Concerta- ARE THESE SIDE EFFECTS TyPICAL?

My dd has taken Concerta for a few years, we recently tried out Strattera with the start of the new school year - actually started that a couple of weeks before school. We’re switching back to the Concerta.

Whenever she doesn’t take the Concerta for awhile she gets some side effects for the first couple of days, but they soon go away and she can then go even for a weekend w/out and start back Monday with no problems. Typical for her is to complain of stomachache, and then headache at the end of the day. She takes 36mg. I’m sure the side effects would be greater with a higher dosage. Why not stick it out for a few days? I always gave my dd hugs and sympathy, and maybe a Tylenol in the evening for headache, but those problems always went away. Wonder why your son was started with the highest dose first?

Sorry, I see he started w/18mg last year. I would bet those side effects were because he was on too high of a dosage. My dd had those problems with a previous med years ago, maybe Adderall? She was o-c on it, constantly checking to see if her shoes were still tied, pulling her ponytail tighter, etc.

I hate having to experiment with medication to find what’s right, but there is just no other way. :(

If you called the dr. would they switch it to a lower dosage? Even though you will be switching as long as you haven’t yet they shouldn’t have a problem with that.

Jen M
He was on a lower dosage. He started with 18mg, and than after a few months went to 36mg. As he grew (4 inches in 3 mos) the lower dosage didn’t seem to work as well. He would monopolize classroom conversations etc… so the dose increased but so did the side effects. I’m hoping that the junior high atmosphere ( different teachers for each subject) and his increased maturity level( SOME DAYS) combined together with this lower dosage of concerta will be the answer. Who knows its only day 2 of school, we are still on our honeymoon…..Once homework and assignments begin I’m sure the honeymoon will be OVER!

Not all children react to medication like Concerta in positive, anticipated ways. The side effects you mention are known for Concerta and related medications.

Consult with your dr. and if s/he insists that Concerta makes the angels sing and nothing else, consider getting a new dr.

hi!
My son was diagnosed officially with ADHD at age 6. I knew he had it very early on but was told I had to “wait until he was school age” to get anything done about it. My ds has been on every medicine under the sun for his ADHD. EVERY stimulant has given him motor tics, stomaches , headaches, you name it. We are now taking imipramine 50mg.(an antidepressant )with strattera 60mg. This combo worked for a while, but it doesn’t anymore. His doctor is adamant about not putting himback on stimulants due to the fact that he is almost 11 and his peers can be brutal at times about the tics. School is hell this year. Good luck

Have you tried any other methylphenidate type meds? My son did well on regular Ritalin, but when we made the switch to Concerta the side effects were too much. (Headache, stomachache). The only thing we could figure out was that the delivery system of Concerta didn’t work for him. We switched to Metadate Cd, another long lasting methylphenidate med that has a different delivery system from Concerta and he has done fine.

To “frustrated mom”

{{{{{{{{{{{hug}}}}}}}}}}} for you

I think I have to agree, having to face the kids at school burdened w/tics from meds is unthinkable. Whatever might be gained from being on the meds would be lost in the devastation of self-esteem.

Life is hard for your family right now, and I hope it gets better. Try to make sure you have some way to “decompress”, you have to keep yourself healthy in order to deal with the stress. (some of us take bubble baths, some of us go to the gym). My heart goes out to you and your son.

…they just tore up her stomach in a big way. She was also very moody on them. She lost weight—wieght she did not have to lose, I might add—lost her appetite and it seemed to aggravate her motion sickness. This was on an extremely low dose.

I just told the psychiatrist right off the bat that we were going to start with the lowest dose of anything that she ever tried because I think that the less that you can get away with using, the better off you are. Also, I tried to do any meds switching in the summer time so I could observe first hand what the effects were—I don’t trust school personnel to give valid feedback nor do I particularly have alot of faith in their opinions. We have done it all—Ritalin, Concerta with Remeron to offset the weight loss and there was one other timed release, 12 hour prep that came out after Ritalin. The bottom line is that stimulants cause too many side effects for her.

Currently, she is taking 2, 18 mg of Strattera—one in the morning and one at night. This works the best for her. One thing that I have learned is that there is no such thing as a perfect medication—they don’t exist—there will always be side effects. You just have to find a devil that you can live with.

^^thats where i went wrong, i trusted my daughters teacher when she said she is constantly teling my daughter to stay on task. I told her doctor and he raised her dose of concerta to 72mg. Mind you my daughter is 10 years old but only weighs 51lbs. and is 4’1”. I asked them if this would be harmful, of course they said no.

Mt daughter has been on the higher dose for two weeks, and has had no changes in her life. But now she is having anxiety, paranoia, and stomachaches.

Her doctor says those are not usual side effects from her meds. He said it is psychological.

But i am skeptical. She started crying profusely at school on Thursday, i had to go and get her, she is paranoid that if i’m not with her, i’m going to die.

I have scheduled an appointment with a counselor, and i have lowered her dose back down to 54mg.

I feel for the rest of you, believe me when i say, I know how it feels.

you get to write your own book with each child!!

My daughter had a bad reaction on 10 mg of Ritalin. We lowered the dose to 5mg, still side effects. Took her off, gave it a rest and when we tried again she had side effects on 2.5 mg (we were cutting the pills in half, then quarters)

With Strattera, we worked and worked but ended with an angry child with meltdowns and aggression. Tried Adderall-no problems and its been 2 years. Knock on wood.

I have a young friend who is ADHD/Tourettes — he has clonidine (I believe) for the tics at night. Can’t remember what the day med is for ADHD, but is definitely a stimulant. Not perfect, but the clonidine helps — I know it is hard to keep chasing, but it sounds like maybe you need a doc with more experience. Sometimes we have to accept a certain level of dysfunction, but I’m not sure you have been given all the help you should have been — maybe there is more that can be done for your son. Have you thought of trying the tourettes boards for advice about the tics — I haven’t gone to any but there MUST be some! I know tourettes/adhd co-morbid is NOT unusual, so maybe there will be parents there who have advice for you.

I wish there was a pill to cure meanness — seems much of the population would benefit, especially in middle school!

Sure sounds like side effects to me!! Any doctor should know that paranoia and anxiety are side effects of stimulants, and while they aren’t common at prescribed dosages, different kids react differently. Instead of denying the likely cause, why won’t the doctor just reduce the medications and see whether these effects go away? Not a hard experiment to do, and since we are hardly talking about a life-threatening condition here, it makes no sense not to do the experiment and find out, rather than denying the possibility. Sometimes doctors get me really mad!

Anyway, sounds like you are a sensible person and are doing the experiment yourself. Stick with your gut instinct, and don’t let the MD degree convince you otherwise.

Just want to add my $.02 on this topic as well. My son is 8 1/2, about 78 pounds, now taking 45 mg of concerta (yay us, we get to buy 2 prescriptions every month :evil: ).

I have noticed a significant degree of separation anxiety from the concerta (holds my hand in a store, a huge change from the kid who’d wander away from me and walk out of a store to find something better to do), fortunately not too many of the other things you describe. He also takes seroquel, which was described to me as similar to risperdahl (sp?) and while he still gets aggressive and has trouble tempering his anger and angry behavior, it isn’t as bad as it used to be and the rage incidents are much shorter, usually.

We tried clonidine and others like it to help with the evening bounce and with going to bed, found he has a paradoxical response to just about all those….no sedative effect from them at all.

Anyway, just wanted to commiserate about the meds puzzle, it is a struggle and scary and I hate it. :wink: