6 year old prescribed Ritalin | ADHD Information

My 6 year old daughter was just diagnosed with ADHD, it comes as no shock, I've seen the signs there for quite some time.  Doctor has prescribed her Ritalin, 5 mg 3 times a day, just got the prescription last night.  The problem is I'm afraid to give it to her.  I made the mistake of "googling" ritalin side effects and have come up with all the horror stories.  We have tried different things with her, diet change and such and nothing else seems to work, which is why my husband and I thought we would try this course of action.  I was looking for some positive feedback in regards to Ritalin if anybody is willing to share, and success stories.  Any help would be greatly appreciated.  Thank you.If you are positive the evaluation was thorough and comprehensive then try it. 15 mgs a day is kind of a steep dose to start off,( 5 mgs 3X a day) is a bit much IMO,  but if that is what her Psychiatrist thinks she needs then try it. My DD is 10, and takes 27mgs Concerta daily, the same med as Ritalin, in a different form. edbson39392.6269675926I believe it's only 5 mg .  15 would be a lot to start with.

Ritalin is one of the most researched meds ever and has been around for 50 years.  Some people are on very large doses for years with no side effects.  Having said that, some kids will have side effects.  5 mg is a small dose, and you will be able to see what it does within 60 minutes.  Generally speaking, the major side effects occur when someone has a pre-existing condition.  We should all get as worked up about our coffee addictions as some people do about Ritalin.

There are different forms of Ritalin (short-acting, Ritalin LA, Metadate, Concerta, Daytrana patch).  You are getting the short acting, so it will be in and out within hours if you don't like it.  The dose is so small that you may not notice much of a difference and then you will need to up the dose eventually.  Your daughter may get crabby as it wears off, so the goal will be to learn to time it to keep it running smoothly in her system and avoid a roller-coaster effect.  That's why most people prefer the longer acting forms.

My son has been on a form of Ritalin since he was 5 1/2.  He is now 8 and is doing great.  He functions much, much better with the medication than without.  He does encounter negative side effects when the dose is too high.

Good luck.

Joy2

Thank you for your replies.  The way the prescription is written is as follows:

Ritalin 5mg, Take 1 tab at 7:15, 2nd tablet at 11:15 and 3rd at 3:15 for ADHD, If no improvement in 7 days increase to 1.5 tabs per dose for 1 week. 

What I was going to try at first was give her the first dose at 3:15 when she gets home so I can see the side effects.  I wouldn't want her falling asleep in class!!  Thanks again for the replies.  Once I start her on the medication i'll let everyone know how it turns out.

She won't fall asleep in class( well, most likely won't), the med generally causes them to NOT sleep rather than become drowsy. Sorry edbson, now I see what you are saying. 

I also don't think there is any danger that she will fall asleep.  Ritalin is not sedating.   If the dose is too high, you might see a flat affect but they won't fall asleep.  We have learned to start new meds and dosages on the weekend so we can see the effects ourselves.  Just a thought.

Joy2
I also would not try the first dose at 3:00pm. If you want to watch her wait until he weekend and give her the first dose in the a.m. and see how long it lasts, it should be what he says 4 hours. Then you can give her a second dose and skip the third if you want as she is home and wont be doing homework and  such. Just remember that you can always stop. The best thing about stimulant meds is that you are only committing to that time period, in this case 4 hours . Good Luck!Hi, my son is 5, and recently diagnosed. We started with 2.5 mg. of Ritalin. I was insistent on starting at the lowest dose possible. This got him through his 3 hours Kindergarten class, and to be honest, I was astonished with the results.  We are very  pleased, but when they wore off, he got extreme mood swings. He became very irritable, but, his sucess in school made it worth it. He did fabulously for 3 weeks, but had a rough past week. We met with the psychiatrist again today, and decided we needed to up them a bit. We decided to go with an extended release dose of Focalin, 5 mg. I"m going to start them this weekend, so I can see how he does before sending him to school on them. Good luck to you.

My son started on 5 mg three times a day.  For him it wasn't enough and had no affect on him.  Then we tried 10mg.  That worked for about 2 weeks and then that didn't work.  Then we went to 20mg.   That was too much.  He had that zombie way about him.  He also didn't want to do some of his favorite things like playing video games.  So we went back to 10mg for a while and now we are at 15 mg 3 times a day. 

It works wonderful for him.  He is able to focus and controll his implusive actions.  My doctor told me that we as parents are the most important people to monitor what the medication is doing to our children.  We see them the most and know what is normal for them.  Beside the teachers.  I am extremely lucky that my son has a wonderful special ed teacher who works closely with me in monitoring how my son is doing.  I will ask her opinion on how the medication is working.  (I already know my own opinion when I ask her). 

I chose the short acting ritalin because for us that works better.  I can decide if there is a day that he doesn't need it.  For example if he is having a really good day we might skip a dose.  Or if we know we will be very active playing football or frisbee or something in the yard we can skip it.  But I also can regulate when I give it too him.  So if we have a family event or something going on in the late morning I will wait to give him is pill.  So that it doesn't wear off in the middle of an event.  This makes life easier for everyone, especially my son.

What you have to remember about all those horror stories is that
compared to the amount of kids who take them it is a very small
percentage. The dose perscribed is not very much which is good for a kid
that young. When you give it to her if she complains of a stomach ache or
you don't like it in any way you can always stop giving it to her. I've taken
ritalin and had no problems it just did not work that well for me. Also, my
cousin who's 7 started taking concerta (concerta is similar to ritalin) last
year and had no problems. You don't have to give her medicine when
she's not in school too. When I was 8 my teacher wanted me to be tested
for ADD but my parents said no because they did not want me medicated
when I was that young. When I was 11 I had the same teacher and she
said I should be tested then because I would be going to middle school in
a year. My parents put me on medicine then but only for school days. I
never liked taking medicine and am really glad I did not take it when I was
a kid, even though I had a lot of trouble in school. I know it would have
helped a lot but I turned out fine without it and I'm really glad I did not
have to deal with side effects when I was younger. I
also know that not every kid feels this way about medicine. My cousin
likes taking it and who knows I may have liked it. Just make sure you ask
your daughter her opinion on it after all she's the one taking the
medicine. Be specific and ask her things like if she is less hungry, has a
stomach ache, if she feels different and if so in a good or bad way.musicfanatic39395.6684259259

One of the drawbacks of stims such as Ritalin is rebound give it more time.  us the hours while on the meds to teach some coping techs for dealing with some of these things.  Also you need to be aware that with Ritalin there usually is the side effect of suppressed appetites so if maybe you if desserts are a nightly occurence in your house you could make it a fancy but healhty fruit thing so you won't need to deny it because she didn't eat the rest of her meal?  Just a thought! Kinda kill two birds with one stone.

Well I started her on the Ritalin, and I can actually see improvement when she's on it.  She's willing to sit down and read and do her homework and is not argumenative, which is so very nice.  On the down side, I can tell when its starting to wear off.  She gets very emotional over very small things, though i'm sure to her they are huge things.  For over 1 hour last night she kept telling me that she was very very mad/sad that she couldn't have dessert (didn't eat all her dinner.)  I attempted to calm her down as best as possible, telling her tomorrow was another day and if she eats all her dinner then she can have dessert.  The other thing i'm noticing as well, she seems to be crashing pretty hard at night, haven't a bit of a problem getting her up in the morning.  Is this common?  Last night also around 8 or so, (Ritalin should have worn off at 7) she said her head hurt, I wasn't sure if this was a possible side effect of the meds, or the fact that she didn't eat much dinner, or the fact that she had herself in a tizzy over dessert.  So at this point i'm just going to continue to monitor.