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ADD and caffiene


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I thought I had read somewhere that one way to help determine if a child has ADD is to give them a little bit of caffiene in the morning and see of it helps them to be calmer. Has anyone tried this? I am thinking of trying this with my son (who is a little bit "more" than other 5/6 year old boys). He likes to drink coffee in the morning with Daddy - would the few drops (about a tablespoon worth) of coffee he has with creamer and milk be enought to test this theory?

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It helps my son, who has ADHD, focus. Focus is different from calming. A stimulant doesn't calm anyone, not even someone with ADHD. I wouldn't use it as a diagnostic tool, but don't see a problem with using it to help someone who is already diagnosed.

 

It most certainly does calm some. Without stimulants, my ds can be an absolute raging lunatic (literally!) With stimulants he is calm, sweet, and able to learn. It isn't just about focus for him - that is a pleasant side effect, but stimulants were prescribed to calm his rages.

 

I wouldn't use caffeine to "diagnose" anyone, though, and I can't imagine focus is going to come from a few drops of coffee.

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Some things to consider. You mentioned creamer. If it has corn syrup in it, it may override any effects of the caffeine. Both dairy, and HFCS or corn syrup are known to exacerbate the symptoms for some people w/ adhd. Caffeine doesn't help all people w/ adhd or add. It doesn't work on my dc at all. And that small of an amt. would most likely not make a difference.

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It helps my son, who has ADHD, focus. Focus is different from calming. A stimulant doesn't calm anyone, not even someone with ADHD. I wouldn't use it as a diagnostic tool, but don't see a problem with using it to help someone who is already diagnosed.

 

I don't use the term focus, because it makes people believe their child couldn't be ADD because they can focus on certain activities for a long period of time. The best description for me is calming my mind.

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Caffeine was the method we used for several years for my son before we went with medication. He still drinks a cup of coffee on mornings when he needs extra concentration. When he was little, he liked sucking on whole coffee beans as opposed to drinking coffee.

 

I do think to get a true effect of the stimulant in caffeine, it needs to be in larger amounts than a few drops or some chocolate. A can of Coke was enough to see a difference when he was younger though. Of course, none of this is "scientific". We eventually went with medication because he needed more reliable/routine results than we could get with caffeine alone.

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It absolutely helps my ADHD 13 year old son! If he doesn't have caffeine in the am before school, nothing productive gets done and he's a real pain to be around. He also takes omega 3s every day, and Attentive Child supplements. We haven't tried a prescription med. yet, but this is working for now.

 

I think you would need a cup of coffee or a whole can of coke to see an effect. When we first experimented with it, we gave him a coke (which we had always avoided completely), and saw a dramatic difference within 30 min. He was a different child.

 

Good luck with trying it out!

 

Gayle

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http://newideas.net/adhd/adhd-diet/caffeine

 

I gave dd5 half a Red Bull. She had the best, most focused & happy morning/early afternoon. It was amazing. She literally came out of quiet time & said, "I want to learn to read. Will you teach me how to read?" and sat down to learn how.

Normally she will get two or three words into a worksheet and then not be able to focus any more. She can't finish the page, almost ever. Stuff she knows & could do in 30 seconds if she just did it. She has actually yelled in frustration that she's just too DISTRACTED to do words and so she colors pictures instead. She knows the words, but just can. not. focus. on them at all. We're not medicating now because I can work around it (sit right with her, redirect her back to the page CONSTANTLY, let her color a bit after each word, mix it up with circling & coloring & cutting in the middle, etc) but if it becomes a bigger problem we probably will have to (dh is severely ADD--well, it's technically ADHD-Inattentive now :tongue_smilie:and on medication that has done wonders).

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I am usually mildly ADHD (though with perimenopause it probably is going more to moderately) and I self-medicate with caffeine. It is a lot of caffeine for me. My one daughter who has inattentive type issues does a lot better with a cup of coffee with cream. It usually is about 3/4 cup coffee, 1/2 cream.

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It helps my son, who has ADHD, focus. Focus is different from calming. A stimulant doesn't calm anyone, not even someone with ADHD. I wouldn't use it as a diagnostic tool, but don't see a problem with using it to help someone who is already diagnosed.

 

It most certainly does calm some. Without stimulants, my ds can be an absolute raging lunatic (literally!) With stimulants he is calm, sweet, and able to learn. It isn't just about focus for him - that is a pleasant side effect, but stimulants were prescribed to calm his rages.

 

I wouldn't use caffeine to "diagnose" anyone, though, and I can't imagine focus is going to come from a few drops of coffee.

 

I have to agree with Renee on this one. Dd's stimulant med definitely takes the edge off the manic Energizer Bunny she is without it and helps her be both focused AND calm. She's a fairly happy little person either way, but without the meds it's a sort of frenetic giddiness, and with the meds it's more of a calm, peaceful happiness. And she gets so much less frustrated with herself (mostly because she is able to actually DO what she was trying to do). She's definitely a calmer child when on the meds.

 

I don't get how a "stimulant" can work that way either, I just know it does at my house. But then, when ds was given a "sedative" to calm him down for an MRI one time he was running around the room dancing on the furniture and demanding that I catch the moon for him. Definitely not "sedated". I think some people's nervous systems just react differently to some chemicals than "most" people's do.

 

I have no opinion one way or another on caffeine. We haven't tried it. :)

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