Stick with the patch for now. Jan 16th isn't so bad. In my area you are lucky if you can find a psychiatrist who will take new patients at all. Psychiatrists prescribe meds, NOT psychologists. I would verify, now, that if you go to the psychologist, that is a route to meds. Does the psychiatrist work in the same office?
He recommending giving up b/c he is a pedicatrician, and meds are a specialty, and these ADHD meds are very difficult. He's probably discovered that if he doesn't hit it right away, it's a rollercoaster. Also, at 5 years old, not so much to lose.
I will check out that med guide, thank you. We are very new to all of this, so pschologist/psych, it's confusing to me. But I did find out that the pschologist that he is seeing, works very closely with a psych also, so meds won't be a problem. Basically I made the appt to have him evaluated as a "2nd opinion" so as to "start fresh" because I feel that we didn't get much info from the ped doc. He asked if we knew anything about ADHD and because I had researched a little on the web and said "yes, we know some" he didn't give us any info, brochures, web sites...nothing! We've pretty much been digging on our own.
As far as the giving up thing, I don't know why he recommended giving up? He knows how much frustration we've had with the up & down, new med up & down, but in my opinion that's not a reason to give up? We went to him after two years of struggling to hopefully find a solution or some kind of help! I'm just not sure what to do for the next month as I know his patches will run out before then, so do I call Ped Doc & get more? Do I just forget dealing w/him altogether & tough it out until Jan 16? We're at a loss.
You'll need to see a psychiatrist if you want help managing meds- psychologist don't prescibe meds. And it sounds like that's a good idea.
Did the ped say why you'd want to give up for a while after trying only two meds? It can be a real pain to find the med and dosage that works best for you son, but let me tell you, it's worth it in the end.
My son's ped manages his meds- she actually told me that, in her experience, adderrall tends to cause more emotional side effects than some of the other meds, so she was going to stay away from that since my DS has some issues there.
This is a link to the med guide put out by the American Psychiatric Association and the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.
http://www.parentsmedguide.org/
epokey, if the 10mg patch is helping some, you may as well stay with that until Jan 16th. The holidays are coming and lots of vacation days. It'll be worth getting another opinion on all of this.
Diane V39430.5900694444