tenex ?’s | ADHD Information

The tenex will not help with the focus, but possibly if it calms her hyperactiviy, she will be able to apply herself, and work on it (the focus ) herself...my son is on tenex, and ritalin LA.  Normally, with no stimulant in his system, he would bring home a ton of work, and take hours to do it due to high distractibility.  But last Friday, he forgot to go to the office and get it at 9:00 (special circumstances on Fridays), and brought home the normal amount of work, and was most of the way through it before we realized that he had no stimulant that day...he was amazed, he said, "Mom, I did okay..."  Now I know that it would most likely not last and he would be right back where we started, but I really feel that the tenex helped him somewhat on that stim free day.

He also does quite well behavior wise on the weekends w/o any stimulant, just the tenex.

The tenex also helps him sleep, and I believe contributed to his 3 pound weight gain last month!

The tenex sounds good to me. It seems like it might help with focus a little. I do think her hyperactivity/impulsivity cause her to "self distract" so to speak. One big problem we have had is how hyper she gets when the stimulant wears off. It would be so nice to have tenex to control that. How often do you give tenex? If she were to take Tenex at night and in the morning along with a stimulant, when the stimulant wears off in the afternoon would that morning dose of tenex be effective at controling the hyperactivity then?

THANKS SO MUCH FOR THE INPUT!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Chase takes 1mg in the morning and 2 mg in the evening.  Some parents also give an afternoon dose of 1/2 mg to help with rebound issues...I believe vickie can help with that info....look down the page to the thread on tenex that is 5-6 pages long...lots of parents with children on the med there....

Chase has never had hyperactive issues much, and rebound has not been an issue.. here is the link to that thread:

http://www.adhdnews.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=24770& PN=1

I am certain as well , that if you have further questions after reading that thread, that you can PM vickie and ask them...she is very happy to help.

For us, when we added guanfacine, we decreased the stimulant. It takes a few days for the guanfacine to build up in the body and take effect. We got a note at first about her behavior. I think guanfacine really helps with the hyperness, and also with rebound effects. I really love the effect on her personality. On the high stimulants, she had lost a lot of her personality, as well as developing some odd behaviors. Now she is back to being bubbly and just plain happy(most of the time).

My question for those whose kids are on tenex is what type of changes do you see from the tenex, esp when combinded with a stimulant?

My 8 year old dd's adderall XR just isn't working like it used to. She has combined ADHD but is heavy on the hyper part. She is certainly having trouble focusing now too. We've tryed other stimulants including concerta, focalin and daytrana but we REALLY prefer the adderall for her. She is on 30 mg adderall XR and we can't increase her. I feel like adding the tenex might help control her hyperactivity so that she doesn't have to have the stimulant so much, weekends, etc. Her psychiatrist said that since she is having some trouble focusing on the adderall adding tenex won't help that. I thought it helped some with focus and helped the stimulant become more effective. Any thoughts????

She is very easy going but lacks self control. Right now on the adderall she just isn't very together, always forgetting things, not getting work done, etc.

Thanks so much in advance for any feedback. I will be talking to her dr. tomorrow and the only options I see are increasing adderall (which he doesn't want to do), adding tenex or going back to Daytrana (which I really don't want to do)!!!!

JO58,

No....he has not had any adverse effect to high Concerta dose other than the decreased appetite....which he had at lower doses too.  We counteract that by letting him eat when he wants.......even if that means cramming as many calories in right before bed or any other odd time of day. 

I've never read any posts about combining Tenex with adderall.  That is an interesting question.  Since adderall and ritalin (Concerta is ritalin based) work differently on the brain, I'm not sure if that has anything to do with it.

Okiemom

Okiemom- Does your son have any adverse reactions from the higher dose of concerta besides the mild tic? 

My dd is on adderall XR 30mg but no dr.(we've seen 3) wants to increase her. She will be 9 next month and weighs 67lbs. I guess it's becasue she really seems to build up a tolerance to each dose of adderall she's been on where she needs a higher dose every 6 months or so to produce the same results. If we keep increasing where will it stop? That's why I wonder if adding tenex might help!

Thanks so much!!!!!

Thanks Vickie- that is really good advice. Patience is definitely not my strong suit in this matter. It's just so hard to watch them struggle!!!! My DD can be wild as well but in a silly sort of way. The dr. says she should grow out of the hyperactivity. Let's hope so. I know my nephew, combined ADHD, did at puberty.

Now, if I can just get her pyschiatrist on board to give tenex a try!

What I did for my pediatrician, is go online and print out all of the info that I could find about the med and its use in ADHD children.  I took it in to the medcheck appointment, and made my case for a trial on the med.  She agreed that it may be helpful in many of the issues that Chase had been having and wrote the script.

Good Luck!!

My son is 14 and is on a combo of Concerta/Tenex and has been doing really well with it.

