Starting Strattera

Hi Mayleng,
Boy, I hope this is an effective medicine for him. You are lucky he can tolerate the stims, but the eating and sleeping issues goes against all the mommy instincts. How is DS sleeping? Eating? behaving? Being he is not hyper, ususally the ramp us is pretty easy. I heard a blub on the radio about a new discovery that Antidepressents are increasing brain size. I have to do more research during the week, but the discovery has prompted more studies to be planned. They are using anti depressents in althiemerz patients and for menopause in leiu of hormones. I think they are really onto something. I know Strat stopped my sons tics besides helping his ADHD symptoms. A very nice perk! Also, his OCD behavs seem to be subsiding, though I’m unsure if he is just out growing them. He is not out growing the tics as if we miss a day of meds, they come back feirce. Keep us posted how it goes, I’m sure their are peolpe interested in this med.

gOOD Luck!

Hi Rebelmom,

We had another good night. Gave Ds another 10mg Strattera last night at 5.30 am with food. He was happy, fell asleep at 10.30pm immediately after his head hit the pillow (we went out last night) and woke up at 8.15 am this morning. No side-effects, appetite has been good. His attention is still not great but then we knew not to expect good results until after we hit Target Dose. But he is happy and I am happy he has no side effects. Tonight we start 18mgs.

The research sounds interesting, I would be very interested to hear what you dig up.

mayleng

Apparrently there was evidence of this in 2000, that it actually can grow new neurons. Facinating! Here is the newest info on MSN, but I also posted links to the info from a few years ago! Very little is mentioned od ADHD treatment, but I think this could be the beginning of something big in the way of a break through with these meds. Long term use is actually good for the brain growth!

http://xtramsn.co.nz/news/0„3782-2570966,00.html

And this, out of Yale from 2000;
http://www.biopsychiatry.com/antidepressants/

PS.
Good luck on your leap to 18mgs tonight. If he has a bad reaction, just go back to the 10 for another day or two.

Thanks Reb for the link. It was very interesting reading.

I gave DS the 18mg at 5.30pm with dinner, and it is now 8.00pm and he is doing great.

Will update you tomorrow.

Have a good night.

Yoo-Hoo! Hi Mayleng, we are waiting for your Strattera update! Are things going so well, there is nothing to vent about?

Hi Rebelmom,

Yes things have been going really well for my son, I really have nothing to vent about, I am happy to say (at least about Strattera).

He has been on Target dose for 14 days now. We were doing split dose of 25mgs AM and 10mgs PM (target dose), and have decided to try giving one dose 35mgs in the AM. He is doing great. Impulsivity is down, his attention is getting better. He did not have any major side effects during the ramp up. I always give the pills with food, so he never had stomach pains or nausea. At times he seems a little tired but not enough that it stopped him from playing. He is sleeping great and eating good. He is HAPPY. It seems Stratt has a “room cleaning component” :lol: , he cleans his room, and his friend’s room (on a sleepover) without being asked. I have heard other moms whose kids started strattera have this wonderful side effect too.

He starts school on Wednesday, we shall see how much improvement his attention is. Since he is only 14 days on Target, he still has time for more consistent results to develop.

So bottomline, he is doing great and I can’t be happier with Strattera.

HA! My sons room is beyond human capabilities. It will take me 4-6 hours to get it back into functional order. I was a bad mom this summer. I hope once I get it in order, he will show some Strat effects and help keep it that way.

Glad you are doing well with Strat, its such a pleasant med compared to many others, once you get it right. Too bad the doctors and the manufacturer did such a poor job promoting it. It really works so well.

Here’s hoping your son gets the “cleaning bug” too.

rebelmom,

I read both articles, and it was very interesting, but i have a question. Strattera is part of this group of drugs that stimulate nueron growth or just Prozac and other anti-depressants?

My son is on 25 mg of strattera after a failed attempt of Adderall. We just switched from giving a morning dose to giving an evening dose and it seems to be working much better! He is sleeping and eating again!

Dana

Good for him, I hope you see success with this med. Stims help a lot of kids but were a failure for my son as well. Strattera is very very similar to prozac so I am encouraged about its safety and long term use. It’S chemical name is Tomoxetine and its a norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor. This is the type the will also increase brain growth, just as the others. ADHD.com is a great resource for Q’s regarding ADD and meds, behavior, education, related disorders and natural alternative. A good crowd of knowledgable parents over there. In fact, the board is so good, there are even adults ADDers posting there. They know parents know best! Everyone is very respectful and helpful, lots of sharing and commonality to be had. You’ll never read any of the tripe you see on this board over there. Loads of Strattera and stim alternative treatments, as well and respect and advice for the stimulant helped child. Here is a direct link;

http://adhd.com/forumhead.html

Hope to see you there.

Not to be a wet blanket, but before we all get too excited about medications causing “brain growth”, I think the following analysis of the Castellanos study is important to consider:

http://www.icspp.org/media/anewparadigm.htm

“· There was a significant age difference between ADHD and control groups, with the ADHD subjects being younger. The authors did a statistical adjustment to correct for this difference, which violates fundamental principles of statistical analysis. One cannot do a statistical adjustment on a dependent variable when the independent variable has already been contaminated. One can only do a correlational analysis in such circumstances. Leo and Cohen (2003) point out that Castellanos et al.’s unmedicated subjects being younger, shorter, and lighter would be expected to have smaller brains than the medicated subjects, based on previous research and quite apart from any considerations of effect of ADHD.”

This is only one study, and is clearly not definitive with the subjects varying significantly in age. We should wait and see if this study can be replicated before assuming that medication is associated with brain growth. Castellanos has been a big supporter of medication over his history, and his research has tended to be biased in that direction, in my observation. This study appeared to be a reaction to criticisms of an earlier study in which he reported differing brain sizes in ADHD-diagnosed children, but neglected to take into account that 90+ % of the subjects had been on stimulant medication.

I will wait to see if anyone else makes similar findings with same-age subjects before passing judgement on this issue.

–- Steve