ADD and CAPD

It is a complex puzzle and difficult to answer. I have both CAPD and ADD. When I have difficulty in processing auditory information because of too much background noise or being distracted I tend to zone out. One thing that may help your son is to use an Assistive Listening Device to minimize the background noise and amplify the signal to noise ratio so that he doesn’t have to work so hard to listen and pay attention. How long has he been on meds? Perhaps they need to be adjusted. Does he have preferential seating in the classroom?

He has been on medication a little more than a year, 8 months of disaster on adderal, and now 4 months of concerta, which althought I see great benefits at home, I don’t see the same at school. Whereas he can’t concentrate at home without the medication, at school even with the medication he has a hard time staying focused. The school is to be checking about the FM device, but as usual with anything having to do with the school, taking their sweet old time about it, and we probably won’t find out anything until he is about 16 (he’s 8 right now)

I hear you on the getting the mountain to move called a school district. My husband made one phone call yesterday to get an IEP scheduled for our daughter when I couldn’t get anywhere for over 60 days……H asked what is a parent to do when they have a complaint for non-compliance? Who is the one in charge? The principal said, well the first one is the teacher, then me then the district.” Wallah they scheduled an IEP for the following morning..LOL

One of my kiddo’s is on dexadrine because Concerta did nothing for him. My other kiddo is on concerta, we had to double her dose because she has grown a lot and she said she couldn’t focus like she used to. She is doing much better now. She still gets silly when she is coming off the meds though. Does your kiddo have a structured class environment or is it chaotic? Does he have pullouts where he is going to speech, RSP etc? That happened when my kiddo was in 3rd grade she was too fractured from pull-outs so I put the kabosh on those.

I would keep pushing for the FM system, make sure he has preferential seating, make sure his notebook is orgnanized, he is away from vents, windows and doors that would distract him.

Pattim:
I wish you would read my (excessively long!) posting in Parenting a child with ADHD, called “disasterous first meeting & no coverage under 504 & ?s about school psychologists”.
We hit 6th grade in a new school district and hit a major school nightmare. In the frantic first 4 weeks of school (which also happened to be during the WTC disaster) I was positive the homeroom teacher would flunk my daughter. We spent an entire weekend …over 18+ hours on missed homework/classwork/understanding Chicago Math and the following monday she had 18 more assignments that she was behind on (remember…only 4 weeks of school under our belt). During that period we put her on Concerta, two pills in the AM. She was nuts, I mean NUTS coming off them and couldn’t sleep. I do think they worked, but they made her so nuts and so “not my child” that I just couldn’t stand it. Also there was a small issue of her sneaking Nyquil to go to sleep! So we are now on Metadate and 5mg Ritalin for homework at 3pm (actually haven’t started Ritalin yet). Her main pediatrician was disappointed in me that I pulled her off Concerta (with another Dr..no appointment available) without trying the counter sleep medication in the PM. I trust her judgement but I just can’t put my kid on a drug that changes who she is! And…..ARGHHHH all this medicine! I am a medicine advocate. However, when she’s on medicine to do TOO MUCH HOMEWORK FOR ANY CHILD….I disagree with that!
Based on your experiences with Concerta, should I try it again and do sleep medicine? Is school worth all that? She is getting C’s which I am not at all happy about, but is a B+ worth the drugs?
I know your experience is based on your child only but I really thank you for any input you can give.

Audrey,

I would try the Concerta again…and this is why…
Two pills of Concerta was too much for your daughter to start with. Mixing Nyquil also compounded the problem, when my daughter takes an antihistamine on top of Concerta she is nasty and really grumpy..:-)

I have ADD and I have tried both of the meds that my kids take because I wanted to know what they would do to them. When I took 2 concerta I was wired out the wazoo’s and one is just fine for me. My daughter has been on Concerta for over 18 months, she recently has been growing like a weed and she told me that the meds weren’t working like they used to. After talking with the pediatrician we decided to double the meds. She had some problem with sleeping at first but now it has tapered off without using anything to make her go to sleep.. Make sure that your daughter takes the meds early in the morning like 6:30 or 7:00 am so that she can come down off them by bedtime and I would definitely not recommend a late afternoon dosage as that is probably what is interfering with your daughter going to sleep.

Correct me if I am wrong…but isn’t Metadate also 12 hour release form of Ritalin, simliar to Concerta?

My son takes one 10 mg pill Dexadrine Spansule at 6:00 am which is much longer acting than Concerta. He is able to function well in school all day long and is able to go to bed by 9:30 pm.

Homework is tough, I have the same issues as it kills me to keep up with my own research papers and her school work at the same time..LOL I will read your other post…I hope this helps you somewhat..

