Be sure of your diagnosis

Thanks Paul, for stopping in and informing us of the difficulty of diagnosing pre-adolescents ad adolescents.  Yes, at that age other factors can contribute to mood disorders and first episode diagnosis is also difficult.  Psychiatrists must realize that proper diagniosis is important and improper treatment based on a wrong diagnosis can be harmful in more ways than one.

Ahhhhhhh...finally a voice of reason

Thanks Paul for stepping up and voicing a concern that I have myself spoken of for years here and with NAMI. This idea that we now have bipolar children running everywhere is plain ludicrous. So many kids are being miss-diagnosed with a serious mental illness and giving medications that have already shown to have harmful side effects with the adult population taking them.

I think it was about a year ago where they were leading the charge that maybe it could be diagnosed in infants as young as one to three year old's. Seems pretty clear with the pharmaceuticals paying for these trials that the only results published would be ones favoring these giants.

It seemed there for awhile that bipolarism became the illness of the month where if anyone was doing anything out of the ordinary...they were pegged bipolar. I so wish that there was a conclusive test that could be performed to be exact with the diagnoses. I think if this test were to come about and everyone now deemed bipolar had to take it...there would be a lot less of us with the diagnoses.

Most folks don't want to know that there is no name for what ails them.

They want a name to label it, to make it real and valid.

If it has a name and there is a bottle of pills to go with it, then it is real and valid.

Otherwise, it may actually have to do with something they are doing or not doing and no one, particulary parents these days with children who are being drugged, want to hear that it might be something "in the air" at home.

Are there children who are truly struggling with some type of mental illness at age 10 or even younger?  Sure

Are there as many children for whom are being drugged and their brains, emotional responses, and coping skills altered on the drugs?  No

Other factors must be considered and other ways to manage, handle, combat, or treat should be considered, attempted, and worked on with great effort before the first pill is handed out and swallowed. Then, once the pill is handed out and swallowed - further therapy, training, work, effort, and learning must coincide with the pills so that perhaps one day.. Johnny or Mary Sue might not need those chemicals they are ingesting or not need so friggin many.

Many many parents and guardians will argue to their last breath that their child had to have the Seroquel at age 5 or the Lithium which damaged their kidneys at age 7 (know a kid this happened to and is on dialysis) or Abilify at age 12.  Not mentioning all the other meds in addition to...

What we are doing is raising a large population of future adults hooked and subsisting on pharmaceutical chemical muck, labeled as mentally ill and/or developmentally disabled due to a emotional disorder, and will either land in prison - on the street - hooked on illegal substances - or vegatating in perhaps skilled nursing homes collecting disability checks and needing others to care for them - or out in society trying to have relationships with others and not faring so well

all the while saying to themselves and others "It's not my fault.  I'm Bipolar.  You can't hold me responsible.  I'm sick see."