My eight year old has been on 5 mg of Aderall for almost a month now. It’s only used during school hours and not on the weekends. Three weeks ago, after reading a number of positive testimonies, I included nightly epsom salt bath soaks three times a week. I’ve noticed that the days after a salt bath he has a great morning and a great day in school. When he does not have a salt bath and just the Aderall we have really bad mornings and he has ok days (however, they are still better than the days without the Aderall).
This past week my son was on Spring Break and we went on a 4 day vacation to the Grand Canyon. Since the Aderall is strictly used only for school I was going to give him a whole week off. After speaking with his doctor I decided to keep him on it for 2 of the 4 days of our vacation. Our hotel did not have a bath tub only a shower so we were unable to have salt baths. The two days he was on the Aderall were so bad I wanted to cry. He was mean tempered and extremely negative about everything. The days he was off the Aderall he was just mopy and gloomy and negative.
The night we got back he had a salt bath and the next morning was blissful. Since he’s only on 5mg of Aderall I’m beginning to think the epsom salt has more effect than the drug and it doesn’t have any rebound effect or cause him to be (for lack of a better word) depressive and negative. Any thoughts?
Re: Vacation Nightmare
Your son sounds like a good candidate for a holistic nutritional approach if he’s responding so well to the epsom salt baths (lots of magnesium). I don’t know where you live, but maybe you can find a developmental pediatrician, DAN [defeat autism now] doctor or an excellent nutritionist who can help you figure out what your son needs (essential fatty acids, trace minerals, chelation therapy if trace mineral toxicity exists, etc.) DAN doctors know a lot about nutrition and I think there are alot of them around the U.S.
You can email me privately for a couple of suggestions in the Washington, DC area—they might be able to refer you to clinicians in other parts of the country.
Re: Vacation Nightmare
It sounds like he is having muscle cramping in his legs which is interfering with his sleep and causing him to be grumpy and hyper. Kids with sleep of inadequate quality or duration tend to be hyper not drowsy.. Relaxing these cramps would be what the epsom salt soaks would do. Have you tried asking him how his legs feel during the day? Does he move his legs a lot during the night? Restless legs syndrome is a whole separate cause of ADD like symptoms in kids, and has specific treatment.
consistency
I ‘played’ with my sons meds for over a year and then decided to just have him take it daily, school or not. I swear it is better for him-I think the ups and downs(on and off) were more harmful to him than any side effects of the drug itself
JMO-and it took a long time for me to get here so I understand where you are at!
Iits hard to say which is epsom salt and which is adderall because of the back and forth-I think youd have to go totally with one for a few weeks and totally with the other to determine a difference
Re: consistency
I plan on trying that right when school lets out. No drugs for a month—just the epsom salt and good diet to see what kind of effect I get. But if it’s not enough then come september it’s back to aderall —but he’s only on 5mg.
Our kids are always grumpy on vacation. I think it has more to do with not adjusting easily to changes in routine. I think a lot of people have high expectations that vacation will be fun. For us, they just present more opportunities for the four of us to disagree.