Yes I agree with the above post. Also, different kids need different dosages. I have 2 kids on Strattera, my son 5 weigh in at a tiny 37 pounds and takes 25 mg. My daughter 6 weighs in at a scraunny 42 pounds and takes 18 mg.
We also started at smaller doses and worked our way up to what we felt was the proper dosage for each kid. Good luck
Heather, it may be your Dr. is seeing how your daughter reacts to meds. When we first started out, we were told at each visit to increase the dosage which was every 2 weeks until the Dr. was satisfied with the amount our son was taking. I know its hard, but sometimes their little bodies react strongly to the meds in the begining & your Dr. is just taking it slow.My 6 1/2 year old daughter was diagnosed with ADHD 1 week ago. She was started on Strattera but after reading several posts from other moms with children on this med, Im thinking her dose is way to low. She is 60 lbs and is on 10mg once a day. It seems there are kids here on way more than that. We havent seen any improvements yet, but I know its too early too. She goes back to the dr in 2 weeks and wondering if she needs maybe a higher dose for her weight, Im going crazy here with her symptoms to where my husband and I are considering maybe starting on the stimulant meds in 2 weeks. ADHD is in my family history and my brother needed the Ritalin soI dont know. Any suggestions?
Heather
WAKI1 - thanks so much for your detailed response! I have a son who has been on Strattera for a month and we are just really seeing the first glimpses of real improvement!
Heather,
I calculated your daughters intake and yes, she is low. I calculated she needs 40 mg. You cannot second guess your doctor or even try to guess what he is doing. You need to be on the same page as your doctor. Set two objectives, such as calm her mind down #1, #2 could be sleep, getting along with people, pleasure, emotions, can be anything. Each week you need to assess if you are getting closer to the objective or farther. After every visit you need to know what your doctor is going to do if no results are generated. If your doctor is testing her for the meds, push the issue of when the trial is over and the dosage can be increased and how much. This gives you tools to manage your daughters emotions with her not for her. The worst thing you could do is allow your doctor to manage her emotions through a med change every 6 weeks. Also be sure the doctor is a P-doc who specializes in her problem not a general practice doc.
I have an enourmous experience with Strattera. I am in a federal grant research program. I see the p-docs once or twice a week.
My mind needs to be slowed down. Strattera seems to normalize my depression drug called Wellbutrin.
For the record you have not tried stratera unless you have triald it for minimum 6 weeks, I almost went off it a couple times and my P-docs adjusted my side effects for it. Strattera for me has literally been a different drug each week. If you see a day or two that it worked perfectm this means it can be repeatable by managing the conditions that made the med work at that time. 1 good day can turn into all good days.
Pretty soon we are going to go beyond Lilly's standard for research purposes. Yes I am a test rabbit but I am getting problems solved weekly where as before seeing a p-doc every 6 weeks for 3 years did not cut it.
In my humble opinion you need to know more about what your child is feeling when she does certain things. You also should be charting her sleep habits.
I write down how many hours of total sleep, how many wake ups how long the wake ups lasted and how many naps i took.
Sleep or lack there of it effects strattera negitively, but it does get better.
I also chart water intake, food intake, (fish intake) Fish is great for the brain. Only have meat 1 time a week. i quit taking the bads which are cafeen, refined sugar and alcohol. My sweets are plums, cherrys, grapes, banannas, blue berrys. I chart my heart rate, my calories burned after i work out. I weight myself. I chart when i take off the shelf pills like L-Tyrosine or Vitamins. I chart how much lamictal i take, how much ambien i take and when to sleep. I write every day how i felt. I write down blood pressure, my heart rate before and hours after i took strattera. These data tools tell me exactly what i need to do to perfect and optimize the med.
Heck, you may find the little tyke needs to take half in the morning and half afternoon. Write down when you change the time intakes. I used to take Strattera when i woke up. Now I take it at night many times. Key word Optimization".
A doctor cannot tell a person what to take. A doctor can help the patient make a decision if the patient gives the doctor all the facts.
If i didnt tell my doctor my sleep habits i would have never known why i was depressed every 4 days. I wopuld not know why my mind was slow 1 day and raced another. I would not know why i perspired more on a few work outs.
