Starting Concerta | ADHD Information

My 6 yr old son is on Concerta, it works pretty well the only prob with us was figuring out how much was right for him. The DR started him on 18 that helped a lil but he was still very distracted then he doubled it to 36 and that was great for a few days then it seemed to wear off the Dr then moved him up to 54 which I totally did not agree with but his Dr is great so I trust him well we all agreed that on 54 he was over sedated and he is now on 45.  He is doing better than ever, at first he did loose his appatite but after about a week he got that back, it did effect his sleep I talked with the Dr about it and he said to get him some mellitonin, you can find it a your local drug store and its totally natural and just helps produce a normal sleep pattern.  I give my son 1 3mg tablet at about 8:30 and he is pretty tired by 9:00.   It has really helped him, I was totally against any type of meds and at first I was ready to just take him off them cause I was not cool with them changing the dose, but I understand every kids is diff and you can never just tell how much are even what kind of meds they need, they have so many kinds of ADHD meds now its crazy but after looking over all of the available options my sons doctor and I felt better with Concerta for many reasons.  It won't work for every kid but it worth trying. 

 

Our 9 yr old ADHD daughter has been on Ritalin for almost 2 years now,  currently taking 2 doses of 10 mg a day (once at breakfast, and another at lunch - she's 70 lbs)  The Ritalin has been working well at school, but it wears off after about 2.5 hours when she loses focus again.  We have decided to switch her to the longer lasting Concerta for a couple of reasons.. 1) to make sure she always has some Ritalin in her system throughout the school day to help her focus, and 2) so she doesn't have to go to the office to take another dose at school (stigma issues)   

I've been reading other posts about Concerta, and have some concerns about  side effects such as trouble falling asleep, evening rebound, and loss of appetite.  Right now on Ritalin, our daughter does not have much of an appetite for lunch, but she is usually hungry for supper. I'm a bit concerned that Concerta will make her already meager appetite worse.  As for sleeping, she's usually asleep by 10 pm and sleeps soundly until 7:30 am.  Getting her going in the morning is more of a problem!   

I'll also be on the lookout for any severe rebound problems in the evening.  This one has me quite concerned since right now she's usually not too bad in the evening (but she does have some days where she is definitely over-emotional/moody/defiant, etc) 

We'll give Concerta a try and see how it goes.  Hopefully she'll adjust well.. if not, we'll have to go back to the regular Ritalin.  One other thing.. our daughter also exhibits symptoms of ODD which seems to be getting worse in the past few months.  Does Concerta have any effect on ODD symptoms? (worse, better, no effect?)    

     

 

 

      

 

 

Thanks for the reply.  It's always helpful to hear of others' experience.  We will be starting our daughter off with 18 mg of Concerta a day since that's pretty close to the Ritalin dose she was on.  We started her on it today and we'll see how it goes.  I'll keep the board posted on how Concerta works with our child.