This is yet another case of...it depends on the child. My son is ten and started 20mg Focalin XR about ten days ago. It works wonderfully!!! It only lasts five hours, instead of the intended eight, but this is the best med that he's taken...and he's tried NINE different meds! I'm sorry your child isn't doing as well. Those "short-acting" meds are a PITA! Good luck!!
My daughter has been on Focalin 5mg every four hours and has had a positive response. She's 15 years old. The porblem is that I could not rely on her to take it on a regular basis. The Dr. therefore switched her to Focalin 10mg XR twice a day to make compliance a bit easier.
The problem is that she seems to react less positively to the XR version. In fact, it seems like a completely different medication based on her response. Has anyone else had this experience?
My 12-year-old son has also done well on Focalin XR. He, too, was taking the 5 mg short-acting Focalin last spring. We tried 10 mg Focalin XR this fall, and while he thought it helped, he thought he could actually use a bit more. So we went up to 15 mg Focalin XR, and he seems to be doing just fine. Maybe you could ask your daughter's doc about trying a higher dose of Focalin XR to see if it makes a difference . . .
Forgot to add, my son takes 5 mg short-acting Focalin at 4 pm every day to do homework. Hope you get your daughter's meds straightened out.