  My son is one of the cases that are more rare in that he requires a very high dose of Concerta.....he takes 162 mg in the AM and has for almost a year. (yes..... believe it or not...I've heard of some cases of Concerta being prescribed in doses over 200 mg).  My son metabolizes meds like water, and lower doses do nothing for him.  It took a long time to titrate him up to that theraputic dose and his meds are managed by a board certified psychiatrist who handles both pediatric and adolescent/adult cases.  He added 2 mg Tenex (we use generic guanfacine) to augment the Concerta and to also help better control a motor tic (head rubbing) that my son got when adjusting Concerta doses upward.  My son's tic wasn't an ongoing tic......it was mild and would come and go over a several week timespan, however, since we added the Tenex, he hasn't tic'd since.  When first starting Tenex, he was prescribed 2 mg in AM and 2 mg at bedtime, but has since reduced it down to 2 mg in AM.

Okiemom

Chase never really lost his personality, but he did get kind of moody on the Concerta.....the guanfacine addition and the switch to ritalin LA happened over the same 2 week time period, so I am not sure whether his being mellower, and less explosive is all due to the guanfacine, or if the ritalin LA just agrees with him better...whatever the case, I like it!!

My daughter was on Concerta in the am, 2mg guanfacine (Tenex) in the am and 2mg guanfacine before bed. She has the option of taking 1/2mg after school if she will be having a socially challenging evening. We added the gaunfacine to the concerta because we could not get to a fully effective concerta dose without weight loss. Guanfacine has helped with the hyperactivity, impulsivity and defiance. At this dose, it also helps with focus for my daughter. She has been off the concerta for 2 weeks and is still experiencing the same success at school. I will keep the concerta in mind for future challenges though.

Guanfacine has a 1/2 life of 12-18 hours, but for some of the ADHD symptoms it lasts 6-8 hours and of course everyone is different. You have to increase or decrease the dose slowly to avoid or reduce side effects. The dose found effective for ADHD in the Shire study was between 2 and 4mg/day.

I hope this helps.

Thanks so much for your replies. Has anyone combined tenex with adderall? It seems like most are combined with some sort of ritalin stimulant? I believe that ritalin works on dopamine only, and adderall and tenex both work on norepenphrine. I wonder if it would make a difference?

Also, do you all give brand or generic guanfacine?

Vickie, that is so great that your daughter is going on guanfacine alone. Does she have a lot of hyperactivity normally? My dd has combined ADHD as well but it seems like the hyper part is what causes her the most problems. Recently however her focus is not great either. I think her not being at an effective dose of stimulant and the rebound cause greater focusing issues. I wonder if the tenex controled the hyperactivity/impulsivity, if the focus might not be a problem?

We have had the flattening effect from the higher doses of stimulants too but she needed the higher doses to control the ADHD symptoms.

I hope I can get her dr. on board to let her try tenex! IF it doesn't work, we can stop it. It seems like it is worth a try.

Thanks so much for all the information and support!

Is there anybody who has tried tenex and didn't like it??? Just wondering, seems like most people like it for one reason or another!

JO58,

My daughter was never hyper in school. Instead, she would shut down and not participate. This took such a toll on her last year she went into depression and anxiety. She has been hyper at home her whole life (I was hyper as a kid as well so did not think it was abnormal). The doctor was the one who kept noting the hyperactivity at his office (she can be wild) and wanted to work on it and the impulsivity for social reasons (I had been focusing on school).

Initially, guanfacine was not enough for school focus, but the dose was 2mg/day at that time. At the current dose (4-4.5mg/day) focus at school is great.

I would definiteley recommend adding the guanfacine to the adderall and seeing if you can augment the adderall and maybe reduce it with time. Just take your time and don't rush it (I know how much you want your child to quit suffering NOW). I have to really hold back my impatience some times.

My daughter uses a generic form.

Well, I talked to dd's teacher over the weekend. She told me that the biggest problem at school is that by 1:00 dd is very tired, cranky and doesn't want to participate. She said that she is good for the first part of the day but they really lose her by 1:00. So I then talked to her pyschiatrist who forever has said that we can't increase her dosage above the adderall xr 30 she is currently on, he suggested giving her a booster of regular IR adderall around 12:30 or 1:00. I may try it this weekend but I just don't know how I feel about it. DOes anybody's child take a dose at school? Is there any stigma attached?

I told him what great things I had read/heard about adding tenex and he said we could talk about that in person when I take my 6 year old son in for his first ever appointment to be evaluated for ADHD in 3 weeks! I can't wait to see what he says about it.

I love my pediatrician who treated dd for a while and have been to both the pychiatrists she recommended. How did you all find a dr. that you really like, trust and will listen?

One more tenex question. Does anybody know if one develops a tolerance to tenex? My dd has definitely developed some sort of tolerance to adderall and just wondered if that happened with tenex too. We are planning on taking her off adderall over the summer in hopes of restoring some of the effectiveness of the drug. It is so hard having her off over the summer b/c it takes 4-6 weeks for that rebound hyperactivity to go away. It sure would be nice to use Tenex instead. It can take time to find the best dose because you have to work up to it slowly. I have not heard of anyone who quits responding with time.