James Greenblatt - Finally Focused

You have changed the lives of my child and my family.

That passage is from an e-mail sent to me at the end of a school year by Cynthia D., the mother of ten-year-old Michael, a patient of mine who has attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD. (Their names have been changed for confidentiality, as have the names of the patients and parents featured throughout the book.) Heres more from her inspiring message

Michael is doing very well, she wrote. In fact, as long as we follow your recommendations, he is a different child.

Before he started treatment, he ended third grade at the 10th percentile in both math and reading, and I was told his executive function, his ability to plan, organize, and complete tasks, was at the 1 percentile levelin other words, his executive functioning couldnt have been worse.

At the year-end meeting with his third grade teachersa year in which hed had eighteen write-ups for bad behaviorthey more or less told us that Michael was academically doomed.

But with the supplements and dietary changes you recommendedparticularly avoiding dairy productshes now at 70% in math and reading, and his executive function is 100%.

At the year-end meeting with his fourth grade teachersa year in which he had just one write-up for behavior problemsthey told us Michael is an above-average student, a sweet, funny, smart child who is a pleasure to work with.

Once again, Cynthia concluded, thank you for all your work.

Hearing a story like Michaels is commonplace for mewhere a dietary factor that is triggering the symptoms of ADHD is detected and removed; a nutritional supplement helps repair imbalances in the brain caused by a nutritional deficiency; and a child suffering from the symptoms of ADHD is freed to be the sweet, funny, smart child he truly is.

This happens so often, I feel completely confident that the happy ending of Michaels storysymptoms controlled, life lived to its full potentialcould happen to your child or adolescent with ADHD. Or it could happen to you, if youre an adult with ADHD.

Ive gained my confidence from three decades as a child psychiatrist and an integrative psychiatrist, treating thousands of children and adolescents with ADHD.

During those thirty years, Ive learned this essential fact about the disorder:

ADHD is not a behavior problem or a discipline problem. ADHD is a medical disorder, in which genetic, neurological, nutritional, and environmental factors imbalance the brain, causing imbalanced behavior.

As an integrative psychiatrist, I dont limit myself to prescribing medications to control the symptoms of ADHD. I look for and detect the underlying causes of the disorder and I address those causes, using natural treatments first and medications only when necessary. And even if I do prescribe an ADHD drug, I do so in conjunction with powerful natural treatments that give patients with ADHD relief from medication side effects.

And as an integrative psychiatrist, I dont take a one-size-fits-all approach to treatment, because it doesnt work! Every person with ADHDchild, adolescent, or adulthas a unique pattern of deficiencies and excesses that imbalance the brain. Correcting these deficiencies and excessesadding what is needed and subtracting what isntis what my Plus-Minus Plan is all about.

For Michael, the protein in dairy (casein) was a symptom-triggering excess, and we took it out of his dieta Minus youll read more about in Chapter 6. Like nearly all kids with ADHD, Michael also had a magnesium deficiency, and we added a nutritional supplement to correct ita Plus youll read about in Chapter 1.

Having successfully treated thousands of people with ADHD using this Plus-Minus approach, Im still frustrated that there are millions of people with diagnosed ADHD who are searching for answers. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 11% of children ages 4 to 17 have been diagnosed with ADHDmore than six million kids. Another eight million adults have the disorder, with only about one in five treated.

I wrote this book because I wanted to bring relief to as many of those millions as possible. To your child or adolescent with ADHD. To you, if youre an adult with ADHD. But first, Id like you to know a little bit about the newest scientific understanding of the underlying causes of the symptoms of ADHDand why the Plus-Minus Plan addresses them.

And because this book is a powerful tool to effectively control symptoms, Id like you to know exactly how to use it before you begin.

The most important point about ADHD: it is not a disease. Its a disorder or