Hi Folks,
Looking for real world experiences with ADHD medicines and enlisting.

Have a child who was prescribed ADHD medicines ("Concerta") for 1.5yrs in middle school.

We took the child off of it because we didn't see any persona / academia gain with them.

Now several years later, this child has expressed an interest to join the military and graduates soon.

What will be faced with at the Recruiting Office?  Burdened to show?  To prove?  Is it a detriment at all?

Looking for real world experiences please.

Recruiters - please chime in!

Thanks!

Daughter was on meds in HS for 3yrs...

Marines and Navy would not entertain any enlistment discussion with her. This was 2012-13.

Thanks.
What I've learned is the Medical Standards for Appointment, Enlisting, or Induction (DoD Instruction 630.03)
There are some circumstances which are not disqualifiers themselves is offspring was prescribed ADHD (p.44).

They have to be off prescribed meds 24+ months prior to applying.
Cannot have been on an Individual Education Plan.
History of comorbid mental disorder.
Documented adverse academic, occupational, or work performance.

Also learned, if anything else, call a Recruiter and get the information first hand.

Much luck.

Don’t say anything about it.
USMC had to comb through my med records because I had my spleen removed at age 5 due to a blood disorder.
They actually passed me on that but saw I was on Ritalin 8 grade to Freshman year and said no go. This was in 1998

This!

NO means Never ending Opportunities
YES means Your Enlistment Stops.

The docs job at meps is to disqualify you. I learned this the hard way.

I wouldn’t disclose any information that isn’t readily available to the recruiters. To be honest I had asthma as a kid (numerous attacks and trips to hospitals), numerous ear infections and surgeries, and I ended up with meningitis due to ear issues and required a PIC line and about a month in the hospital. I enlisted in 2011 into the Marine Corps as an 03xx infantry, without much issue as I kept a lot of it to myself.

Tell him to keep his mouth shut about it and he'll be fine.

I'm also going to recommend not saying anything.  Your child gains absolutely nothing by disclosing this information, but will close the door to certain MOS/ratings/jobs if they do.  If it won't come up on some type of criminal record/report, and there are no scars or physical signs of it, they really have no way of finding out.  Your child will sign a medical release form, but unless they call the specific Dr. that prescribed the drugs, or the pharmacy that issued them, they're not going to find anything.  Some branches have a day early on in boot camp where someone comes in and tries to scare people into disclosing things that might not be on their medical record, don't say anything and they won't find out.

I was on 3-4 different ADD/ADHD meds as a kid, dislocated my shoulder, and had minor knee surgery.  I didn't tell them anything, they didn't find anything.

ETA: Didn't realize I was bumping an old thread, sorry  Any news on this?

The military is pulling pharmacy records from the previous 7 years for new recruits. Started last December.

It's amazing that folks don't realize that if they ever filled a medication that was paid for by their insurance, all the details are in a huge database that is easily queried by pretty much any electronic medical record let alone DOD.

oops

This.