My dd is on Concerta.... I give it to her first thing in the morning 7:15am and it lasts until 8pm. The first couple of days when it was wearing off in the evening, it was bad... really bad and then the 4th day, everything was fine.
She has been on it for 7 months and only changed the dose from 18mg to 27mg.
I told her teachers at the being that we have decided to medicate her, so I would not freak out during the day not knowing if she was ok. They all were great on giving me feed back. When we changed the dose, we did mention that as well.
We will be keeping her on meds during the summer because;
1. she is in summer school for a month
2. She knows that on the meds she is more loving and great to be around and is not fighting with her brother all day long and not as argumentive.
3. She functions better on meds.... isn't that a reason we put our children on meds on the first place??? I would hate for her to loose out on something because she can sit still to do it, or play with her friends... or even watch a movie... can't do that with out meds...
My son has done well on Concerta but seems to be ready to go up to 54. We aren't moving him up because it is summer. We wanted to go off the meds fora couple of months so that he could gain wait and so that we could start back at a lower dosage but he is so impulsive, argumentative and hyper without the meds. We are trying Tenex to see if it will help and maybe allow us to cut back the stims for a while.
Concerta has been great for him but he does seem to metabolize his meds more quickly than some kids. Concerta doesn't last all day but has lasted longer than the others we have tried and without the terrible rebounding that he had on Dexedrine. MOst of teh school year he took hims meds at 8 am and did ok till anywhere from 4-6 pm. We gave a ritalin booster for baseball games that were late games. Now we are having to give boosters for anything important that happens after 4 pm including "play dates".
He took Dexedrine spansules in third grade because he couldn't swallow pills. He lost alot of weight and rebounded horribly and often with increased anger issues. When he finally discovered he could swallow a pill, we switched to Metadate Cd, which also worked great. However, he had to take 36 mg twice a day and it still 'ran out" around 4 or so before homework was even started. He was able to maintain the weight he gained in the summer on that, although he did not gain while taking it.
I guess things work different for different kids and it is trial and error. I like concrete things but ADHD is not that way. I hope things work out well for you and your child.
It is very possible. My daughter could not do a the long acting Ritalin with the short actings bor mronigs and late afternnons. this is why he suggested 2 Ritalin LA's, just having the later dose be a smaller dose. So a 20 in the am then a 20 in pm, same med though. Many. many people use a long acting with a different short acting though and do fine.
Jeaniejo,
My youngest can take the second dose anytime. She is one that actually sleeps better when medicated so sleep issues are not a consideration. The oldest needs to take the focalin right after school and it does not affect sleep her sleep.
I took ds to his pdoc today. The doctor decided to switch ds from ritalinSR to Concerta. Ds is 105 pounds. The pdoc is has prescribed 3 18mg pills of Concerta each school morning. Has anyone had either good or bad experiences with Concerta?We did not do well on Concerta. Took it twice. Once when she was 9, she lost weight and could not sleep. We just took it again this February and she did not tolerate it at all. We do not do well on any stimulants though. If he was doing ok on the Ritalin it is likely he'll do ok on the Concerta. Although you just dont know. Why the switch? Wearing off to early?
My daughter is very small right now is 12 and only weighs 74 pounds.
Both of my kids did well on concerta.
The oldest was switched to focalin because she could not swallow the concerta regularly (focalin can be sprinkled). When she can swallow pills, we will go back to concerta.
The youngest was switched to focalin because is sometimes does not cause weight loss in some kids. She liked the concerta better than the focalin, but the weight issue has us sticking to focalin for now. The guanfacine she is on helps alot as well.
[QUOTE=Diane V]We did not do well on Concerta. Took it twice. Once when she was 9, she lost weight and could not sleep. We just took it again this February and she did not tolerate it at all. We do not do well on any stimulants though. If he was doing ok on the Ritalin it is likely he'll do ok on the Concerta. Although you just dont know. Why the switch? Wearing off to early?
My daughter is very small right now is 12 and only weighs 74 pounds.
[/QUOTE]
I told his doctor that I would like something that would last into the evening during karate class. Ds was watching the other kids and the instructors at times. I just thought he should have something to improve his focus and lessen the distractions. He stayed a green tip belt for 10 monhs and I thought a longer lasting stimulant may help him.
