Concerta Tolerance - Not working | ADHD Information

My son started Concerta 54 mg this past weekend.  At home he seemed fine, non argumentative, seemed fine.  BUT.. today i get 2 calls from teachers Not focusing, argueing with Teachers, very figedty <sp>, like the meds were not working they were even asking did he have his medications.  When he got home he was Starving as he says which he is home by 215pm and he took the med at 705am to be exact. 

Has anyone seen this?  I already know his Psy. will not increase the med.  and if i recall correctly we tried Concerta a few yrs ago and it didnt work and tried Metadate CD and it did work so when we go back on 5/5 I am going to try switching the med.  Now just getting him thru the next 2 wks. until the appt.

 

Thanks

My stepson was on concerta but the effects were minimal.  There was a drastic difference, however, on days when he forgot to take his pill.  If you're sure he had his medication this morning, I'm not sure why today he suddenly would have had so many problems.

As strange as I thought it was at first, we did find that while taking concerta, he did have better days if he would have a little coffee before school as well.  My doctor said as long as it wasn't a lot (it was about 1/2 a cup) that it was fine, if it was giving him the extra boost he needed.  I "tested" it by not telling the teacher what days he was or was not drinking it, and he was definately more settled on the days where he had coffee along with his morning medication.

We never did increase his dosage to 56 on concerta, but decided instead that it didn't seem to be giving us the results we were hoping for.  Still way too unfocused and distracting others at school - so we have now switched to strattera.  It was a tough change, and I expect he'll need to try at least one more increase in the dosage, but we are seeing more substantial changes. 

The biggest problem with the change from concerta to strattera was the first couple of days, the mood swings were horrible (he took both meds at first, then increased the strattera and dropped concerta).  Terrible depression the first day, and anger the next 2 - but those have disappeared now and we're seeing some results.  Best of luck :)