Vyvanse and tics | ADHD Information

My son takes Concerta and Tenex.  As for the tenex question they say it takes about a week or two to notice any changes.  But for my son we noticed an improvement by the second night.  He takes the tenex around 5 p.m. and it helps calm him as the concerta wears off.  Before the tenex he was having bad rebound and also difficulty calming down to fall asleep.  It has done wonders with his oppositional problems.  He only takes half a pill at 5 which is very small and I feel he is behaving much nicer at school with other kids as well.  In general he seems like a nice normal kid which is a big change from his oppositional behavior and raging temper.Oh and I forgot my Vyvanse question, my daugther started it recently.  Now after two weeks she is finding that it starts to wear off too early at school.  Our doctor has said that it's more of a medication for children and teens but not adults.  She is only 16 so fits the category but he says may need more of an adult med.  Does that make sense I thought all the meds were for any age group other than really young kids?

Hi Diane, my daughter is in the same situation.  She is currently on Strattera but it is only slightly helping her adhd symptoms.  She's been on a long list of stims which cause tics and appetite suppression (she lost 3 pounds last month while on adderall xr).  At this point, it seems nothing is going to help.  I may end up "settling" for Strattera (I do like that she no longer is irritable at rebound time and her appetite is back....).  I wish you luck with the Vyvanase, keep us informed.

We didnt do it. We upped her Strattera. We LOVE the Strattera. No side effects. Helping mood, very even keeled, not anxious. NO tics (thats our biggest one) is gaining weight, slowly, but gaining. So we upped her again and if we're still struggling in a few eeks he's going to have us add Provigil off label to the Strattera. He siad it has the same properties as a stimulant but to a lesser degree. So the risk of the same side effects are there, but also to a lesser degree. SO you can still wish us luck! This FEELS more right. Its only been 5 days since the Strattera increase, but she is definitely HAPPY . Tjhe other good thing about the Provigil is he thinks over vacations and summr we could stop it fairly easily and just use the Strattera. He said not to do it for the weekends, but for longer stretches we could if she had appetetie suppresion. Hopefully we wont even need it, but I think we will. She is SO inattentive and distracted.

I TOOK PROVIGIL AND I LOVED IT DIANE, IT IS SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT BEING IT HAD LEDD SIDE EFFECTS, BUT ANXIETY AND REBOUND WERE 2 THAT DID NOT GO AWAY FOR ME ALSO, I DIDN'T EAT FOR 1 YEAR. GOOD FOR MY BODY BUT NOT SOLVING ANYTHING. GOOD LUCK

[QUOTE=spamula]I TOOK PROVIGIL AND I LOVED IT DIANE, IT IS SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT BEING IT HAD LEDD SIDE EFFECTS, BUT ANXIETY AND REBOUND WERE 2 THAT DID NOT GO AWAY FOR ME ALSO, I DIDN'T EAT FOR 1 YEAR. GOOD FOR MY BODY BUT NOT SOLVING ANYTHING. GOOD LUCK[/QUOTE]

 

are you saying it DID or didnt have side effects? I dont want to increase anxiety as she is the best she's ever been on the Strattera as far as that goes. Nor do I want to add rebound back into the equation.

I WAS WORSE ON THE PROVIGIL AS FAR AS SIDE EFFECTS GO. THERE ARE SOME. I DID NOT EAT A THING. GOOD FOR ME BUT NOT FOR A CHILD WHO IS UNDERWEIGHT ALREADY. I HAD BIG REBOUND ON IT AND WAS NASTY IN THE AFTERNOONS WHEN IT WORE OFF. IT ALSO KICKED UP MY AREADY HIGH ANXIETY SITUATION I ALREADY HAD.ASK ME AWAY I TOOK FOR 1 YEAR, UPPED MY DOSE AND SPUN OUT OF CONTROL. MY BODY FREAKED OUT AND I WAS NO LONGER ABLE TO TAKE IT. THINKING OF YOU.

Oh boy, I'm not sure baout THAT .

