ADDitudemag.com. sketch.

[Blue_186281_red]

I was referred from here to an interesting article. The 2nd article I read was a compilation of medication descriptions. It linked to a separate article for each drug. I recently refused to take vyvanse because it is under copyright and there is no generic; I refuse to participate in that system. After a cursory look I wrote a comment complaining of no information about drug price and copyright Vs generic concerns. I will paste my comment that turned in to 2 comments below but I encourage you not to read unless you REALLY care about health care legislation.

ADDitude is a walled garden. The only place I found a link to an outside source was under the news for professionals. That link was to a primary source that contradicted ADDitude's article!

The article? "New Finding: ADHD Medication Not Associated with Cardiovascular Risk at Any Age". I mean... WOW. WTF. OMG. Imagine the windfall to drug companies. When you first click on the "news for profesionals" at top, your screen is filled with one thumbnail linking to this article.

I didn't look too much, but on about 6 pages I could not find one other link, sourcing of references, or even advertisement that would redirect you do another website. Yet every article I read would have been marked down a letter grade for any 5th grader were they to turn it in with no reference. The web site is a self eating circle.

2/4 of the authors were an english literature BS & sociology MA with no health experience. They seem to have copied & pasted all their articles from one souce: a contradictory article on ADDitude written by an MD who works as a drug rep! The 4th author owned an ADD treatment center.

The point - There my be good articles here, but it appears to exist exclusively to create a facade of repute in order to manipulate the treatment of ADHD for profit. Thoughts?

MY COMMENT. SERIOUSLY. DON'T READ IT.. WAY TOO LONG

additudemag.com/adhd-medica...

Corruption in the pharmaceutical industry was part of my course syllabus in nursing school. Writing an article like this and not listing which drugs are still under copyright & which are available in generic is irresponsible. Everyone knows of homicidal drug profiteering like overpriced insulin & the opioid epidemic, yet independent journalists (OK, I just discovered Additude. I am hoping you're independent) think an article of comprehensive ADHD drugs can be complete without educating the public on the economic aspect of their medical care. It's not just a question of "can YOU afford drug x?", It's a question of "Are you aware of the impact your buying habits have on the management of everyone's health care?" How many under-insured patients are denied optimum health care options due to public ignorance & laziness? YOUR willingness to take the latest and "greatest" (questionably. "better than placebo" is a more inclusive description of new drugs) treatment without question can cause direct harm to others.

When I changed MDs I was offered Vyvanse because "it's more even and lasts all day." The MD prescribed it, not because I complained about adderall, but because I described how adderall worked for me when asked: it wears off around 1400 and depending on demands of the day I may need a PM dose that I often don't take. When I went to the pharmacy Vyvanse was $15 instead of $5. Honestly, $10 is no big deal. The problem is that it's NOT "just" $10. Insurance was paying $300 for 30 pills of Vyvanse (IDK dose or tab/cap cuz I didn't buy it but it must have been low dose) Vs my Adderall which was.... wait for it...wait fooorrr iiitt.... $11 for 29 caps of 25mg XL. makes me wonder why I need to pay $5!

I'm fine with the "roller coaster." I don't really experience a crash, & I don't need meds 24/7 to function. But if I wasn't a nurse, I probably would have changed my meds per MD order without question as long as it worked. However I've read plenty of comments by people who DEPEND on Vyvanse. I've read comments from people who WISH they could afford Vyvanse. I refuse to price people out of health care because I just do what my MD says. Do you think drug reps are visiting doctor's offices to extol the virtues of $11 Adderall? LOL. But I promise you my MD got some swag and a free Continuing Education Unit from a smoking hot Vyvanse sales lady recently. It's so corrupt that when I told her why I was refusing the Rx my MD got all defensive and said "I'm not on the take!" well... of coarse not. not exactly. But the whole system forces you to be a little compromised, a little thoughtless, to have the expensive option on your mind, to emphasize the negative side effects of the cheap option, to contribute just a bit more than you realize to costly medical interventions that are not necessary.

