[b]Anyone Please Help!![/b]

Here are a few sites to get you started

http://www.nldline.com/dave’s.htm

http://www.coping.org/involvepar/accomform.htm

Has he been tested for learning disabilities?

ADHD and LD often go hand in hand

I was very surprised that your son is taking Both Adderall AND Straterra. That sounds dangerous to me! I have a specialist that works with my son. He is 12 and takes Adderall XR 30 mg. for the school day, and has a 10 MG pill after school to help get through homework.
Usually, if medication is not working well, my child’s doctor would increase the dosage of the Adderall XR. I like the Extended Release Adderall much better than the regular - it seems to work smoother during the day, and we don’t get the lulls every three hrs. or so when the meds wear off on the regular Adderall.

I can pretty much guarantee that my doctor would flip if he knew a kid was taking both kinds of medications.

Please ask around, sounds like he could be on too much medication (a huge mix!). I realize Straterra is a non-stimulant and such, BUT I also know that the doctors where my child is treated have not had the results they have wanted with Straterra, and they prefer not to use it. It use to be a drug to treat Alzheimer’s patients. Of course, Adderall use to be used to treat adults with weight problems! (I could benefit from that some!!, but I don’t think it’s used as much for weight loss anymore). You really have to be careful with Straterra not hurting the liver.

My son is in 7th Grade. He was diagnosed ADHD in 1st Grade, and he was just a little toot - he could not sit still in class and pay attention, he’d get frustrated, throw his books in the floor and cry, he’d kick the desk in front of him in frustration, etc. All the kids made fun of him because of his reactions to things and would taunt him terribly. My son also has a disorder or written expression (Dsygraphia), which causes him to have trouble with written assignments, and organizing thoughts. It makes written work very difficult. It sometimes takes him hours to get through assignments. You might consider having your child evaluated for a test of written expression if he’s having a hard time getting his work done — it could be he has some trouble in this area — who knows. My son’s handwriting appears to look nice and neat, BUT his trouble lies in the physical process of actually writing things out, and getting things put in the right order.

I need to encourage you to hang in there. My son is doing so well, and has matured so much from 2nd - 7th gradce! He’s an A student, and takes 4 PAP (Advanced) Honor’s Classes. He was also awarded a Teacher’s Choice Award in a class last year. This award is given to the most hard working, and best student the entire year in a particular teacher’s class.

My Doctor has said recently that my son’s grades are so good, and his ability to function has improved so much, we should consider weaning him off his medication at some point. (This scares me a bit.) My son still has lots of trouble staying on tasks when his medication has worn off - so he has to learn to use checklists. We still struggle with this issue a lot. He has a hard time getting up in the mornings, but I have found if he can rouse himself enough to walk to the shower, and get in, he can get going in the mornings much better. In general, I’m very proud of my son, he’s very caring and empathetic towards others, he enjoys math and science - even competes in science!! And he is doing SO well. Be glad you caught your child’s problem early - hopefully it will all work out and things will become better.

I don’t know if your doctors have you do follow-up questionaires that you give teachers, to let the doctors know how your son is doing in class. We have gone from making 4-5’s on many of the questions to making 0’s to 1’s and 2’s. I have follow up appointments with my son’s doctor every 3-4 months.

I do not have an IEP or Educational Plan for my child at school. When he was first evaluated, I had the psychologist write down several things for the teachers to consider when helping my son at school. Some of those things were limiting the # of questions he was required to answer on school work and tests, or even being allowed to have extended time on tests and a few class assignments. He could have the option of answering things orally, or he could type his assignments (he’s a fantatic typist!) if need by. The most important things was to grade him on content mastery and not mechanics of writing.

All of the teachers at our middle school have been very accomodating to my son, and will help him any way they can to make things easier for him.He is allowed to use computers in class as needed.

See if you can get your son’s doctors to write a suitable list of suggestions that would specifically help your son in class, and keep it on file in your son’s counseling/school folder.

If your child has a serious problem and needs and IEP or Specialized Educational Plan — then by all means call the school and see if you can set an appointment to discuss this. You son may be too smart to be considered a special ed kid, or even need an IEP.

Take Care,

Sheri

[quote:2fc574b635=”ss2003”]I was very surprised that your son is taking Both Adderall AND Straterra. That sounds dangerous to me! i[/quote]

It is not dangerous. Some doctors are finding that a combination of the two medications works best for particular children.

Have you considered a different educational environment that is more responsive to your child’s individual needs? It sounds like a horrible environment for him! I would hate going to a place where I felt constantly unsuccessful and where my peers were constantly harrassing and embarrassing me! We used alternative schools and/or homeschooling for our ADHD-type boys, and while there were still struggles, it made a huge difference. We were even able to avoid using medication at all. Our oldest returned to a regular school in 6th grade by his own choice, and did very well academically. There are some good studies from back in the ’70s that showed ADHD-diagnosed kids were virtually indistinguishable from “normal” kids in an open classroom where they had some control over what they worked on and when they started or stopped their activities. We have found this to be very true for our kids. It’s something to think about.

One comment regarding Strattera: while it is marketed as a “non-stimulant”, it does, in fact, have most of the properties of a stimulant, including a side effect profile that includes increased heart rate and blood pressure, decreased appetite, and insomnia. It is not an amphetamine, which distinguishes it from Ritalin, Adderall, Concerta, and Dexedrine, but it definitely does have stimulant properties. As for the interaction with Adderall, I can’t comment on that one, but if it were my child, I would talk to a pharmacist about possible drug interactions to make sure, since both of these medications have similar effects. Strattera is also very new, and there probably haven’t been a lot of studies on drug interactions, so it is definitely an area to be careful of, in my opinion.

However that may be, it seems apparent that the current situation is not working for your child. I would seriously consider what other options are available in your community. My personal belief is that kids who are active and impulsive are a very poor fit for the standard educational model, which expects patience and compliance and a willingness to tolerate boredom, none of which our children are very good at. That’s why we chose to change the environment, rather than trying to pressure our “square peg” children to fit into a “round hole” school. If you can find a school that values children’s diversity and tries to adjust the environment to meet the individual needs of your child, your son will probably be happier and like school more, you will experience a lot less stress. It worked great for us. Good luck!