Well cross your fingers this Strattera increase will do it. She's GREAT right now, day 5 on increase. This is what ahppened before though, then it fizzled when the grind and stress got to be a lot...................I would LOVE to use just the Strattera. Right now she's very focused and HAPPY.

Diane, I know what you mean about the Strattera.  I love that my daughter is her pleasant self all of the time now.  I didn't realize how moody she was while on the stims.  My daughter too is VERY unfocused/hyper (on a scale of 1 to 10 she's a 100...).  As long as she is learning at school at an appropriate rate, I think I'm going to stick with Strattera.  Just when you think things are figured out, it seems like they're changing!  Is Provigi a stim?

Oh, BELIEVE me I know! My daughter came home yesterday bursting at the seams happy that she had decided she was going to be an artist when she grows up and she wants to go to a vocational high school where she can study art . I was so happy to see her happy and interested in SOMETHING! I know it's the increased Strattera helping.

Provigil is actually prescribed for narcolepsy. It's not approved for ADHD, but is used frequently off-label. Wikpedia has a good piece on it's use. It makes people with narcolepsy more alert, so works like a stimulant. Our hope (if we need to add it) is that'll help with her "boredom" in the classroom (she falls asleep sometimes) and give her that boost of focus. He said it does "build in your system", but not like Strattera that takes weeks. So that is why you can easily go off of summer and week vacations if you need to get appetite back up, but it does build up some so not to do weekend med breaks. We dont do med breaks anyway, but it would be nice if she could drop it over vacations when her symptoms are better without the stress of school.

GLAD TO HEAR IT, I HOPE THE STRATERA WORKS OUT WELL AND YOU WON'T NEED A STIMULANT. THAT WOULD BE AWESOME.

I'm constantly weighing the risks and benefits of these drugs.  As well as the stims work for my daughter, the side effects were just not worth it.  I just want her to be happy and to still be able to learn (without the stims).  Why is this so difficult???

DON'T WORRY DIANE, I AM THINKING OF YOU AND YOUR PREDICAMENT. YOU HELPED ME SOOO MUCH WHEN I WAS NEW HERE, VYVANSE IS A GREAT MED IF THEY CAN TOLERATE THE FIRST 2-3 WEEKS. WE DID HAVE SOME SIDE EFFECTS BUT NOW THEY ARE GONE. I WOULD DEFINATLY RECOMMEND MELATONIN AT NIGHT IF  SHE CAN TAKE IT, IT HELPS WITH THE FIRST 2 WEEKS OF NOT SLEEPING, NOW JAKE ONLY NEEDS 1/2 A PILL FROM 2 PILLS WHEN WE STARTED HE IS ACTUALLY SLEEPING BETTER. HE IS ALSO ACTING BETTER BUT HE HAS A MOTORMOUTH WHICH HE HAS HAD ALWAYS. TEACH SAYS SHE NOTICES A BIG DIFFERENCE AT SCHOOL. GOOD LUCK TRYING THIS ONE AND KEEP ME UPDATED, PAM

thanks. I really think it's what I'll ask for, but I want to see what he thinks. If he wants to add something else to the Strattera I'm willing to do that too.

I wont give her melatonin. I know, everyone swears by it, but I took in once and it was awful. I'd rather have insomnia! I actually am taking medication for migraine prevention right now and it's cured my insomnia 100%.

She has never had sleep issues with any medication, and our day starts VERY early, so I really hope that wont be an issue if we do try it.

 

my son also develops tics on stimulants.. we've tried metadate cd, concerta and now we are on dexedrine spansules.  our dr. prescribed tenex.. 1/2 at night, 1/2 in the morning.  we just added the 1/2 in the morning on sat.. so far, the tics are still there ..  does anyone know if tenex builds up and then works, or are the results immediate?