I am eager to try vyvanse. When the IP dies & prices drop. But ADD & stimulants give me enough difficulty sleeping without adding moaral compromise to the causes.

The adult ADHD market I believe is particularly susceptible to consumer action via education. I was actually referred to this site from a therapy forum where someone had read this: additudemag.com/why-am-i-so... Personally I'm an extremist. Or... I hope I am. I'm young enough to not have any serious health history, but when the time comes, I hope to have the character to do my research & settle for old generic heart meds & refuse interventions where more $ goes to a device manufacturer screaming "R&D costs!" than to the medical professional's contributing labor to my care. New drugs don't cost that much - the research is done by public universities. People just need to start treating drugs like we really believe in capitalism. It's hard to swallow the lies after seeing last year's wave of stock buy backs. We are in a class war. Usually poor kids are forced to die in war, but this one will require courage from the old, sick, & well insured. Settling for some downsides of older ADHD meds while still functioning as a professional seems like a cheap casualty. At very least, reporters could grow a pair and stop pretending like insulin gouging exists in a vacuum. It's not just isolated horror stories that bubble up on corporate news: insulin, elderly deaths from rationing, that wall street bro that bought epinephrine. The system is stacked towards homicide for profit and utilizing a drug targeted at people with Justice Sensitivity to demonstrate how consumer action can drop prices will demonstrate that Big Pharma can get along just fine with 10% margins. All it takes is education and you shouldn't ever read an article like this without asking why the author doesn't mention COST & IP status.

PART 2 - after more in depth study of article: Have you noticed all these articles have "advertisement" in small grey text at the bottom? It gives the impression this is in reference to the links below but those are all links to more additude articles. hmm

Adhansia XR® - linked article has only two comments: someone asked about cost, and another reader said not to expect answers here, and she's right! comment is 3 years old. The reporter i mean, the author is a BA in English literature?! explains why she sounds like she's parroting a press release!

Aptensio XR - It's the same drug as ritalin, with extended release delivery method. Yet the author, in her admission of this, attempts to distract you from this. She lists a couple of brand names and gives the impression that she's almost talking about different products! Jesus, it should be illegal to give drugs more than one name. Medication errors are a leading cause of death, and yet introducing confusion to the system on purpose is OK? The author "who (vicariously) lived the life of luxury blogging with Haute Living", wrote for a tech site, & edited unnamed text books... well she has an MA in sociology. Comment section is blocked

Concerta - I'm starting to notice some patterns here... They could sure save us all some time if they condensed these articles into one Methylphenidate article and educated us at a 5th grade level (like HCP do) about the differences in delivery to consider when taking Ritalin. You know how the industry milks old generics? make a little change, slap on a new copyright, then they piss on your head and SWEAR "it's raining!" comments blocked. same unqualified author. So far, if side effects are discussed, Janice is quick to assure you that "Most people taking Concerta do not experience any side effects." Does the pattern hold? lets find out!

Cotempla XR - Oh. Look. Janice Rodden LOVES talking about more ways to take RITALIN (methylphenidate). I suppose I shold be grateful. I just invented a new drinking game. Look up drug advertisements and Ctrl-f "most people" - If you find something like "Most people taking this medication do not experience any of these side effects." TAKE A SHOT!

Metadate, Daytrana, Methylin, Quillivant, Quillichew ER, Ritalin - OMG Janice Rodden! are you OK? do you have a compulsion to assure people that most people don't get side effects from ritalin while minimizing the fact that you're talking about ritalin? My understanding is ~20% experience tics. Seems significant... strange you don't mention it. OH NO! you're being held hostage by Pharma pay checks!!! blink twice if you need help!. COMMENTS BLOCKED. COMMENTS BLOCKED. COMMENTS BLOCKED. often sources manufacturer websites. Think I'm coming to a conclusion about the independence on ADDitude as an information source

remaining Ritalin articles by Lilly Constance - tsk tsk. she forgets to mention that "Most people taking this medication do not experience any of these side effects." Think I know why she didn't get to contribute as many articles. She should contact Janice for some career advice. more confabulation about the same drug, NOW WITH RACING STRIPES!

