Anyone on Straterra? | ADHD Information

my daughter has been on it for about a year after trying Concerta and having problems with sleep and depression; that said, now that the new school year has started, we are also giving her 10 mg of Ritalin in the morning to boost her up a bit--Strattera seems to help with the impulsive part, but for us doesn't help with the overall focus..

My 8 yr. old son and I met with a new Psychiatrist yesterday.  My son is inattentive type ADHD and we have tried Adderall and Concerta with no success.  The Doctor wants him to try Straterra.  I got on these boards last night and started reading about all the warnings about Straterra and it scared me to death!

Do any of you have kids on Straterra?  How does it work for you?  How long did your child take it before you started seeing results?  Have you seen any bad side effects?  Since it is not a stimulant, I am assuming it won't affect sleep.....my son has had huge problems sleeping with Concerta.

As always THANKS for your great advice!!

Stacey

Hi StaceyAnn,

Unfortunately, Stratterra was a no-go for us.  Just didn't work at all.... even after several upward adjustments in dose.

But......certainly don't take one parent's experience and let that effect your efforts to try it.  Some parents have great success with it.  Every child responds differently.

My son is also Primary Inattentive subtype.  We keep coming back to Concerta.  We give it early am, then a afternoon booster dose of regular Focalin for homework hours.  Timing the afternoon dose is critical for us for it not to affect his sleep.  What we found was our son is one of those more rare cases of ADHD where he metabolizes his meds so fast, he requires high doses.  It took a long time to get up to the dose we are at now.

Hopefully other parents who've had Stratterra success will comment.

Okiemom

It worked okay for me but not great and i had to take it with other adhd
meds too.We tried Strattera, starting at the minimum dosage, working up to 2x/day.  We added in Concerta after a few months.  After 6 months, it had no effects we could see, so we discontinued it.  We also discontinued the Concerta and we switched to Ritalin LA.We used Straterra for 2 years with wonderful results. Just make sure it is ramped up slowly to the target doseage( 1.2-1.8 mgs per kilo). Keep in mind also that it takes 4-6 once target dose is reached to see results!

here's my story for strattera.  My son was on it for 2 years.  He is now 8.  the med worked great for the first 5 or 6 months, then we had to up his dosage to right around 30 something mg.s  then about 6 months later, upped again to 60mg!  Went well, but over time (so slowly) we didn't realize how the meds were not really working  Then he started getting into trouble alot at school.  So, about 4 weeks ago, we took him off it and put him on adderall 10mg XR.  Night and day difference.  But the withdraws from the strattera were horrific!  my little 8 year old was out of school for a week, was having thoughts of people killing him and him killing himself.  After 5 nights of pure hell, the thoughts slowly stopped.  Now he is back to his self.  with less meds and happy, and he almost never gets into trouble.  This is just our story.  It may not happen to any one else, but it happened to us. 

My 12 year old son has been on a combination of straterra and other adhd meds for 2+ years.  The combination worked great until this year.  The other adhd meds controlled the behavior (impulsivity, hyperactivity etc.) and the straterra controlled the lack of attention and organizational skills.  This year he started to become extremely depressed.  I took him to his dr. and she said that in some patients the straterra builds up in the system making the usual dosage too much.  We bumped his straterra down to a lower dosage and that has helped bunches. 

Also, I know alot of families with adhd kids and none of them were taking straterra alone.  everyone I've talked to, said that the straterra didn't work well for them unless it was used in conjunction with other adhd meds.

hope that helps

i just can not help but wonder if you have your child is put on strattera for adhd, and then you have to add a stem because the strattera is not working as well as you would like, than, maybe you should try a different medication.  It's just a thought.  I look at it like this in my son's case.  he was on a stem, we went to strattera for the reason of it NOT being a stem.  used it for 2 years and it stopped working, the dr wanted to put in on a stem along with the strattera.  I thought to my self, why not just take him off the med that is not working and try some thing else, not add one more.  So, we took him off of it.  Best decision I have ever made.

in our case the stimulants alone weren't working either, but the combination of the 2 works very well.  My son takes focalin xr20, daytrana patch 20 and straterra 30.  This is working well, except for depression I mentioned earlier.  He was taking straterra 40.  in the next few weeks we are going to try to lower the focalin and straterra and increase the patch.  I am a little apprehensive about "fixing things that aren't broken" but I am also very concerned about the quantity of meds he is taking.  hoping the patch is going to be the miracle it has been for his twin sister.