I am the mother of 4 children, 2 of which have ADHD so far. I know atleast 1 if not both will be diagnosed ADHD in the near future. I have a son that is 11who was on Concerta (108mg) which was great for a pretty long time. Then it stopped working so well. My options were to increase his Concerta to 126mg which wasn't an option since I already felt like 108mg of Concerta was too high of a dose, or try the Daytrana patch. So I opted for the patch. He started out on 10mg which did nothing and increased rather quickly to 30mg (which I thought was the highest dose) for now. It seems ok but waiting for it to kick in (2 hours) especially on the weekend is very trying. I have a daughter who is eight and we had tried every ADHD medication out their and none of them agreed with her. They either made her like a zombie or delerious. It was my belief if the meds changed my kids personality for the worse and not the better I would not medicate them. So since she was diagnosed at 6 she was not on any medication and being in 3rd grade it was starting to really catch up with her and having a negative impact. So when I heard about Daytrana I asked her Pediatrician about it and he said he was having a lot of success with it especially with kids that all the other meds didn't agree with. So I sarted her on the Daytrana. She sarted out on 10mg for 1 week and she liked it but wasn't enough so increased her to 15 mg which is where she is at now. She is doing great on it and she loves it which is great because she hated every other med. Her school work has improved dramatically and it has been great for her self confidence.
My experience with Daytrana has not been a good one. So far I have filled 8 prescriptions. 2 10 packs of 10mg, 3 10 packs of 15mg, 2 30 packs of 15mg, and 1 30 pack of 30mg. I had no problem with the 5 10 packs or Starter Kits which is what they are called. The adhesive backing came off very easy it took about 1 minute to apply including the 30 seconds that you hold your hand over the patch to make sure it adheres properly. On the other hand the 30 packs have been a nightmare. This morning it took me 45 minutes and 4 patches with the 30 mg patch and the patch I finally put on was missing a good deal of the medication its hard to know how much but the patch had a lot of spots that had just adhesive and no medication. I had no Concerta and he could not go to school with nothing so I figured some was better than none so I slapped it on him and hoped for the best. At that point my nerves were shot. As it is I get up at 6:00am so that it kicks in by 8:00 when he leaves for school, not today though. Then I had to put on my daughter's 15mg which was just as bad or worse to get the adhesive off. I only wasted 3 patches because I ran out of time and had to settle for the 4th one which practically had no medication on the adhesive at all but unlike my son she does not have behavioral issues so I don't worry about her without meds as much. With the 1st 2 30 packs I thought maybe it was something I did unknowingly that damaged the patch. I picked them up one day and used them the next so I thought maybe it was too warm in my car or house or they were exposed to the sunlight or something in the 12 hours between when I picked them up and used them. So when I got the 3rd pack of 30's I came right home and opened a patch see if there was a problem with the adhesive backing or not and there was. This box is actually the worst one yet.
When I called the pediatrician the 1st time he was sympathetic to the problem. When I called him yesterday to let him know that it was an ongoing problem he said he spoke with the rep from Shire and feels it is not a problem with the patch but something I am doing wrong. Can you believe it. Who has a reason to lie me or the rep from the drug company?
One theory I have is that the white foil coverded container that the patches come in is the same size for the 30 patches as it is for the 10 patches and maybe the packs of 30 are getting damaged because they are too close to one another.
So, anyone out there that has had a similar problem with the Daytrana patch If you could send me a reply indicating the problem you had I would greatly appreciate it.
I am taking the patches if I have any left to my pediatrician on Monday along with any response I get and I am going to give him the patches and ask him to show ne how to correctly apply the patches and will let you all know how the lesson went.
Sorry for being long winded but I needed to get it out of my system or I was going to explode.
Thanks for listening!!!!!!!!
I was told when I called Shire about our latest batch that they have 3 difficulty levels for the backing, 1 easy, 2 difficult, 3 very difficult, and this is all normal.
I got better results with putting them in the fridge for a minute then peeling them, and never EVER touching the adhesive, we pull off the 20mg ones like band-aids.
Most of this thread http://www.adhdnews.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=20 458&PN=2&TPN=27 is about adhesive backing problems You are not the problem, Shire is. Hang in there, Shire has got to get this problem figured out soon!