AAAAND finally... Methylphenidate: ADHD Medication Overview - you can tell this was written by an MD - author got paid(?) for multiple listings in the chart linking to the same article. It literally looks like Janice randomly copy/pasted all her articles from this one. Oddly, the article describes tics & anorexia as a side effect. People literally take Ritalin just for weight loss side effect; ~20% of people develop tics. yet Dr William Dodson, M.D., LF-APA, oddly, seems to be the source of Janice's claim "Most people taking this medication do not experience any of these side effects." maybe the doc forgot. You see, "Over the last several years, Dr. Dodson has changed the emphasis of his practice from direct patient care to writing and speaking about and consulting on adult ADHD medicine." That's a quote from his bio. I like this quote: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it." ? Upton Sinclair

BTW - COMMENTS BLOCKED.

OK. it's 12:30 and the next 3 drug links were written by Janice. looks like all of them are labeled advertisements, and I think I have plenty reason to voice concern in ADHD forums when people refer to ADDitude articles.

additudemag.com/why-am-i-so...

WTF is up with this site? I see some links, were those added on 11/29 in response to the above comments? Do you think it engenders trust to edit article with no explanation? I have yet to find one link on this site that isn't directed to another ADDitude page. I came here after hearing your name multiple time on a therapy forum but looks like this is just an industry rag. After clicking around a bit this author is the first one with any sort of relevant experience and I see no reason to gas light on this topic but the only other licensed person I saw was a MD working as a drug rep and this lady owns a Tx center.

LOL try clicking on News for professionals above. You're blasted with one giant thumb nail claiming "New Finding: ADHD Medication Not Associated with Cardiovascular Risk at Any Age"

Wouldn't that be a financial wind fall for drug manufacturers!

Unless you read the disclaimer at the end of the ADDitude article. Or click on the only outside link I found on the site to the source. Which inconveniently states:

"Tadrous et al5 found that prescription stimulant use was associated with an increased risk of a CVD event at 30 days, with a hazard ratio (HR) of 3.0 (95% CI, 1.1-8.7) for ventricular arrhythmias and an HR of 1.6 (95% CI, 1.1-2.1) for stroke or transient ischemic attack. Latronica et al6 noted that older adults exposed to amphetamines had an increased risk of CVD events compared with those who did not take amphetamines (odds ratio, 6.16; 95% CI, 4.22-8.99). It must also be noted that polypharmacy is particularly common in older individuals, and the potential for drug-drug interactions is therefore greater."

It's almost like a whole ecosystem is being cultivated here with innocuous articles about justice sensitivity to give authority to industry propaganda.

[BlessedLady]

Anyone can find out which drugs are still under patent and which ones have generics. All they have to do is Google the drugs brand name.

[spoonflower]

Difficulty sleeping at night, you say? Oh, but they have the perfect solution. They can just prescribe you downers. Uppers to function at day, downers to sleep at night. I think euphoria should be listed as a side effect as well, because people do experience it at low doses. They will claim this only happens with "abuse," but some people are much more susceptible to a euphoric feeling than others. And people who easily experience this euphoric feeling, even at the lowest dose, will be more prone to abusing the drug to get the same effect. But that's always downplayed.

[Jeff71]

Vyvanse really helped with focus. My motivation to do things improved. The people around me said it changed my mood for the worse. Vyvanse is also used for binge eating which caused me to lose weight, which was needed. The issue was I didn't want to eat at all. The thought of putting food in my mouth made me sick to my stomach. I didn't have the afternoon crash like I currently get with Concerta.

[TwitchyJumpy]

So, you're a bit of an "extremist", huh?? Never would have guessed by your post.

