administering Straterra | ADHD Information

Good suggestion.  You cannot break up the strattera because it is time released and will not work.  Yogurt worked for us also.

Meg and Jamie,

Let me tell you that I know exactly what you are going through.  The first 2 weeks with my daughter - trying to get her to swallow this was a horror show.  After "holding her down" and struggling. she told me they learn in school that drugs can kill you.  She thought she was going to die.   We had a long talk and the next morning we sat - calmly (which was very difficult to do for me) and practiced.    It took several times of her spitting it up.  calmly  we kept trying and she eventually got it.  Now she's a pro.  Its difficult. we battled at first.  It was awful but she learned to swallow it.

Good luck.

Well we are trying the pudding (his favorite) and today we had to hold him down and he still spit it back up.  I managed to hold his head back and get it down his throat as he was crying.  Yesterday he bit it and spit part of it back out (the dog ate the what was left of the capsule!)  I am sure that he is getting enough of the medicine but there has got to be a better way!!  We will continue with the pudding and milk chaser for lack of anything else.  The sleepy side effects seem to have disappeared and we are now beginning to see the meds settle him down.  Back to school on Wednesday so we will see how that goes  I cannot wait to get relief when he is home and into the evening!!

Happy day to all!!

Meg

Greetings all.  My 5 year old son is starting Straterra today.  He has been on 7.5 mg of Ritalin and doing well but we are looking for all day relief so we are starting Straterra.  I am looking for suggestions on giving this to him.  They come in capsules and he does not know how to swallow them.  This morning I broke it open and sprinkled it on a spoonfull of applesauce.  This was not so easy and I spilled a lot of the medicine on the counter.  I think that he got most of it.  Is there an easier and more effective way??  Any suggestions on how to teach him how to swallow it??  Thank you all in advance for your help and advice.

Meg

My daughter, who is 6,  takes strattera, and the first thing to know is that you shouldn't break open the capsules b/c the med can burn the mouth. What we do is put it onto a teaspoon of whatever she likes- yogurt, applesauce, whipped cream, whatever, and she seems to do well swallowing that down. Then she gets a water or juice chaser, so she swallows her spoon of stuff and then sips a few sips. It seems to work for us. Sorry, Sad4Sam, but Strattera is not a time-released drug. We experienced daily horrors giving the meds to 6 year old, Danielle, (ADHD/ODC/Sensory Integration Dysfunction, etc.) whether whole, partially chewed or separated into powder form. Because of the newness of Strattera the Pharmacists I called could not say whether it can be opened or must be taken whole. I found we got different effects of Strattera when we would break it open and put it on/in food as opposed to getting the capsule into her whole, which caused a stronger effect. Right now see is off bcs of violent behavior on it..same happened with ritalin and adderall.maybe it would help to make some jello and then poke it into the set jello?

My pharmacist indicated that it was ok to break up the capsul but to get it down right away because it will taste HORRIBLE

we practiced with empty capsuels from the health food store until my son got good enough to take his pills.  might be worth a try when they can sit and take several in a row - without any actual medication in them!