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printer friendlyADD Resources eNews: August 2007
Summertime—and the Living is EasyDear eNews Readers,
I hope you enjoy this issue of the eNews. Be sure to scroll down to the website links as there are a number of excellent ones this month. There is also a short article on ADHD in women which would be helpful for both women and men to read. If you live in the Seattle area, you may want to attend our 5th annual ADHD conference on October 13th.
Watching My Weight
For four years I have been trying, unsuccessfully, to lose 20 pounds. Last month I finally joined Weight Watchers. I wasn't familiar with their program, but heard it has helped others to lose weight, so I took the plunge. Fortunately for me, they have two programs. One is the Flexibility Program where you can eat most things in limited amounts. You keep track of what you eat and keep track of the points assigned to what you eat, not exceeding 35 points a day. Can you imagine someone with ADD, but without OCD (Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder), doing that?
Their other weight loss program is the CORE Program. On this program you can eat all you want of certain foods without keeping track of anything. That's the program I am on. I can eat vegetables, fruit, lean meats, and non–fat dairy products. I cannot eat anything with sugar or flour or fat or alcohol. I have been with the program for a month, and despite my goal, have only lost 5 pounds. I keep going off the diet to eat a cracker here, a few tortillas chips there. If I see it, next thing I know, I am eating it.
I read somewhere that is hard for people with ADD to diet because of their impulsivity. Can I blame it on that when I tell myself, "Just this once," momentarily over–riding my long term goal. Also, my inattentiveness/forgetfulness makes it hard to maintain focus on my goal of losing 2 pounds a week until I weight 140 pounds. Attending the weekly meetings with others who are also trying to lose weight is helpful, but will it be enough to keep me on track?
Addendum: This past week I lost 2.4 pounds. I did it by drinking lots more water (apparently we often feel hungry when we are actually thirsty) and by increasing my exercising to 1.5 hours a day.
Until next month,
Cynthia Hammer, MSW, Director
Weekly Teleclass Series Starts in September
These teleclasses continue to be free but there will be no reminder email. Note in your planner which teleclasses you want to attend with phone number and access number.
We kick off our fall series of teleclasses—September through November—with Chris Dendy, noted national ADHD authority and author. The title of her teleclass is Understanding the Impact of ADHD and Executive Function Deficits on Learning. This teleclass is specially for parents getting their children ready to return to school or for anyone that is a student. The teleclass is on Wednesday, September 5 at 5 pm PST. Sign Up Now!
Learn more about these teleclasses and register online. Remember—if you want to attend one or more of these teleclasses, but can't at the appointed time, you can always listen to the podcast of the teleclass later. Learn about our podcast program.
Become an Outstanding ADHD Coach
Registration is now open for Parts I and Part II of ADHD Coaching, taught by Sandy Maynard. Each of these 8–session (90 minutes each) teleclasses comes with a full workbook. Classes start in September with class size limited to 12 participants. Sandy has taught many to be successful ADHD coaches. If this is the career for you, you couldn't find a better training program than this one offerred by Sandy. Learn more and register now.
Coaching to the Core!
A series of mentoring conference calls for ADHD Coaches taught by Nancy Ratey, Ed.M., MCC
2nd Wednesday of each month—9/12/07; 10/10/07; 11/14/07 from 3–4:30 pm PDT, 4–5:30 pm MDT; 5–6:30 pm CDT and 6–7:30 pm EDT, 3–Part Series— Please note: participants must sign–up for all 3 sessions. This interactive, hands–on, telecourse presents the AD/HD coaching model (partnership, structure and process) as a framework to deepen participants' understanding of the coaching dynamic and build upon existing coaching skills. Group discussion facilitates learning from, and sharing with, other coaches. Participation in and observation of live coaching enhances participants' mastery of workshop material. $125 for series for professional members; $135 for regular members and $150 for non–members
Learn more and register online
Interesting Web Sites and Articles
- Dr. Ned Hallowell and Melissa Orlov blog about marriage when one or both spouses has ADHD. What is it like? What are common themes in marriages with ADHD? What strategies can be used to improve these relationships? How can struggling couples get their marriages back on track so both partners can thrive?
