Stattera Advise - Moody & Falling asleep
She says the med helps her pay attention to one thing...something she says she has never been able to do, and her teacher sees improvement in her at school.
Im wondering if I should try switching her to another med. Has any other parents had this problem with Stattera???
Any other parents who have tried different ADD meds? She is going back to the Doctor in a week.
Id love to hear from other parents!
small - all i have to say is crap! maybe it is our prob - but we got those shaky results at 40?????? more questions for the next appt - does it ever end???
thanks for the link - i needed that.
For those who are interested, here's a link to a dosing chart for Strattera:
http://www.johnswank.com/strattera_dosing_chart.htm
Isabelle,
My son had a similar problem with strattera and getting very tired in the afternoon. He weighs 75 lbs and was on 50 mg's a day. We ended up changing him to 48 so that we could give him two 18mg capsules in the a.m. and one 18 mg capsule in the evening. The smaller dose in the a.m. helped eliminate the afternoon tiredness and the small dose in the afternoon helped keep some focus for homework and reduced the evening withdrawl. Yea, I know what they say about Strattera staying in your body 24/7 but the reality is that given only once a day in the a.m, we saw a definite downside in the p.m.
Paul
isabelle -
i am with Paul on that one, we had to split our dose 25am and 25 pm and that helped with t he sleepiness side effect. Good luck and give it the full 8 weeks unless you are seeing a problem - it takes a while to fully be effective.
Ivanhoe, you are absolutely right. The dx. change as the child gets older and exhibits more obvious behaviors. ADHD is just usually the first one tagged on the child. If he never sees a Child Psychiatrist or NeuroPsych, he may always retain that dx., even if that's not the soul problem, and the meds can make him worse. YOu can't trust a talk therapist to make a diagnosis and even psychiatrists can call it wrong, as they did twice with my own kid and a few times with myself.Concentration with son helped but behavior got worse. This is why we don't believe it is the real issue with our son.Have also been told usually the first dx isn't the correct one. He has more than adhd we no. His symptoms to close to asd also. Also add/adhd aren't the only cause for poor concentration. My daughter weights about 105lbs. For her dosage of 60mg.Tomorrow will be exactly 4 weeks she has been on the meds.I didnt give it to her this morning. Decided I was going to switch and try giving it to her at night. So we'll see if that helps any. Im also going to ask my doctor about the dosage...is she should really be on that high of a dosage.
A side note...Today she was in a REALLY good/happy mood. Unlike shes been in, in a long time. Im not sure if I should attribute it to not taking the Stattera today or just the fact she had a real fun day with one of her favorite friends. But it was really nice to see her happy and in a very good mood.
I know my son is very moody on strattera, he's on 36mg. As far as being tired, i don't remember but it took him a while to get his personality back, when he was first on it he wouldn't have a reaction to anything......but as weeks went by he started smiling and being himself. Weird? i guess there are different reactions.....
Fatigue and mood swings are two of the common side effects of Strattera as listed on the Eli Lilly (maker of Strattera) website.
How much does your daughter weigh? 60 mg is a pretty hefty dose of Strattera. It may be why she's having such trouble with side effects.
With any med, you have to weigh the side effects vs. the benefits. You have to ask yourself whether the benefits are worth living with the side effects. If the med is doing more harm than good, it's time to find another med. My 12-year-old son was on Strattera all of 3 days and got such severe migraines (he has a history of them anyway) that we decided it wasn't worth it. He was on Concerta for 1.5 years and he said it was making him feel flat and inhibited so he decided he wanted to stop. Adderall gave him bad facial tics so we decided to stop that (a lot of kids at school were asking him what was wrong with his face). He is now on Focalin XR and doing well. Unfortunately, medication is often a trial and error process. And every med affects every kid differently. What works for my son won't necessarily work for your daughter, and vice versa.
Good luck! Please keep us posted on your progress.
I haven't personally ever used Straterra for my son or myself, but I know a lot of people, mostly with bipolar kids, who had to take their child off of it. It can really cause certain kids to get worse. Not sure about the fatigue. I take an antidepressant myself, and, even after over ten years on the med, once I ingest it, it's only a matter of an hour before I get so sleepy I have to go to bed. I take it at night. If your daughter/son takes it in the morning maybe taking it at night would help. Since the medication stays in your body, it is unecessary to take it before school---it's always in the system. She also may need some time to get used to it. Antidepressants, and Straterra is one, take 4-8 weeks for full effect. I take Paxil, whieh has been a miracle drug for me (I dont' recommend it for ADHD), and I didn't notice a change in myself for six weeks. After that, my life changed.I took my son off of Straterra b/c it made him really tired, moody and he got head aches. These are the biggest side effects of straterra. It did not work for us at all.My 12 year old was on 36mg of strattera he had gotten so depressed and very emotional. We had to take him off the strattera he started to withdraw from many of the activities he had once liked.
Enter Your Email below to claim your Free Book