Strattera Questions | ADHD Information

My doctor has suggust that we try strattera for my 5 year old son.  We had him on AD RX and it made his behavior worse.  He would throw fits and get totally out of control.  The fits and aggression are the main issue we are dealing with.  I have had to pull him from Preschool for a few weeks because he is so out of control. I do not want to start him on another drug just to have the aggression get even worse.  Any suggestions for a very stressed out mommy?

Thanks

 

unfortunately there is no way to tell how a child, or any person, will react to medication. It is all trial and error.

My daughter is 13 and we have tried several meds over the years. We just started Strattera 2 weeks ago. I am lucky in the fact that at her age she is able to verbalize how she feels. So far, she has had such success with Strattera. For us, it's been better than the stimulants we've used in the past, so far. She says she likes "being calmer" and in her case she is. She is more focused, able to follow through on task, still disorganized, but hey.......I'll take it .

Let me give a great example of her attitude/mood.......my 5 year old LOVES Simba from Lion King and I bought dixie cups with Lion King characters on them. A couple of weeks ago, my oldest would find the ones with Simba on them, use them and leave them on the counter used just to make her sister mad......this morning, she came out of bathroom and said, I found a Simba cup for you and put it on top so you would have it when you brush your teeth later .

Yesterday she set her alarm on her cell phone to go off when it was time to leave the library and meet me out front. The setting the alarm was impressive enough to me, but MORE impressive was the fact that she thought to do it!

So we are seeing good success with Strattera, smooth, all day coverage, and no side effects to speak of.....some off and on daytime tiredness.

Diane V39414.6313888889I did well on it for a while--then got extremely irritable and aggressive. It never did a thing for the hyperness or focus--as you say, it just took some of the edge of. you are not the first person I've heard say this.................I hope not, but for now, we're happy with it.

Diana, I started my son on Strattera a couple of months ago. He had to come off the Daytrana due to anxiety and hallucinations. I honestly am not sure the Strattera is working for us. When he was first coming off the Daytrana and the Strattera had 'supposedly' yet to kick in he was doing wonderfully. I actually thought to myself that it must be working sooner than expected. I thought Stattera was a dream...

Then comes 12 weeks and all of a sudden he is acting like he isn't on medication at all! So I had the doctor call in a higher dosage. I have not seen any change since. He is very distracted, still very impulsive, won't stay focused longer than 5 minutes, moderately hyper. It seems to take the egde off, but nothing more. I'm hoping maybe I just haven't waited long enough...But, I think I'm in denial. I'm even wondering if just maybe, maybe, in that transitional phase where he was technically off meds means he might do okay without meds? I then I think I don't think I know what I'm thinking anymore. :)

Let me know how it works for your doctor. I'm very curious.

Upon diagnosis of ADD (with a little H mixed in :-) ) we started our 6 y/o on Adderal and had the same experience.  While he did seem to be more focused, he was jacked up and would crash hard when the meds wore off.  He has anger management issues and would fly off the handle at the drop of the hat.  The Adderal made it much worse when it wore off.  We lasted 3 days before we pulled him off.