First off, you are posting on a forum for people with ADD/ADHD - you lost my attention very early with the meaningless rambling on, and on, and on, and on!

Second - You say you won't try Vyvanse simply because it is still under patent, and you don't play that game? Well, if you are a nurse as you state, you well know that almost any drug made, when initially released, is under patent from the original manufacture, and therefore, cannot be made under a generic brand. This statement has so many underlying implications, which in and of themselves, create many other issues in your life. One, you are against the "American Dream", and the chance for anyone to make the most out of whatever they do. Is it not every business owners dream and goal to be as successful and profitable as they can be? Two, you are sacrificing your own health and stability just to make a point for the cause or fight that you believe in. In a sense, you are willing to go to war to fight for what your beliefs are, but you will end up shooting yourself with your own gun.

I am not suggesting that I support drug prices, and the massive profits that drug companies make. Or that I in any way want to support or pay the outrageous amounts that they are charging. But, when it comes down to your health and mental stability, it's a personal choice that everyone has to make - Is the cost worth the benefit?

Let me ask you this - If you came down with some new disease that doctors said would take your life in the near future, and then found out that XYZ pharmaceuticals had just invented a cure for that new disease, but the cost of the cure was extremely high and under patent........ would you pay it? Or would you stand your moral high ground then as well?

As with everything in life - It's a choice. A choice that we all have to make. If this drug, or that drug, or Vyvanse works for someone, when other drugs don't, is the benefit that they will receive from that drug worth the cost of that drug. And that answer is different for you, different for me, and different for everyone. It is good to have a cause, a fight, something to believe in and stand for. But taking your fight to a forum that exists to help people, and not to the cause of the issue, is a complete waste of your time and efforts!

[Judi1234 in reply to TwitchyJumpy]

Just a short note in response to your long comment. Having been a pharmaceutical rep in the 70s (when generic substitutes were beginning to grasp hold with physicians) I am very aware of contraindications, new indications for old medications, side effects, etc. I was extremely pleased when the prescribing psychiatrist asked me to get an OK from my cardiologist before prescribing Ritalin (generic methylphenidate). When I was a rep, I knew that the best dr's always checked contraindications, side effects, etc. before prescribing. Now, as a senior on many medications, I suggest to everyone that they ask serious questions about the drug when visiting a therapist or psychiatrist. Many drs think that because they've been in practice for many years, they don't need to check. If your questions are not answered, look for another doctor.

My two cents.!!

[Blue_186281_red]

despite my rambling at 2AM... you get straight to my point. A drug advertisement masquerading as a news article was just my example... that's why I said DON'T READ. The continuing education of MDs that you speak to is probably coming from sources like ADDitude. I have seen several refrences to ADDitude in the forums here. The one I read was on Justice Sensitivity and seemed like an innocent, interesting publication. Glancing at the site, I bet the vast majority of their articles fall into this category. My point is that this is window dressing to provide cover for an industry propaganda machine.

click on For Professionals > News and the ONLY thing you see is one giant thumb nail telling your MD to prescribe stimulants to people with high blood pressure.

sketchy. Worth discussion.

[Gettingittogether]

The page you link to absolutely identifies which meds are brand name and which have generics ... for every drug mentioned on the left ... if there is a generic version, the title of the drug includes the phrase "or generic."

Yes, drug companies are for-profit institutions. Heart surgeons are for-profit workers, as are psychiatrists, orthopedists who repair broken bones, doctors who treat diabetes and on and on. Heck the older I get, I think of parenting as partly for profit of having functional younger people who can take care of you in your ailing and weak days.

Yes drug companies promote their meds and sometimes overhype them.

My response: so what? I just want to find a medication that helps me. It the med was produced by a for-profit group or in some fantasy world where a non-profit outfit creates the med--I do not care in the slightest.

It's like hey, the food we eat--even the healthiest food we eat--is produced for profit. So what?

The researchers who study ADHD (the best ones I've encountered) will say that the meds don't solve all ADHD problems. They say that up front. They recommend therapy and coaching and creation of systems and habits and on and on.

