My 7 year old son who is 49 pounds and adhd started adderall xr 5 mg about 3 weeks ago. Started great the first few days, then seemed to not be affective. Doctor increased it to 10mg xr. But, I noticed he wakes up aggressive and mean and he cries alot. He has only had 2 doses of the 10mg dose, but now the doctor decided to put him on regular adderall 5 mg, once in morning, once after school.
I wonder if anyone has tried both and what their experiences are. Today he was great again, not the least bit aggressive, even got a great day in his book from the teacher. Now I wonder if he should stay on the xr 10 mg or we should try the regular. Oh, and is the regular adderall my son is on the same as the ir everyone posts about? Just curious to hear from others before I make my decision. Thanks, Donna
Devon -
It's sort of unusual for a doctor to start off a child on adderall before trying concerta or ritalin. Did he/she say why? Typically Ritalin is tried and true for the start of treatment as it appears it has the least and less extreme side effects. Concerta is methylphenidate like ritalin only it seems less troublesome.
Agressiveness and moodiness in general can come when first starting adderall from some accounts. Typically those kind of side-effect behaviors are lessened or disappear in a month or so. It could also be sleep disturbance if taken late in the day - where he sleeps but very unrestful and he's feeling the affect. That can happen - he'll sleep out of sheer exhaustion but some of the stimulant effect hangs on and he gets very restless. Do check on that as it sounds as you are giving him one during nightime. Remember it is a stimulant and although most is flushed out within 6 to 8 hours it can hang on in some form.
SR allows you to arrange it so he gets what he needs when he needs. That is of course if your school permits dispensing of meds (many won't now due to influence from anti-med groups). XR is handy in that most times one a day for a child's schedule works fine.
Also some people find that taking adderall each day every day including weekends work better than taking the weekend off. Then you'd give "med holidays" (a week or so every 2 or so months) and that gives his body the needed rest to flush it away and start fresh.
yes regular is IR (means instant release) while XR means extended (or extra sometimes called) release.
You may want to find out the reason it was chosen first. Some do because in some cases if the child is inattentive ADHD rather than hyper ADHD that adderall works best.
Best wishes.
There are some considerations with XR that doctors tend not to mention. First, remember that XR is a double dose. When first starting on XR your body is getting two back to back doses of a stimulant it hasn't adjusted to yet. This can make starting XR a lot harder than starting SR (many people start on a single dose of SR and then work their way up to 2-3 doses). By the time you got the SR in, your son had probably had adjusted more to the adderall, so it's naturally going to be a smoother process simply by virture of being further along the road to adjusting.
Also, as other people mention, XR's second dose is going to hit when it hits. Eventually you learn exactly when it'll kick in (I know now to have food in my stomach and a soda about 3 hours and 45 minutes after the first dose to prevent me from getting jittery when the second dose kicks in about 30 minutes later and to prevent the crashing between doses). But at first, you have to feel it out. What that can mean is exacerbated side effects in the afternoon/early evening (depending on when you take it) making it more difficult to tolerate early on. The problem with giving XR to a child is that they aren't going to tend to be self-aware enough to tell you when that second dose hits. It'll take more trial and error unfortunately.
Personally XR is good for the first half of my day since I tend to forget to take the medication on time. But for a kid, I wonder if SR isn't the better option.
My son is very hyper adhd. His hyperactivity and impulsivity were the highest scores you could get during his dx. His doctor said he likes adderall xr the best, he has seen the best results in that. He also said he likes the xr because it stays effective for so much longer, since the school in my area refuses to hand out medication. But, I only give him the nighttime dose when he has karate 2 nights a week. I try to give him as little med as possible. Am I wrong to take nights and weekends off?
Thank you, Donna
[QUOTE=devonboo]Am I wrong to take nights and weekends off?[/QUOTE]
Donna
Nights and weekends are fine. Although you should be consistent during the week. Inconsistent schedules make it difficult for the body to stay properly adjusted to Adderall.
MaxDad
we go to a lower dose on weekends or not at all ( depending of if we have anything planned...like a sporting game )...our doc also gave us a short term that we can use on the weekend this helps with the weightThank you maxdad. His great day was in the beginning on the 10mg xr but, it was one day. But the mood swings at around 4pm were awful. He has been on the regular 2 days now, and the mood swings aren't as severe. I like that I can give him another one in the evening for karate nights, and the other nights like tonight, I plan on skipping the evening dose.A lot of people tend to get many side effects when they first start Adderall. I know I did. (Rebound irritability and sadness when it wears off.) My doc put me on Lexapro along with Adderall, it got rid of the mood swings. I stopped taking the lexapro, and I appear to have adjusted to the Adderall. I don't have any rebound anymore.
Adderall is really effective for me, but the first 2-3 weeks were hard. I am glad I stuck it out though, because my life is so much better these days. Good thing that the initial side effects go away.
If he is getting good results from the medication, you might ask the pdoc about temporarily adding a med to help the mood until the side effects go away. I sound like a broken record, but...
Do a careful check of his eating, sleeping and activities. For me, part of the problem wasn't actually a side effect. I had appetite suppression big time, didn't sleep enough and did a million things in a day because I could. It wasn't really a mystery why I felt like absolute crap once the medication quit covering up what I did to my body.
Good luck, I hope it works out for yall. Let us know what happens.
The day he had his "great" day, was that on the XR or reg. (which is also referred to as IR).