Knm, I would highly recommend an evaluation with a board-certified child psychiatrist. A pediatrician is not skilled enough to diagnose a complicated neurological disorder like ADHD. It sounds to me as if your daughter's issues go beyond ADHD anyway. Irritability in children is frequently a symptom of depression. I would also recommend a re-evaluation by a pediatric neurologist since she was a preemie.
BTW, neuropsychologists can frequently be found at children's and university hospitals, which may in fact take your insurance.
Good luck.
She was diagnosed by her pediatrician after her teacher and I filled out a questionaire. She started on adderal xr 5mg and worked her way up to 15mg. She was having some results with the 5mg but was not lasting long. She was irritable with the low dose as well, just not as bad. The more the dosage increased, so did the irritability. We went off the adderall xr for a couple of months and had just started back with the focalin xr 5mg then 10mg three weeks ago. She did not seem to have any positive results from taking it just irritability all day followed by a meltdown in the afternoon. We stopped the meds hoping it was just the meds, but it is not. Her pediatrician said she is limited to the meds we can try since she can't swallow pills. She doesn't get as angry while off the meds but she is still very defiant, whiny, throws temper tantrums, pushes and shoves her sister over anything they disagree about. I know she probably is jealous of her sister. I just wonder if there is something more. Her sister acts nothing like this. I just feel such a failure as a parent. I want her to be happy.
Example of her behavior:
After going to the store to buy her school supplies, she was in her room looking at what all she got, she starting crying, I opened her bedroom door and she immediately started whining, crying and screaming that she had lost the ruler that we had just bought. I told her we would find it. She started screaming saying, no we won't, I loose everything!! while jumping up and down. I told her we would buy another one if we could not find it. It was not a big deal. I found it a few minutes later in one of the shopping bags.
Any advice would be appreciated.
What type of Dr. has diagnosed her? What have her symptoms been?
Assuming you have a correct diagnosis of adhd, I may take a different med approach. Both of the meds you describe are long acting. My Dr. was a big believer in starting slow with meds. We began with regular ritalin, 5 mgs. It only lasts 4 hours at the most. What we would do is give it to him in the morning only for about a week and see how he did. I saw some improvement in hyperactivity but after a few days it didn't seem to work. So the next week we gave him 7.5 mgs, (cutting a 5 mg pill in half). If he did well on that dose in the morning for a week, we gave it to him in the afternoons too. If he had some improvement but not alot, we went to 10mgs. So as you can see it was a very slow process.
A side effect of stims is depression and irritableness, but that is usually because the dose is high. Thats why it is best to start slow.
ADHD itself can be depressing for her too. If she is constantly getting yelled at and can never seem to behave, she feels it too. Esp. if she is dealing with a sibling who is not acting up. Jealousy can rear its head.
9 is also a tough age. Is it possible for you and your daughter to have some alone time? Go somewhere fun together just the two of you? Preferably overnight? You obviously need to build your relationship back up.
I know its hard. Good luck to you.
I have been struggling with this question for about two weeks. My 9 year old daughter was diagnosed last year with adhd. We put her on adderall xr and focalin xr. Both made her so moody and irritable that we took her off of them. She has a 3.5 year old sister that adores her. I am a single mom and am not sure which way to go. Over the last several weeks, since school got out for summer, she seems to be so ill all of the time, with or without meds. She will not behave, argumentative, throws temper tantrums and constantly fights with her sister. I have tried taking priviledges away and grounding her. Nothing works. I don't know which way to go. I checked into a neuropsycho. but my insurance does not have any listed. I don't know whether to wait till she starts back to school and see if her irritability settles down or should I have evaluated by a psychologist?? By the way, she is an ex preemie and so far has no other problems from this except that she has bad eye sight and wears glasses. I wonder if I should see a neurologist to make sure everything is already medically or what?? could she have ODD or bi-polar???
I love her so much, but it has gotten to a point where we can barely get along. Could this be the beginning of adolescent defiance?
Any advice would be appreciated.
Does your insurance include Child Psychiatrists? NeuroPsychs are best, imo, as they do intensive testing (no, reagular psycologists don't usually do much testing at all), but next in line are Psychiatrists (with the MD). They've gone to medical school to learn about psychiatric disorders, whereas Psycologists have not. ODD is mostly a psycologists's diagnosis--frew psychiatrists make that diagnosis. If you have substance abuse or mood problems in your family tree, on either side, your child is at risk for early onset bipolar, which looks like rageful, angry, even violent ADHD. Here's a link to a bipolar site. It is common for early onset bp to be misdiagnosed as ADHD, but then the stims don't work. You need mood stabilizers or the disorder just gets worse. I would never take the word of a pediatrician for that sort of diagnosis. They just don't have training in those fields (neurological/psychiatric disorders).
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