Metadate is the new “for school only” dosage (8 or 9 hours). That’s why we are going to try the 5mg Ritalin in the afternoon.
The other trouble is she has serious allergies, so it feels like Meds overdose with her because of inhalers, prescription skin creams and Claritin type pills.
Your best suggestion is the PM walk…the dog needs it anyway!
Thanks so much for suggestions.

I still think doing 5 mg of ritalin in the afternoon is playing a major problem with falling sleep in the evening.. A Dr. told me that one Concerta pill of 18 mg. is equivalent to an all day dosage of Ritalin but is released at 5 mg strength. So my daughter with 36 mg is actually on a 10 mg dosage of Ritalin but in a sustained release form.. What is nice with the Concerta is there isn’t a huge drop off in irritability. My reasoning is that Concerta would give you the extra 4 hours of med time to do homework but she would have it out of her system in time to go to bed so that she wouldn’t need the extra boost from the 5mg in Ritalin in the afternoon.

Kids with ADD can be prone to allergies, my daughter has them too and has to take decongestants, nasal sprays and zyrtec. It rained yesterday and she was in hog heaven, as her allergies had subsided. She is one of those kids who is allergic to dust and grass so she is miserable during PE running on the grass and on a dusty playground.

Walks are great…for the soul…:-)

Hi, I was reading your exchange re: concerta and wondered if I could ask you to flesh out one thing you said. Specifically, you said your daughter was “nuts” coming off of her daily dose. Would you mind telling me more about the “nuts” ? This is why it would be helpful: Our 13 yr. old son is on 18mg. of concerta in the morning, and another 18 mg. at 3:30 to get him through sports and homework. He doesn’t have much trouble going to sleep, possibly because he’s worn out from sports, or because he’s big (6’, 160 lbs.) and not taking that big a dose, but if he forgets the second dose, he can be irritable, stubborn, unreasonable, demanding, unselfaware, at-his-wits-end by 5 p.m and worse til bedtime. Do you think the irritibility etc. is mostly from coming off the first dose, or from not having had the second? Seems to me that it’s more the former, because on a holiday weekend, when he sleeps at a friends, and doesn’t take any Concerta, he seems much mellower then when he’s had one dose but not a second. Does this make any sense? I’m trying to get a better grasp of this because when he’s impossible (after no dose #2), my husband and I feel like evacuating the house! He loses all of his judgment and can’t see that’s he’s the one being unreasonable. He’s really hard to deal with, because he won’t stop demanding, bellyaching (about homework). He was never on a shorter acting form of Ritalin, which we were told had worse coming-off effects, so I don’t have that experience to compare that one to. Thanks very much for any insight you can shed on this. I really appreciate it.

Forgive me, I didn’t see your message until now. From what you explain and from what doctors have told me, coming off the first medicine is responsible for the side affects. The doctors even had a name for it, which I can’t remember at this moment. On two concertas, taken at 7am, my daughter was wired, nasty, talked a mile a minute, and couldn’t go to sleep until after midnight.
I panicked, went to another doctor in the clinic who prescribed Metadate, the 8 to 9 hour pill just for school. Her main pediatrician said had she known we were having trouble with Concerta, she would have prescribed the counter night medicine which helps the sideaffects and sleep, but sheesh…all that medicine! I like the Metadate, she is back to being my kid and I don’t see any problems coming down off it. (and we never did very well on the two per day medicine…we always missed doses here and there) Now, she may not be as on top of things in class ( i can’t get a good sense from the teachers), but she has seemed to settle in well in school finally, just got an A in social studies, language arts went from a C to a B and she seems to be processing the material okay. The doctor did offer 5mg Ritalin for 3pm homework, but we have a tutor 2 days a week for her, so the extra medicine hasn’t been necessary. And she seems to do some of her homework on her own now. Who knows whether it’s because she’s now finally in the groove, or it’s the medicine still working. ALSO, I am not there with her until 8:30 at night, so I don’t see the come down off Metadate. But I do talk to her on the phone and she seems fine. And no headaches, like we had with Adderall, so all in all I really am pleased with it. It only took 4 years to figure out her medicine!
By the way…your son is 6 feet tall and 13 ???? wow!

My 13 yr old son is on concerta, also. We had tried ritalin and he was like a crazy person when he came off. Sometimes I see some irritability with the conerta, and difficulty getting to sleep if he takes it late, but nothing like the ritalin.

I was wondering if you medicate on the weekends? I don’t really see any benefit to the drug when he’s at home, and have not medicated - plus I usually forget. It seems kind of inconsistent not to medicate on the weekend.

My son is 5’10 and 150 lbs and takes 18 mg. I wonder if maybe that is not enough. I’m leery of over medicating and possible side-effects, but I want the best results, too.

I’m impressed with any child with CAPD and ADD who is earning A’s and B’s, by the way.