ADHD & Anxiety | ADHD Information
My 6yo. son has mild ADHD and anxiety as well. He takes Focalin and it
works great for the ADHD. He is in Kindergarten and is doing well
academically. His problem is his increased anxiety with bugs and other
things outside. He focuses on it so much during outside recess that he
can't enjoy just playing with his friends. Also, he is really loyal to his one
friend and wants to play with him all the time. This boy has ADHD as
well. They play well together until this boy wants to play with someone
else and my son can't get over it and learn to go play with another kid. I
know the other boys like him and ask to play with him after school. We
are going to have more single playdates with these other boys so he can
make more of a connection with them. He is a good boy and shares well
with others. He doesn't have any impulse issues. I am wondering if
anyone else has this issue. I know his anxiety is worse with the Focalin.
We are considering Zoloft as well, but I really don't want to put him on
another med. unless it is really necessary. We are stepping up his therapy
sessions to help him cope with the anxiety. I am also taking a kids Yoga
class with him to help him learn some relaxation. Am I going overboard?
I just want him to be happy and realize that he does have other friends
that want to play with him. Any advice?
Hi!
No....I don't think you're going overboard. Anxiety combined with ADHD is like a double whammy. My son, now 13, has both. He is ADHD primary inattentive, and during the younger years....... the anxiety was actually more debilitating for my son than the ADHD! It's great that you are doing the therapy and considering meds. Our problem was that as our son got older and the social and academic demands ramped up in 4th and 5th grade...... the anxiety really worsened..then depression set it. It took a HUGE toll on his sense of self worth.
By 4th grade....his behavior at home was very unpredictable. He'd hold it together at school....then come home and rage over the least little thing. We walked on egg shells around him. It was an awful, powerless feeling. He was easily frustrated, cried easily, angered easily, and even had non-specific suicide ideation. He would say things like.. "I wish I were dead", "Everyone would be happier with me gone", "Life is not worth it", etc. It was just heartbreaking. Socially he was always 3 steps behind everyone and he was somewhat of a loner. We started him in therapy in 4th grade and it didn't seem to help him much, until we added a SSRI medication. By age 9, we knew he was in serious trouble so we reluctantly tried Zoloft. It almost immediately smoothed out his extreme emotional ups and downs. He's been on it ever since and responded well to it. It doesn't work for all kids, but it does some. My son, as he's grown, has had his dose adjusted several times, but it has really helped him tremendously. My son metabolizes his meds like water and requires high doses, and a psychiatrist micromanages his meds closely. He currently takes 150 mg of Zoloft daily.
Good luck. Stay on the boards and you will find other parents walking in your shoes. Its a tough, tough decision to put your child on an antidepressant, but I can tell you that I absolutely don't regret it. His quality of life was really positively impacted. Okiemom
Hi babygonz,
My daughter, now 15, had terrible anxiety along with her ADHD. I think the ritalin and years of not having academic/social success, which created a low self-esteem, brought it on. It mostly manifested as hypochondria, but she is also very sensitive about bugs and other outside things, too!:)
I'm not familiar with Focalin. I'm assuming its a stimulant. Our experience has been that stimulants help in some areas, but can also bring out anxiety, which seems to be what you are noticing. Ritalin helped our daughter very much with elementary school, but did cause knuckle-cracking, insomnia, and we had to watch her (low) weight carefully.
As she matured, we were able to cut down drastically on the Ritalin to an occasional pill, but the anxiety remained, and indeed, worsened. I think it had just become a habit for her brain. The good new for us was that we have found that Prozac has all but eliminated the anxiety. We started on a low dose of Prozac, but it didn't help with the anxiety and we had to increase the dosage several times until we reached 30 mg/day. Then, something just "clicked". I think you are on the right track with Zoloft, but I am wondering:
1) if your son is on a high-enough dosage of Zoloft
2) if you may want to try a different SSRI (like Prozac or Paxil), as even though they are in the same "family", each drug works slightly differently
We had also tried Yoga and other techniques, as well as reading books on coping with anxiety, but none of that worked...in our case it really needed the chemical intervention of the proper dosage of the SSRI. Once she was stabilized with the Prozac, we had more success with the other relaxation methods, because she was relaxed and optimistic enough to "take them in".
I hope this helps. You can PM me if you want to talk more about the anxiety issue. We dealt with it for quite some time.
-Laurie
My son is on adderall 15mg and the Dr told me this med tends to increase anxiety in the kids, so he is taking Trileptal to help with the anxiety. I wish I had started on the meds a lot sooner, he had a lot of problems in kindergarten and things are a lot better now. The only problems is that once you start trying to find the right meds it can take as long as one year !! But better that than never.