After getting a diagnosis of ADHD from our pediatrician and pychiatrist---the pediatric behaivoral specialist told us today, that he does NOT believe my son has ADHD. He believes instead, that it is anxiety.
Does anyone have experience with differing diagnosis? We are more confused now than before!
One way to know this is true is to treat the anxiety, then the ADHD symptoms should go away? I assume this could be done a similiar way with thearpy and medication?Good luck!
It is certainly possible to have both. Pediatric developmental specialists are more likely to utilize objective testing to evaluate for ADHD rather than apply the diagnosis based upon observed behavior and parent report. I agree with the reply above that it would make sense to treat for the anxiety and see if that treatment seems to resolve the behaviors which appear to be ADHD. Certainly, treating the anxiety will do no harm and it should help determine if there really is ADHD. You certainly won't be doing your child any harm. I would not be in a hurry to tell the school that there may NOT be ADHD. Leave the accommodations for ADHD in place. They should help even if it's anxiety and it will be a battle to get them reinstated if it really is ADHD. Good luck. Be well.
My daughter has both. She is in 6th grade now. In pre-K to the end of 4th, adhd drove the train. From that point until now, anxiety has driven the train. We treat both with combinations of supplements, therapy, 504 accommodations, anxiety medication, and stimulant medication.
My grandsons have both and have had this from a young age. They get very agitated and one gets angry when overwhelmed.But they also acted up in class, had trouble concentrating, completing assignments.
We treat both.
Great comments! IMO as a parent you have the trickey job to help your child be self-aware and curious as to what is going on so that the best help can be given. Emotional self-regulation can be hard enough without a developing brain😁 So a child who knows they are loved and accepted as they are, who is encouraged to listen to themselves (which is scary when you think you’re “crazy” or not like others) - that’s a start. Anxiety and/or ADHD…you be curious too and keep learning. You can help without labeling it until things become more clear.
Hi. I have a 16yo daughter with both. We had her professionally tested in sixth grade by a psychologist. Has your son undergone this testing or has he rather received these DX’s based on opinions by these specialists? I wasn’t clear on this from your post.
The reason I ask is that formal testing can help tease apart the two. My daughter went through 13 hours of extensive testing with the psychologist along with parental and teacher surveys in order to come to a diagnosis of primary anxiety and secondary adhd. The report generated, as a result of this testing, was about 30 pages long. I highly recommend undergoing this testing so you have a clearer starting point. It summarizes all areas tested and give specific suggestions of what to do next.
1. We then went to a psychiatrist to start antidepressants and then stimulants.
2. Simultaneously, we presented the school with the diagnosis to get an IEP meeting so she would have all the support she needed to be successful at school.
3. She also saw a psychologist for a while to help her get through some sticking points with her anxiety (school refusal, self consciousness).
4. Lastly, I set her up to work with an executive function tutor to help her stay on task with homework.
Once you have a clear picture of the diagnosis, then you can move forward with a plan to help him.
We are here for you if you have any questions!
My kid has both and we went through all the steps outlined by redpanda5. The psychologist did a full neuropsychological evaluation with academic and social emotional testing. Since we have both anxiety and adhd, our psychiatrist recommended treating the anxiety first - because some stimulants can exacerbate ADHD. Then when the anxiety had been somewhat stabilized, we added Adderall (Ritalin was a bad fit because it increased anxiety and irritation.) The two conditions can be really intertwined - for example, ADHD impacts emotional regulation which can generate or enhance feelings of anxiety. And of course, having executive functioning issues is really anxiety provoking! The good news is that it’s really common to have both, so there are plenty of resources out there. ADDitude runs free webinars about a variety of topics and this combo always comes up. One last thing: before my daughter was ready to do talk therapy with a social worker, occupational therapy for emotional regulation was incredibly helpful. Not sure how old your kid is, but it was really good for us when my daughter was too young to really be able to get much out of trying to talk about her thoughts and feelings.
Same...we initially thought my 5 year old had ADHD, but our psychiatrist now believes he has Anxiety, which makes more sense given it is prevalent in my family. But, he's never displayed more common symptoms of anxiety. He's now on a very small dose of a SSRI (Celexa), and we have seen improvement in mood stability. He's also taking Guanfacine to help emotional regulation. We're awaiting the results of our Neuropsych evaluation.
There are a LOT of overlapping symptoms in these conditions, and there is quite a bit of trial and error when it comes to meds + diagnosis. Good luck!
I am equally confused because my son has had an official ADHD diagnosis then an official Anxiety diagnosis then an official tic disorder diagnosis. None of the doctors/psychs agree with the other. So I just assume that my son as all of them! I feel like they are all related in some way. It did help our family to get these diagnoses. We felt like our son was really observed by each doctor, and so each saw a different aspect of our son’s unique make-up. We are also starting some treatments to see which ones benefit my son the most. Right now he is on 2mg Guanfacine but I am wondering if we should add a low-dose of Prozac to this regimen. Good luck!!
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