Hi,

My son had tics when he was on Ritalin LA and Wellbutrin. We stopped the Wellbutrin continued with the Ritalin LA and the tics stopped.  We recently switched to Vyvanse about 10 days ago (30mg). So far it has worked very well and no tics. However, my husband and I are very carefull never to claim victory because another problem could be around the corner. His moods have been so much better on the Vyvanse but it's still early. However, the other meds we have tried seemed to go south on us within 5 or 6 days. Good luck.

she had tics on RLA and Wellbutrin. Worse on the RLA, REALLY bad on Concerta and Focalin. Why'd you switch from RLA to Vyvanse?

Knock on wood, but congrats on the Vyvanse success, seems there are more success stories than not with this med. Although there are with Concerta too, and that was our nightmare drug!

Thank you, I feel better that maybe we can try this, I worry so much about tics since we've been "tic free" for a while now,.........she cant remember to rinse all the shampoo out of her hair, BUT NO TICS !

Diane V39497.6333912037

Hi,

We switched to achieve a longer lasting med. The RLA did not last long enough (even the school day) and certainly not enough for homework. So we were adding another 20mg of short acting after school for homework. This was inconvenient for a number of reasons.  But, if the Vyvanse turns out not to be the right drug we will return to the RLA in the morning and short acting in the afternoon. 

However, I am not sure the dose is correct for him. He was on 40mg of RLA in the morning and 20mg short acting. The Vyvanse dose the doctor gave him is the lowest, 30mg. I am not sure how Vyvanse is released but it doesn't seem that 30mg would be correct. He has a doctor appointment on Thursday and I will discuss it with him.  He has only had 4 days of school while on the Vyvanse so I am not sure how he is doing at school.

To answer the tenex question above - it does need to build up in their system.  I was told  6-8 weeks.  We are using tenex with concerta and are at about 7 weeks.  The tics have lessened to some degree, but not totally gone.

Hi everyone,

     I have another Vyvanse question. We see the docotor this week and we will are going to need a med change. We are using Strattera mostly due to appetite suppression and tics with stimulants. It's not enough for school so we are going to have to either add a small stimulant dose to the Strattera or just start over.....again.....

   Anyone using Vyvanse with no tics? Especially interested if had tics with other meds and not with this. It's one of the few meds we have not yet tried.

Diane

My 9 yr old daughter was on Concerta (72mg) for a year, but we had problems with it wearing off too early in the day so we switched to Vyvanse (50mg) last August.  She has not experienced any tics, just the usual stomachache and insomnia.  We've had one troubling episode of double vision that lasted 20 minutes. We've just had to up her dosage to 70mg last week because she just wasn't able to keep focused on her work in the classroom.  The new dose seems to be helping and we aren't seeing any issues with it.  We don't give her breaks on the weekends--it's just too disruptive for her and the family.

My 7 yr old son started 30 mg of Vyvance in August and it works beautifully for him as well, with no insomnia or stomaches, but he has major tics with it--sniffing, throat clearing, shoulder shrugging, head bobbing.  The tics alternate on and off.  We will probably try another med for him this summer when we are back in the US. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My son was ticcing on Focalin before we started Vyvanse.

He ticced for a month or so on Vyvanse as well, and then suddenly they stopped.

I can only guess that his body got used to the Vyvanse a lot easier than the focalin.

FYI, we are loving the Vyvanse... we are on month 4 (I think) and it's working wonderfully while keeping hisi personality intact.

Audrey

My son has been on Vyvanse 40 mg for a few months now. It works great for the ADHD problems but he has developed a vocal tic and a full body tic. I took him to his Neurologist this morning and they put him on Tenex. Has anyone had this problem with Vyvanse? am I taking the right approach? Does the Tenex help with the tics? I am at a loss and desparate to help my son!!!!!

Thanks

my son now 12 had terrible problems with the Vyvance so we switched to Concerta where he is at 72mg plus Tenex. the Tenex is a lifesaver, it has helped the anxiety tics he gets just transient) and his behaivior is much much better.

Still have our issues with school but he is much calmer and only tics when he is very stressed and full of anxiety. like this week he has report cards coming today and he was ticing and not sleeping from the anxiety and he is on Zoloft for that since he was very young. Good luck to you.