The meta-analysis study you criticize--lots of folks can do those as long as they can do the math. Grad students can do those. You suggesting that these three authors are getting payments from the drug companies? That's a strong accusation. If you think that, then maybe email them and find out who their advisors were and make the charge and see how they respond. And btw: there are often many meta-analysis studies (summaries of multiple studies) that come out. And one study doesn't end the discussion. Everyone in medicine knows that, and I think even us lay people know that.

Research journals require writers to up front acknowledge any paid relationships with drug companies. I just had hip surgery. Some of the best articles out there are written by doctors-researchers who are also hired by various manufacturers of artificial hips. They are required to disclose those relationships. It is considered a major breach to not disclose those relationships.

I find additude. com to be an excellent site. It's messy, but that's fine. Medicine is messy and life is messy.

I just did a check on something. I just did a search for topics in the additude search bar--for non-drug treatments. Here we go:

I typed in "exercise" in the search bar. I got 1, 267 entries for exercise.

I typed in "meditation" --471 entries.

I typed in "mindfulness" (which overlaps with meditation)--2, 522 entries.

I typed in CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy), a non drug treatment--198 entries.

I typed in the full phrase "Cognitive Behavioral Therapy)--371 entries.

I typed in "coaching"--1, 412 entries.

I typed in "neurofeedback" (non-drug treatment)--122 entries.

I typed in "biofeedback"--60 entries.

I typed in "therapy" which can include psychology and sensory methods--1,633 entries.

I typed in "diet"--526 entries.

I typed in "food"--1,084 entries

I typed in "structure" (structure and scheduling is huge for people with ADHD)--925 entries

I typed in "schedule"--1,635 entries.

My ADHD coach I hired shortly after diagnosis emphasized that if you have ADHD, you have to maximize your strengths. Don't just get more organized. Try to gravitate towards jobs that you are naturally strong at so that not being so organized matters less.

So I typed in "strengths"--946 entries.

[Knitting20projects]

If you don’t want to take medication, you don’t have to. I definitely will only be on generics because brand names are way too expensive. So not sure I’m making anyone except maybe a generic manufacturer in India rich. Each of us can choose what’s a good fit for ourselves, including using non-medication treatments.

[Blue_186281_red]

You spell out the problem perfectly - "I definitely will only be on generics because brand names are way too expensive."

But that problem is rooted in your decision making process: "Each of us can choose what’s a good fit for ourselves."

I can get any drug I want for $15. But is that a good fit for myself? The system is engineered to hide the economics from you if you're rich. But the poor suffer from poor quality of life, bankruptcy, generational debt, and shorter life expectancy. My pharmacist wasn't even sure how to tell me the actual price - he had to get help from his manager!

Take a big drug now: Vyvance is $300, but it's basically Dexadrine XR ~$10 with a longer half-life. So which is a good fit for me? Maybe the Vyvanse gives me that extra 2 hrs to get through the work day, but a $10 short acting PRN med would do the same. Does the risk of me forgetting the PRN cuz I have ADD outweigh my small contribution to excluding those in need from our health care system?

The economics of drugs are obfuscated because the industry knows Americans have moral principles that would be offended if it became public knowledge. The accountability for their crime is diversified so that we all come away with a bit of guilt so small as to be inconsequential.

I'm glad you found my old post. I don't expect to change anything by sticking with generic adderall, and I don't expect to change public opinion and instigate sweeping legislation by writing all this. You say "each of us can choose what's a good fit for ourselves" but in medicine, The Nurenburg Trials determined in 1947 that Informed Consent is necessary for an individual to make medical decisions. Our medical system's response to this is to make some key facts so abstract that no individual can claim those facts are relevant to their care.

To Paraphrase Chris Hedges: 'I stand by my principles, not because I will win, but because they are principles. Anything less is a hobby.'

Just something I think people should fit in to their calculations when choosing a good fit for themselves.