The thing is that you never know which med is going to work for you or your child until you jump in and try them....everyone is so different, that a med that works well for my son, maybe a nightmare for yours...in fact, siblings can sometimes react quite differently to the exact same meds, one doing great, and the other crashing and burning.
What will happen is that the doctor will prescribe whichever is his/her favorite, the one that they feel most comfortable with, at a low dose, and go from there. If that med doesn't work, or there are side effects that you cannot deal with, then another will be tried. If the first med does work, but not enough....the doctor will raise the dose slowly (titrate) upward until the med is at the dose that provides the most symptom control with the least side effects.
Good luck and hopefully the first med will do the trick for you!
I don't have any good answers for you - just some reassurance.
We worked with our ds for almost a year, seeing a therapist, behavior modification, etc. before our actual diagnosis. If your child has ADHD, the meds do help them - It is not an easy road to get to the right med/dosage, but when you are there, suddenly the daily reports of incidents become more sporadic, our ds is more excited about going to school, the other children want to be around him again because he is not so impulsive, etc., and he is actually learning at school now because it is not about daily struggles with behavior.
Our ds has a 113 IQ, but there were many things he did not know when they tested him, mainly because he was not able to sit and focus. He is only in 4K, so we were really more concerned with his behavioral issues, but now that those are mostly under control, the learning is coming.
It is such a hard decision to put your child on meds, but we are very glad that we made that decision.
You will probably see decreased appetite during the day, so be sure to give a good breakfast, as well as food at night whenever the appetite comes back!
Well, it has been awhile since I last wrote. I think I had a meltdown the last time I wrote and you all helped so much.
So, here is the update... My dh and I finally got the nerve to have our ds tested. It was a real eye opener. He was tested with 109 IQ, no anixety issues, no depressions or agression, a possible sleep disorder and borderline to clinically signifigant levels of ADHD behavior. She was also concerned about his feelings about school which I think are a result of always getting into trouble. She suggested going to his ped. and get a referral for the sleeping disorder and in the meantime get put on a low dose of an ADHD med.
So I have made an appointment with his ped but I don't know what to expect. I was wondering if anyone who has been through this step of the process can help me out. Also, will they give him a prescription then? What medicine should I stay away from? What medicine has worked for your children? What medicine has the least amount of side affects? I am really worried about him getting hurt from taking medicine. It has taken 18 months for me to come around to the idea of putting him on medicine and I just want to be sure it won't hurt him. Any suggestions would help?
Thanks...J~