Return to school: Anxiety or ADHD in School Aged Children
As there are hints of fall in the air, so is the reminder that school is right around the corner! I’ve checked off ‘back to school shopping’ with two of my three kids so far…which by the way was interesting with my oldest. He’s got his wanted style now and man is it something left to be desired?! Send help. Please. Or if you see some kid walking around in an oversized hoodie with the brightest sweatpants around, put on your sunglasses and say hi to Barrett. Thank god our rule is no sweatpants at school. I DIGRESS.
Often times throughout summer, my practise quiets down with anxiety ridden school aged children coming in with a diagnosis of ADHD. With both of these diagnoses popping up more frequently during the school year, I wanted to speak to how we can differentiate between the two and more importantly how to support each child coming back into school!
Anxiety often presents with nervousness and fear. Lack of concentration may come along with this yet it tends to come in certain situations where the anxious feelings are triggered. ADHD’s key diagnostic symptom is the inability to concentrate, sometimes with hyperactivity. The lack of concentration can be present in multiple different situations, outside of feeling anxious. Then there’s a blend of the two and both are involved - this is actually quite frequent.
Generally speaking, lots of studies look at the neurotransmitters (NTs) dopamine and norepinephrine (NE) when it comes to understanding ADHD. These NTs are low and can cause issues in various parts of the brain that run our emotions, executive function, attention and communication.
NTs that are studied in anxiety are multiple - serotonin, histamine, GABA, along with dopamine and NE and figuring out what is actually involved for each individual is beneficial to then figure out best line of treatment.
Not only is it helpful to identify what neurotransmitters are involved in each individual’s picture, we also want to understand the health of other body systems as most of them effect those levels! For example, approximately 90% of serotonin is actually produced in our digestive tract versus our original understanding in the brain.
Testing and treatment: Urine analysis of different neurotransmitters can be performed to assess each individuals levels. Bloodwork can be done to rule out other systems that may be the cause of either diagnoses (ie. an overactive thyroid).
Once we have the full picture of what body systems need support along with the patient’s symptoms, we can then start to support. This looks very different for each patient. Often times we can support a patients body with cofactors (ie nutrient supplements) that are needed to produce various NTs. Other times its identifying causes of dysbiosis in the gut (a main environment for NTs production) and treating these with pharmaceuticals (ie. antibiotics - need to refer to MD in this case as NDs in Alberta do no prescribe pharmaceuticals) and/or botanical meds.
Lastly, the beauty of naturopathic medicine is that we treat the whole person. This includes emotions, energetics and mental health. Anxiety for example, is completely different for each child. How this manifests in physical symptoms, past history of trauma (big or little!), what energetic make up each child brings into this world with them. All of this needs to be considered when treating the patient to then truly be able to treat and support the root cause.
