ADHD and Anxiety
Children, adolescents, and adults with anxiety disorders often have an increase in anxiety or experience side effects to stimulants used to treat AD/HD. Anxiety is also a common reason for inattention and distractibility in the classroom, and can sometimes be mistaken for AD/HD. However, anxiety disorders (as well as depression, and learning problems) also tend to coexist with AD/HD.Strattera is probably the medication of first choice for someone with anxiety, although it has its own side effect profile and doesn’t work for everyone. Frequently, anxiety needs to be treated first, and when treatment is successful, a stimulant can often be successfully added.If your child is fearful or seems to have anxiety problems, I’d suggest a comprehensive evaluation by a good child psychologist and perhaps a referral to a child psychiatrist for medications.More information about anxiety in children can be found in, “Your Anxious Child,” by Dacey and Fiore.Related Topics: High Cost of Mental Illness in Children, Ritalin for Preschoolers?Technorati Tags: ADHD, anxiety, side effects, Strattera
