Behaviour problems before meds kick in | ADHD Information

My son has pretty severe adhd.   He seems to do well on his medication with the exception of the mornings.  He is on conerta which is the only thing that worked well for him, except in the mornings before the medication starts to work we experience severe behaviour problems.  Hitting animals, playing with fire, etc etc.

After the first 1 1/2 hours of taking the medicine the episodes are much much less frequent.  

Any suggestions on what to do during that period of time?

A lot of people use a small dose of fast acting stimulant in the am to take care of these problems. It could help alotEither that or wake him early and have him take the pill then go back to sleep. The only problem with this is you'd probably need a booster to carry you through the afternoons. So either scenario would work.

We wake him up early give him the meds and he goes back to sleep. When he does get out of bed, things are great. If we don't, he is just hyper and impulsive. Nothing severe

Dosing and going back to sleep will help.

It could also be that the initial release of the concerta is too low. (It only releases 22% initially.)   Adding a shorting acting in the AM with or before the Concerta might help get better coverage.    That worked well for us until we upped her Concerta dosage and no longer needed the extra boost in the AM.

We had similar problems in the morning with Focalin... before it kicked in he would trash his room, steal cookies, break stuff... you name it. 

Once his meds kicked in, he was like a different kid and would be really mad at himself for messing up his stuff.

We're trying Vyvanse now to see if the rebound lessens... so far the jury is still out.

Audrey