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Children and Psychiatric medications: What is drugging our children doing to their futures?
By Karen Brennan, MSW, NC


Today millions children in the U.S. are given medications for mental health, such as antidepressants, antipsychotics, mood stabilizers, ADHD meds and anti-anxiety ones. . Children as young as two are placed on a cocktail of powerful drugs and being diagnosed with mental health disorders such as bi- polar. Many of these drugs are not even approved for anyone under the age of 10.
Why do so many children at this young age need these medications that come with many side effects and what are the consequences of long term usage starting at such a young age?
This is not an easy article to read if you have a child on one of these medications. But knowing the side effects and long term consequences may push you in the direction of seeking holistic help for your child.
Never take your child off of a medication without consulting and working with your doctor. Many medications need to be slowly tapered off of; otherwise there could be harmful consequences. Work with the doctor to taper off. Prior to tapering off these medications, start restoring balance in the body. Work with someone who can assist you in getting to root causes of the health issues and guide you in an individualized approach for your child. Then once the child is in a good place, nutritionally, work with your doctor for the tapering process.
Some side effects these medications can cause
This is not a comprehensive list and is not broken down by specific medications. If you want a list of side effects and drug interactions for a specific drug, there are many charts available online.
Antidepressants : insomnia, disturbed sleep, nausea, skin rashes, headaches, dizziness, abnormal bowel function, suicidal thoughts, acting aggressively, being angry or violent, irritability, panic attacks, acting on dangerous impulses.
Antidepressants are not approved for use in children so when used it is as an “off label” usage. More importantly SSRI medications can cause SSRI indifference which means emotional blunting. These children are unable to express their feelings while on these medications. They also may underperform due to lack of motivation caused by these drugs.
Children under 5 are the fastest growing age group being prescribed antidepressants. This alone is sad and alarming to me.  In addition to this, getting off these drugs is never an easy process. 
Anti-anxiety drugs: insomnia, depression, suicidal thoughts, emotional blunting, may block feeling of pleasure or pain, abnormal bowels, memory impairment, confusion, poor coordination.

The higher the dose, the more pronounced the side effects.  Benzodiazepines can build up in the body slowly when used over longer periods of time and this can result in over-sedation.  These people may actually look drunk. 
Anti-anxiety drugs such as Xanax and Valium are now known to be addictive.
ADD/ADHD: cardiac toxicity, irregular heartbeat, and impaired growth (also impaired growth of the brain), low appetite, insomnia, may cause personality changes, sadness, disinterested, obsessive compulsive behaviors, over focused behavior, social isolation.
Many of these ADHD drugs that are used long term on our children have been tested prior to approval for only 4 weeks. In addition to this, the median number of participants studied per drug was 75 people. How can this data be used to justify use on 4.6 million children? These stimulants are also highly addictive.
Ritalin is not approved for any child under the age of 6 and yet children as young as 2 are on Ritalin.
All stimulants directly disrupt at least three neurotransmitter systems (dopamine, serotonin, and norepinephrine). Even worse, there is evidence that stimulant induced biochemical changes in the brain can become irreversible.
Antipsychotic drugs: increase risk for type 2 diabetes, agitation, and mood swings, abnormal thinking, weight gain, tremors, dizziness, confusion, spastic muscle movements, staggering gait, pacing, loss of facial expression, constipation, weight gain, irregular heartbeat, tardive dyskinesia.
Using these meds is a gamble and no way to know what is going to work or what is not. It is based on trial and error.
Research that has looked at children 20 to 30 years later after starting use on these medications found that these children as adults end up having a greater chance of street drug addiction, more incarceration, more suicidal behavior, and shrinkage/atrophy of the brain tissue (this last one is from ADD meds).

If your child is on these medications, it is never too late to change the tide to health and wellness.
The psychiatric industry is a $330 billion industry. Worldwide 17 million children take psychiatric drugs and 10 million of them are in the United States. Obviously something is out of balance if our children are being “managed” with these drugs. Many of these kids are not on just one but multiple psychiatric drugs.
If you are considering placing your child on one of these medications or your doctor is advising you to do so; here are my thoughts-Do your homework, meaning research the medication and not just on the sites funded by the drugs. Try nutritional therapy-seek out a nutrition professional that specializes in mental health issues and work with them to get to root causes of the behaviors or moods. If you see no positive results from nutrition therapy then it may be time to consider medication. But it’s a heck of lot easier to try a holistic approach first then it is to try it after being on medications.
This article is meant to bring awareness so that we as a nation can see that we are heading down a very dark path. We need to start making the shift to healthier options for our youth, one child at a time…..

Karen Brennan, MSW,NC, Board Certified in Holistic Nutrition (candidate), and owner of Tru Foods Nutrition Services, LLC,  is a nutrition consultant and as such does not treat, cure of diagnose. The information in this article is for informational purposes only.  If you would like to know more as to how Karen and Tru Foods Nutrition Services can help you or your loved one, please contact her at 303-522-0381.

Sources:
Bourgeois, F. et. al. (9/14) Premarket Safety and Efficacy Studies for ADHD Medications in our Children.
Vol. 9, issue 7. Retrieved from journals.plos.org
Breggin, P. What psychologists and Therapists Need To Know About ADHD and Stimulants. Retrieved
from breggin.com
Group, E. (2/1/16) 12 shocking facts about the dangers of psychiatric drugs. Retrieved from
globalhealingcenter.com

 

 
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