Yes, one of the side effects of the stim meds is incontinence. The child is simply unaware that he has to go or gets so focused on what he is doing that he ignores the urge until it is too late.
You may have to go back to the training stage. By that, I mean, have him go to the bathroom when he wakes up, within an hour of every meal, when he gets to school, before he leaves school, before he leaves the house, before bed. Keep it up until it becomes routine. There still may be the occasional acident but the child needs to learn that he is responsible for taking care of his 'accidents'. I have extra bathroom privileges written into my child's iep.
twodoodles, I cant comment on the incontinence, but we went from years on stims to Strattera in November. I had the same worries as everyone, how long it took, all the worry of exact dosing, mood swings, etc., etc. For US, it was a breeze. We saw improvment (from unmedicated) within the first week, and each increase we saw improvement fairly quickly, then it would lessen a bit until the next increase. Finally we hit target dose and were thinking about adding back a small stim dose, but we have not needed to do that at this point. I do notice her getting "silly" about 8 hours or so after her a.m. dose, so we do split the dose. She takes 36mg in the a.m. and 18 mg either after school or at dinner. We havea nice even keeled child. Still ADHD (maybe a little less symptom relief than stims), but no side effects, no up and down and she is doing very well in school, so we're at a good place. Diane V39468.6839583333He's been on Concerta for almost 4 months now, but we increased 18mg to 27mg about 5 weeks ago. I've been on the fence about increasing him in general (for other reasons) I know Concerta is NOT weight based, but it still freaks me out to continually increase a medication. **you guys all know the drill....am I doing what's best blah blah blah, the never ending ride on the the guilt train**Oh Boy. DS has been doing very well on Concerta...BUT...in the past 10 weeks he's started having accidents, not at night, but during the day. Since he put on his first pair of underwear he has NEVER ONCE peed his pants. Its happened about a dozen times, sometimes several accidents in one day. I did some searching online for a link between Concerta and Urinary Incontinence but found nothing....although I don't think this would be a highly advertized side affect..."your kid will listen, but pee himself silly..."not a good selling point. Headaches I can accept, but not this. So far he hasn't had a accident at school (that I know of.....)
Anyone ever heard of this??
I have never heard of it, but it could be possible. Meds can have all sort of "unadvertised" side effects.
You might consider something else, Strattera has been used to treat bedwetting, it's not a stim, and takes a while to work, but it's a thought.