When you look at that data over a month you will see some interesting trends. You then manage the change to change the trend. There is a book you should read called Who Moved the cheese. It's a metaphore to manage change using chese and mice. It takes 45 minutes to read but will teach you how to manage change and to be able to see change or lack there of imedietally.
The average maximum doasage is 1.2 mg per 2.2 pounds, hence in your case 60 lbs/2.2 units X 1.2 mg/unit = 38 (rnd to 40)mg/day maximum. The normal ramp up appears to be half for the first week then the second half 2nd week there on.
I would seriously think that a 6 1/2 year old needs to be ramped up slower but I would not even guess. I also noticed that Strattera does nothing until one hits the specified mg per pound of weight for 6 weeks.
Ride out the side effects and manage them with other sleep aids if need be. It's well worth it if her mind needs to be calmer not faster. My mind only gets worse with the ritlins. concertas etc...
Remember if she gets sleepy, its time to add a stimulant to the cocktail. Slow the brain and energize the body is what works for me.
Before you listen what people have to say, you need to clearly understand what it is your daughter is having a problem with, when she is not having a problem, what changes when she has a problem such as activity changed, how and soon why.
good luck. I wish they had these meds when i was a child or even in college i wish i knew about them. I just recently figured out i had issues 4 years ago at the age of 39. I wasted 25 years and am now starting to get my life back.
I'll tell you a problem I had yesterday. I felt so good, I did not know what to do because I have not felt good in 25 years. I am now going to have to retrain myself how to live.
I'm starting to get the hang of my fatigue and ADHD. What i'm learning about myself is prozac, paxil, zoloft, effexor all did not work for me because seritonin is not my problem. Seritonin makes me sleep more. Seritonin is what people need who don't feel happy and have excessive anxiety.
My depression is a straight forward fatigue and no energy. Basically i'm not sad. My ADHD is a racey thought, no concentration, scatter brained unorganized mind. But a brilliant mind, I have two patents am just finishing a book to publish all without the help of drugs that were working. My world is going to be endless now that I'm feeling better.
The wellbutrin has Norepinephrine which is responsible for constricting blood vessels, which can increase blood pressure, blood flow through coronary arteries, rate and depth of breathing, and can relax smooth muscle in the intestinal wall.
Bottom line is Norepinephrine brought me to the gym, made me able to keep my heart rate up at full potential for easily an hour. I worked off 60 pounds of fat and am getting stronger every day.
My next problem ADHD was my mind is extremely "racey", thoughts go 100 mph and my short term memory was basically shot.
Concerta, ritlin just raced my mind more. Strattera has Norepinephrine which at the begining it raced my mind. But as time goes on the dopamine effect kicks in which affects brain processes that control movement, emotional response (hyperness), and ability to experience pleasure and pain/ focus concentrate.
This is giving me pleasure again. The sertonin effect in the Strattera makes me slow down and/sleepy and feel good and even focus more. But the wellbutrin counter acts the sleepyness. We just adjusted ny dose and i have felt great the last two days. My mind has slowed down bu my mind and body are ready to "rock and roll"..
My problem why i was starting to feel bad was I tried to drop my lamictal. My private p-doc described to me lamictal was like a rocket booster. The lamictal appears to boost my Norepinephrine and dopamine levels which i think after 3 years of messing with these meds i am on to something. My point is not only am I at my maximum but i am using a rocket booster to boost the effect much more. Too little stratera does nothing. I want to find the rate of diminishing returns.
If you have a chance to search the medical colleges around your area, look into their federally funded trials. Acadamia in my humble opinion is the only way to go because you have 10 times for people working on you and ten times better response to adjustments.
Anyway, everyone seems to have their own gig that works for them, which is cool if it works. I got in a real rut and srcrewed with meds for 3 years with little progress.
My main point for posting is i believe people need to understand they can miss a life changing opportunity if they back away from a med too early; or do not work it up to full potential and play out the side effects.
I for one am going to test meds to full potential from now on even if i have some bad weeks.
I realize I wrote a book here but I am simply worried that your daughter will miss a potentially great opportunity if she's not managed correctly. I learned the hard way, lets hope your fragile daughter can learn from our mistakes.
good luck
Sometimes one has to take 1 step back to take 6 steps forward....
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