Any Good Experience w/ Strattera? | ADHD Information

My son 5 years old takes 25 mg of Strattera in the AM and .025 mg of clonodine in the PM.  My daughter 6 years old takes 18 mg of Strattera.  In the beginning the strattera worked great.  It was like a dream come true for our family.  My son was very impulsive and very excitable and hyper.  He literally climbed up the walls and door jams.  We started Concerta but the side effects were terrible.  He stopped after taking 3 days.  Started the strattera and worked great.  I noticed that in the evenings he was more hyper, so we tried splitting the dose into 2, 10 mg one in morning and 10 mg in afternoon.  That was a terrible idea, we went back to the one dose in the morning.  He has been taking for 15 months.  We noticed that as time went by his hyperness came back earlier and earlier.  We went back to the psch to see what we could do, he suggested Clonodine.  Last month we started trying the clonodine in the afternoon.  It works well, but also makes him tired right after he takes it.  But he plays with one thing at a time and holds his attention well.  I noticed his anger spurts are more and more since he is taking the clonodine.  He is also more scared about things he was never scared of (going to bed, being alone in a room)  But moral of my story is Strattera worked great in the beginning and that is what matters now.  You can always take summers off or do a change of meds later if it works well for your child.  Happygirl- As far as helping with behaivor: Do you find that he stays more calm in situations with a lot of stimuli? I mean, when there is a lot of kids, and a lot of playing going on, does he stay grounded?

Hi Brimom,

There is a delicate balance with these meds.  He was more grounded and less suseptible to stimuli from stimulants but his personality was flat.  He is more hyper and less focused with stratterra, although he is on a small dose and we will go up but yet he is calmer and more focused than on nothing.  There are no miracle drugs - my sons psych. doc says to generally keep stimuli low if possible because it will always make him more anxious.  I like the startterra so far, it's been 2 months but again start at a low dose.  I'll let you know how he does when we increase.

Good luck.

It is interesting that the strattera is better for the hyperactivity... my son has no hyper symptoms.  His ADD is purely inattentive.  I wonder if and how well the strattera will work for him

Lady B

My son was diagnosed just recently and straterra was our first choice.  It did help with his attention and impusle control.  We liked what we saw except for the tiredness and withdrawel when the med's peaked between 2-3 hours.  He started off on 18mg and after a week went up to 25mg.  The first day on 18mg he did not feel well at all, stomache, dizzy at the peak time.  This went away the next day and the same happened when they uped the dose.  He still once in a while complained of dizziness and stomache.  We thought that a lower dose or switching to 10mg twice a day would help, but our Dr. want advised us to stop the meds and give him a few days off of them.  He has now been off four days and is back to his old self again.  His appetite is back and he is very angry and lous and busy, impulsive. 

I guess he will try a stimulant next.  I'm concerned because he is really anxious and emotional and I know that stimulants don't work well when this is the case sometimes.  I hope the side-effects are not to harsh or we will be out of luck.  Has anyone had success with lowering the dose of straterra vs. stopping it.

 

Thanks, 

I am 29 and recently 'diagnosed' [correctly, finally] with ADD -- at first I was given straterra and it basically turned me into a zombie... Sleeping 18+ hours a day.. no kidding.

It also made me feel extreme nausea, and and general mental 'shutdown'.

We were not able to give it the full 2 weeks to gauge the effects against ADD because of the severe side effects.

I have been taking Adderall XR for the past few days - for the first few days I showed a dramatic improvement in concentration, attention to detail, energy levels, mood, and planning .. but now I am feeling very dizzy and confused. hopefully these are minor side effects that will dissapear with time.

Hope this helps.


Just don't ever hear about the good stuff hereI also would like to hear if anyone has had a good experience.  My son will be starting Strattera in a couple of weeks - this will be his first med...

My son is taking 10mg. Stratterra twice a day with good results.  My biggest advice is to start on a low dose.  They do feel nauseous and tired at first but he acclimated within a week.  It doesn't have the attention focus that stimulants do but it does help with behavior and impulsivity.

 

Good luck