I am a mother of a 11 year old boy. He was Diegnosed with ADHA at a young age but I did not feel he needed to be medicated until this year. He has now been on Ritalin for about 4 months, it seemed to help with most of his symptoms. Recently I have seem the old symtoms returning, the one that scares me the most is his obsesion with food. He will eat until he gets sick, and then eat more. It is a battle every meal. I tell him that what he was given for that meal is plenty and the yelling and fighting begins, ending most of the time with “fine I just won’t have anything!”
Re: Is the Meds working
Have you tried going back to see his Dr. again. My daughter took Ritalin for many years and it really helped her. The Dr. switched her over to Adderal in high school so that she could take it once a day. I have read that Ritalin could cause the children NOT to want to eat. I really believe that the Dr. should be able to help and if he doesn’t help enough - trying another would be good.
Theresa
This can happen when the meds are wearing off because when they are on the meds they aren’t hungry at all…but I wonder if he is also starting a growth spurt? I have a son who is on Dexadrine and when his meds wear off he eats and eats and eats and he is still very thin, however, he never eats to the point of being sick.
My son is a grazer, he eats a little bit all day long…and drinks tons of milk, he is getting taller and he is starting to take naps some afternoons because he is tired and that is due to the growth spurt as well.
Perhaps you can have some acceptable snacks that your son can eat when he is hungry and try to not make it a tug of war around meal time. Sometimes when they are coming of the meds they are very argumentative as well. I would talk to the Pediatrician with your son present to address your concerns as sometimes the Dr. can reason with a child when the parents can’t. The Dr. may advise a change in medication as well.
Good luck…boys are fun but sometimes when they start puberty they can drive us bonkers!