Medication for ADHD

My son didn’t do well on either concerta or adderall and he does well with Dexadrine. He is 15. He only takes one 10 mg Spansule pill once a day and it lasts all day. Meds is only one part of the solution the other part of the problem is your son needs to be taught organizational skills. 15 years of living this way isn’t going to be changed overnight. My son even on meds needs me to ride him once in a while when he slips up. Tonight I had to sit by him while he finished his homework because he is nervous about finals. It kept him going..and he is still at it..

Greetings Lori,

When your son tells you he wants to do well in school, ask him HOW he plans to accomplish this. Often times I believe our kiddos have great difficulty getting from the WANT to the HOW and I think the fact that they THINK about it makes them think they are actually DOING something about it. My soon to be 15yo dd genuinely has a documented poor memory - not just inattention - and your son may be the same. She started this school year taking Adderall and for the very first time ever, she has been able to keep a homework planner. This organizational success partly stems from having been homeschooled full-time the previous year and a half and her motivation was to prove that she was capable of handling the traditional classroom setting. She isn’t as motivated at home with non-school activites and tasks and therefore is less organized particularly when it’s something she dislikes doing. I would encourage you to ask your son how he plans to solve the problem, brainstorm solutions with him and let him know that you are there to help him if needed. I have found that when I let my dd decide how to solve the problem that it more likely gets solved.

Blessings, momo

My son (now 19 and in college) also tried Concerta first, but he just felt it was too weak to last 10 hours. We changed to an 8 hour Metadate 20mg (also Ritalin) and he seems to like that better. Some days he has to take two if he has studying to do at night. I personally feel most comfortable with Ritalin as it has been around so long and seems to have fewer problems compared to some of the others. We also tried regular Ritalin, but he said it only worked well for about 2 hours at a time. You really just have to experiment with the different forms of Ritalin before you give up on it. The happy thing about Metadate is that it is actually in the generic category so costs less than the Concerta. That was a nice bonus! Oh, and my son is still disorganized and messy. He waits until the night before to do any project or paper and then stays up all night to do it. That makes me crazy, but he is away at college so at least I don’t have to see it daily! Somehow, he does have a 3.0, for which I am very thankful!

Janis

If your son is new to medication, it is important for you to know that it often takes a good deal of tinkering to find the right medication at the right dose. The size of the child sometimes has nothing to do with with the size of the dosage but more to do with how the child metabolizes the medication. If Concerta is the first medication you have tried and 36 mg is the first dose you have tried, your doctor will probably advise upping the dose and, if that doesn’t work, trying a different stimulant. On the right meds at the right dose my 11 year old went from a kid who did almost nothing in school except what he personally found interesting to a kid who gets straight As. My husband and I sometimes ask each other whether it is possible that aliens have abducted our “real” child. On the organizational front, I have found that my son has no ability to generate his own strategies. If we give him a strategy and show him how to use it, however, he is much more successful. I’ve made this suggestion to others, but one way I got my 9th grader to keep track of his assignments was to buy him a PDA. They are not terribly expensive and my son uses it because he thinks it is cool. (Actually, they are cool — I use one myself.) You can set an alarm on a PDA to remind you of an appointment, which might help to get your son off to his tutoring. Anyway, just a suggestion …

Andrea

Now that’s an idea, Andrea! My son would never write anything down, but he likes most electronic things!

I really tried to teach him to be organized. I bought notebooks with dividers and pocket folders, etc. But all he did was stuff papers inside the notebooks and never put anything in the sections! I finally gave up and realized he would have to learn how to manage in his own way…which will be very different from how I do things!

Janis

The ADHD meds do not work for everyone. Often the ADHD meds work quite rapidly, that is, changes can occur within an hour or less and last - depending on the med - several hours (or longer).

The ADHD meds can be extremely specific for some persons, that is, there are cases where Ritalin works yet Dexedrine fails and Dexedrine works but Ritalin fails and so on. The weakest known central nervous system stimulant/alerting agent is perhaps coffee/caffeine compounds; the strongest may be Adderall.

Best wishes.

The really great thing was that my son thought I was being fantastically nice to him rather than sticking with his usual view that I am a pain in the neck whose goal is to interfere with his enjoyment of life!

Andrea