It may backfire because he didn't do well on Dexedrine at all. I will have to see.
my son did not do well on concerta at all. He actually had a panic attack and had to be picked up from school early because of how wierd he felt on it.. We have been on metadate cd, also not great (has tics from it) but at least emotionally he is ok on it..
I have found that the concerta lasts 10 hours and then he rebounds. So we have
QR at 6:30 Am
54 concerta at 8:30am
12.5 mg Quick Release Ritalin at about 4:30pm
I haven't been able to make concerta last "all day" with my children. I found that they needed a "top up" so they could make it through study and afternoon activities.
We have used Ritalin LA and we found it oly lasted 6 hours with our son. He also had a bit of a roller coaster day as it wore off and had to wait for the second"dump" of medication. We also needed to use QR ritalin when he got home from school to make it through the night.
From my discussions with many concerta users, the dose goes up to accommodate the loss of meds through the digestion process.
Each child is different and so are the meds. Although ritalin is core ingredient the delivery systems in all three are different and therefore the eefectiveness of all three vary.
Depending on your child's metabolism you made need to supplement the concerta with a QR med.
My daughter was great on it for about3 years and then we found it was impeding her learning. Now she is back on QR Ritalin and having much better results.
I agree if he is doing well on what he is on it may be a better choice to add a short acting Ritalin after school for you eveing activities, we did this for a while also. Remeber the advantage to stimulants is that you can always switch back to what you are doing if it doesnt work out.My son's experience with the concerta was that it never seemed to wear off. He was taking 54 mg., and he never got the late evening hunger that others speak of, nor did he ever get any rebound....no indication that it left his system at all. He took it at about 8 AM and went to bed at 9PM. He lost tons of weight on concerta.
The ritalin LA that he was on seemed to wear off at about 6PM, allowing him to eat a good dinner and snacks in the evenings, sometimes lunch did not go well, but most of the time it did. I think that his lunch time coincided with the period between the two doses of meds.
We also have the guanfacine which helps him into the evenings with some of the symptoms. He has been off the ritalin LA since school ended on the 24th and doing well on the guanfacine only....no stim.
The pdoc did say that if things don't go well with the Concerta, we will put him back on the ritalinSR. He gave me a prescription for 2 weeks to try it out. Since I don't medicate ds in the summer, I though this would be the perfect time to try it out. My friend's daughter, who is 5 does better on Concerta then she did on ritalin.
Is it beneficial to tell the school about the med change? They just seem to be so judgemental of kids with ADHD. His teachers son does have ADHD and is on meds so she understands better.
lovemyboy39240.1690625The school does not need to know. Especially if he is not there. I tend to tell the school ONLY because I need their help in watching side effects/benefit. Everyone is so different, he may do just fine it may be exactly what you were looking for. It's only 2 weeks, I would definitely try it if it was me.I would probably not tell the school either for 2 weeks...if there is an issue or the teacher has a very good comment, I may then offer up that we are trying a new med out.
They will let you know if it is a bad move, I am sure! If you hear nothing from them, at the end of the 2 weeks, I maybe would ask the teacher if she noticed any changes/differences in the past 2 weeks.
[QUOTE=Diane V]The school does not need to know. Especially if he is not there. I tend to tell the school ONLY because I need their help in watching side effects/benefit. Everyone is so different, he may do just fine it may be exactly what you were looking for. It's only 2 weeks, I would definitely try it if it was me.[/QUOTE]
Sorry Diane. I guess I worded my post wrong. I am not trying the Concerta in the summer. I am trying it beginning this Monday for 2 weeks.
I just started concerta. my starting dose was 27 mg. because I originally was taking short-acting ritalin just to help me with my morning grauginess, so my new doc said to go straight to 27 mg. I'm honestly not noticing much of anything, and planning to increase to 36 soon (I have 4-27's left). Just by the way it's not working, I'm guessing 54 is my optimum dose, but I have to get there in steps, so I'll just wait and see what happens. I noticed a very slight improvement on the first day, but every day since I haven't noticed any change, really. So far I have no appetite decrease and no rebound.Oh I see. I still wouldn't tell them.
Yes I think I will.