meds and school | ADHD Information

thanks.  could you explain a little about the med your daughter is on? Any side effects? Do you really notice a difference in behavior?  While my son was on the meds, i noticed a difference but not huge, and also inconsistent.  We tried a placebo at the end of the year, interestingly, he had about the same amount of good days and bad days as on the meds/  I/m so confused as to what to do. Should you notice a huge difference if the meds are working?That depends on the med.  Concerta is immediate however strattera takes time.   
Guanfacine has to be built up in the system very very slowly.  I have a friend who told me strattera did notheng for her son.  I asked her how long she tried it and she said 2 days.  I explained it takes 6 weeks and she was pretty upset that her Dr was not more informed!!!

my 9 yr old son has been on metadate cd for 3 years now without too many side effects...  we have increased it to 30mg and it was too much because he started to develop motor tics.. went back to 20 mg and was status quo for a while.. until he started to develop tics again.. dropped back to 10 mg but didn;t do the trick.. pyschiatrist put him on concerta, 18 mg, did nothing, 27 mg, he felt really wierd, increased to the next level..he felt horrible and was acting very strange... went back to metadate but the tics are really bad... i then took him off everything for the summer.. the tics went away completely!!  What do i do for school?????

you could try something else. We had the same issue. We had the least tics with Ritalin LA and Guanfacine together. Even on just the Ritalin LA she had tics, but it was minor blinking. Truthfully though we had to go nonstimulant becasuse eventually she just had too many tics. Hers have also gone away.

 We are currently using Desipramine, which is a tricyclic antidepressant and it is helping to alleviate most of her ADHD symtpoms, anxiety and no tics. Her focus is not as good as stims, but she would tend to hyperfocus on stims, she can however follow through on a task, we shall see how school goes for us too, but I think she'll be ok.

well as I said my daughter is taking Desipramine which is a tricyclic antidepressant. The only side effect she seems to be having is dry mouth, but it's not awful. Would I say I see a dramatic change in behavior, absolutely not. She is manageable though. I dont have any kind of real anger/agression behaviors with her though. Her issues are more inattentive and completely unable to follow through with a task. Never mind a multi task! She is fidgety and fairly impulsive like if she is standing next to you and supposed to be still and you are too close for more than say 5 seconds, she will just have to reach over and poke you , quite annoying! Anyway, all of these behaviors are less. Less fidgeting, less poking (although I'd love that one to be GONE completely), less doing things forr one second then being bored, able to complete a task from beginning to end, even on occasion without my prompting. And she has gained 6 or 7 pound since June and no tics.

I wonder how solid your diagnosis is though if you are saying you do not really see behavior improvement with meds. Or do you mean you are not seeing effects with the new med regimen?

She had behavior improvement on the stims, good behavior improvement, but she was out of it. In a fog, but super anxious at the same time, plus the weight loss and tics.