters on you the future can be good so you can have a rink sitting down here and given all the lectures why I just watch hey we interviewed a guy named Alan brown he sites called a DD crusher and he has some great videos and he was a heavy cocaine user for a long time his story's amazing he now takes ADHD now medicates with motorcycle road racing and with ADHD medication and when we interviewed them we were talking about the medication and I said do you miss the cocaine and he might you know what the ADHD medications here's the thing though because I was worried about getting addicted because I've never drunk had anything to drink in my life until I was probably 35 I had a beer and he said I never smoked anything I never took anything because part of me sensed you start you're not going to stop right and so so so here's the it says great quote dr. Laurie do partners said if ADHD medication is addictive how come it takes my patients six weeks to remember to take it have you ever have you ever gotten it's like three in the afternoon and you go cheese had enough I've had my cigarettes today I don't know you usually have six cups of coffee and I don't think I about had any coffee day no no it's don't talk to me until I get my coffee even now I can have a day and it's I'm a little frazzled at 3:00 and hey but we'll see did you forget your medication and I'll go I'll go look cuz I don't even know him no I took it apparently but you know what is this a busy day that's all but yeah it's the addiction that another quote was the medications safer than aspirin when used properly problem of course is when used by because it masks bring kills people this stuff's been around since 1937 dr. Bradley in Rhode Island gave it to these kids who had recovering from an outbreak of encephalitis and they had headaches and he tried this and headaches didn't get better about 50% of the kids their academics went the kids called him the math pills and it took a long time for someone to figure out what was going on and then in the 60s along came Ritalin and now there's many different things available so yeah interesting but like I said the medication you don't take it it's gone it's like insulin you know it's it levels the playing field and then you do all the other stuff to get the structure in place so you may still take the medication or you may just not need it at some point so is ADHD a real medical condition is it not true that there are many look-alikes that can really you can never really be certain about the diagnosis you kind of covered this I think but yeah you covered it have you ADHD I you and I would differ in time so far whether or not ADHD is a is a disorder it's a neurodevelopmental disorder yeah yes Noda is a neurobiological disorder is the biological basis for it with no deity of neural chemical changes it dopamine is norepinephrine I was noted cholinergic system and the fellow genetic system also affected we know that the idea the hair I mean is irritable you find about 79 sending her ability of this disorder so there's no doubt it means like this world yeah absolutely cognizing it that way and freaking me it's very important one doctor said I look at it more as a syndrome a collection of symptoms and not everybody has the same ones and for me it's that it causes disorder it causes chaos it ruins marriages and relationships and steals childhood away from these kids ever undiagnosed untreated its murderous the biggest name is the most well-known name is dr. Ned Halliwell who is a huge fan and we just did a webinar with him last week and he in the documentary we did he said undiagnosed in a VHD undiagnosed and untreated HT will ruin your life it'll destroy you but if you understand what's going on and get it treated and he's dyslexic and there's now evidence that people with dyslexia score higher for creativity there's been number of studies have said we score higher for ADHD score higher for all kinds of creativity as a study at University of Memphis 11 kinds of creativity and whether the 15 students for ADHD on medication and 15 who work didn't make a difference so interesting all right we have some mic yeah we do have time for questions so we have time for some questions let's so first of all let's give them a big hand great presentation thank you very much

Channel: Royal Talks

Views: 451,692

Keywords: mental health, mental illness, disorder, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (Disease Or Medical Condition), Attention Deficit Disorder (Disease Or Medical Condition), health, rick green, comedian, dr. ahmed, ottawa, canada, ontario, the royal, the royal ottawa

Id: K2RKNVpnK2o

Length: 45min 11sec (2711 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 04 2015