Medication

WE JUST CHANGED OR SON ADDERALL FROM 20 TO 25 HE HAS HAD LESS TROUBLE SLEEPING AT NITE WE TRIED THIS BECAUSE HE WAS STILL NOT SETTLED WITH 20 LATE IN THE EVENING HE GETS IRRITABLE BUT IT IS CONTROLABLE

Mary,
First off, I am not a doctor. I am just a college student who struggles. What time is his meds given. Could it be given early so that it starts to “work” by the time he gets to school. Second, I don’t know if you can do this with Adderal but with my Ritalin. I had one time released and I took a short term on top of that in the morning before i went to school. I would say make sure you do what is best for you child. Maybe go observe his teacher. I think that raising the dose could be hard on him, but I don’t really know, like I said I am not a doctor. It will probably be easier once your boy gets older too because he will be able to judge for himself how he is doing. One other thing, here is a little small trick I heard about it. Have your son pretend that he has a focus dial on his knee. Tell him that when he is feeling to hyper or when he gets in trouble have him physically turn the dial down. I don’t know if this makes sense or if it will help but just try it.
Just remember you are the best person to know your son, you know what is best for him.
Good Luck,
Wendy

I agree with Wendy. My child had a higher dose of Concerta last year. She seemed over medicated. We switched to Aderall (long term) which made her physically ill. We went back to Concerta, but a smaller dosage, and added Ritalin (short term) in the morning. This has worked best for her. I have also heard that some kids that can’t calm down enough at night to go to sleep have been given Ritalin at night which calms them enough to go to bed. This is not necessary for my daughter. Although she does have some nights when it’s hard to settle down, for the most part, as long as we stay on schedule, there are not any sleep problems.

if he was taking 10 mg pills of adderall, he would have to take a 20mg of adderall XR to equal that. Dosing for the swtich is not tit for tat(couldnt think of a better word)

You have effectively reduced his dosage to 7.5 mg

We had those issues with our son. We were told at that time that the time release medication was not as effective. His pediatrician told us that when they come off their medication in the evening, they react to that with wildness. He explained it as a kind of mini-withdrawal from the medication itself and advised us to give a 25% third dose of medication in the evening. That worked for us.

His school day was the same and with the mini dose in the very early evening, his evening hours were smooth.

Good luck to you and your son.

Yes, my son had a similar problem. He went from taking 25 mg. standard Adderall, with 15 mg. at 1:30, and 10 mg. at 4:00 to taking Adderall XR 30 mg. once in the morning. I was told he might need more because you need more XR for the same dose. He was fine for about 3 months. Then it started not to work as well or as long. His dose was increased by 10 mg. twice over two weeks, up to 50 mg.. It was as if he wasn’t on medication. I think that he slowly built up a tolerance to XR so that it no longer worked.

If your doctor recommends increasing the dose and your son has trouble sleeping, you might try GABA (an amino acid) about an hour or so before bed. It’s a natural sedative and is available at vitamin stores. It worked wonders for my son until he finally didn’t need it anymore.

I totally disagree in drugging your children to support the Drug Companies in America.

Not only do they drug our children but adults too.

The principal at my son’s school is in agreement with me. He believes that there are other alternatives besides drugs.

My son has gone through 2 other schools and the other 2 schools are both supported by the Drug Companies. I had complete pressure to have my son on drugs. Schools recieve money from the Drug Companies to promote them.

The principal also informed me that in latest studies of Ritalin that when children come off of the drug they experience tics (I believe this is probably when they are on it for a long period of time). I don’t think that there is enough study of this drug and they are using our kids as guinea pigs.

Check out the site gary.null.com under world issues.

I fought with the previous 2 schools that my son was in. I was even threatened if I don’t put my son on drugs.

I am very happy to find this Principal of this school who is in agreement with me. He apparently was a principal of a school with 14 special classes in it with all kinds of problems so he is very well experiences in these issue. Don’t let society pressure you into thinking that drugs are the only way.

Mary wrote:
>
> I just switched my ADHD child (age 8) to the time release
> Adderal. We increased the dose at same time from 10mg to
> 15mg. This has seemed to even out his behavior. He doesn’t
> seem to be so wild in the evening. But according to this
> teacher he is now having more trouble sitting still in class
> and is getting into more fights at recess. I don’t want to
> increase the dose because he’ll never go to bed. Anyone else
> experiencing this?