- Medscape has a number of outstanding articles on ADHD. You must register at the site before viewing them. Here is one I highly recommend: Lifestyle and Complementary Therapies for ADHD: How Health Professionals Can Approach Patients
- Wanted: ADHD Coaches to ontribute to the ADD Coaching Blog.
- www.adhdawareness.org—This is a wiki, which is like a blog, but everyone can contribute. This wiki is to help create ADHD Awareness.
- Short online video with script on Socialization Strategies for ADHD Kids. Other good articles for parents also available at this website.
- Short online videos with scripts: Five Food to Feed Your Child with ADHD and Five Foods to Avoid
- A Pocket Manual for Advocates: Information and Resources for Lay Advocates
- A program to help parents of ADHD children. "The main focus of this non–judgmental structured program is on teaching parents exactly how to react to and better understand their children or teens with behavior disorders such as ODD/CD and then effectively empower them to change."—Patti Quinn, M.D.
- The Attention Deficit Disorder Blog Carnival is a collection of recent blog entries about Attention Deficit Disorder. The hope is to expose blog readers to blogs that have a different perspective on Attention Deficit Disorder
- Log in to this website and you will be able to view two free, indepth webinars on ADHD. These webinars are given by psychiatrists and are meant for education of medical personnel.
- Providing Insight Into the Neurobiology of Adult ADHD: Implications for Treatment
- Transitioning Across the Life Cycle in ADHD: Adolescence to Adulthood.
- Free booklet provided by the Job Accommodation Network on ADD in the Workplace, the Law and Possible Accommodations
The Average Age of Diagnosis is 38 for Adult Women
"This means they have lost a bunch of years," said Pesikoff, a Baylor University psychiatrist.
Do You Only Have Men Patients with ADHD?
One of my women patients plainitively asked me that the other day.
The answer, of course, is NO. I have women patients who have ADHD. They are college students and graduate students, waitresses and lawyers, lobbyists and physicians, bureaucrats and teachers. They are single, they are divorced and single parents, they are wives struggling to manage children who, like them, have ADHD. They are African-American, they are Asian, they are Hispanic, they are white, they are all-American mixtures.
Regardless of their place in life they share a nagging feeling that they could be doing better. They feel they should have done more with their resources, but that they just couldn’t quite manage it. They often feel that way, despite trying twice as hard as their competitors, male and female.
What differs them from my male patients is an extra burden of stigma. More of my women patients have waited longer to get treatment than have the men. Perhaps the men's outward behavior is more troublesome, driving them to treament sooner. There is still a popular misconception that boys and men have ADHD, not girls and women.
My women patients grieve more about the present and past than my male ADHD patients, and with reason. My impression is that their symptoms have quietly kept them from achieving their best for a long time. The girl or woman internalizes the names that get hurled at her: ditz, space cadet, dizzy blonde. They assume that they are stupid. They fight back as best they can, with humor and with persistence, but they often believe the worst themselves, and so their fight is half-hearted. They may feel that by the time they come for treatment initially, especially over 40, life's all over. What's the use?
I don't see it that way. I have successfully treated women who first came for treatment in their 50s or 60s. There are case reports in the literature of women patients first treated for their ADHD in their 80s, and it still made a big difference in their life.
I direct all my women patients to the work of Patricia Quinn, MD, and Kathleen Nadeau, PhD, at www.ADDvance.com, and to the books of Sari Solden, LCSW. Wise women all, wise about the workings of ADHD in women.
I treat my women patients as I do the men, with medication and other recommendations. I try to get the men in my women patients' life to get with the program, so their daughters and their wives and their girlfriends can thrive.
Is treatment always a success? No. Sometimes the response to medications and other interventions is poor. Sometimes the life circumstances are overwhelming. Sometimes the accumulated other psychiatric disorders: anxiety and depression and substance abuse, are too much to overcome.
But how good it is to see a woman with her head held high, happy in her progress at work and in her relationships, when treatment for her ADHD succeeds!
~~~~from the Blog of Dr. Brian Doyle
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