Henny,
We had similar problems with straterra. My 8 year old son started with a week of 18 mg and then 3 weeks at 25 mg. He was extremely moody and generally unpleasant to be around and it wasn't helping at school. The Focalin we tried earlier made him angry too. Our pediatrician has now told us to take him to a psychiatrist. I'm really growing skeptical that medication is going to be the magical fix to his inattentiveness.
We gave our DS the Strattera at night for the first few months. We switched to giving it in the morning and found that the positive affects of the medication will last longer in the day than when we gave it to him at night. We have not seen any loss of appetite or sleep issues since he has been on Stattera. Has anyone noticed that the tics are more enhanced on the Strattera? My sons tics seem to have gotten worse as we are ramping him on the Stat and taking him off of the Focalin....ThanksWe gave our 8 y.o. son 40 mg Strattera in the morning. That seemed to help him for school. We did notice loss of appetite and increased moodiness. After a short time on Strattera, we tried a few weeks off the drug because we were concerned about anger issues. At the time, we saw no difference in the anger level and resumed the drug. However, during the course of the next several months, the angry rages and moodiness returned, with a vengeance. Over two weeks ago, we took our son off Strattera, and he's happier now, off meds, than he's been in a long time. Of course, we'll still have issues with school, which prefers him to be medicated, but then, we had issues with school even on meds. I just started my 8 yo son on Strattera. Friday night was the first night we gave him 18mg. From what I read on here it sounds like we are "ramping" him up to 40mg. Doc said 18mg of Strat and 10mg of the Focalin for the 1st 5 days. Then 25mg of Strat and 5 mg of Focalin for 5 days. Then 40mg of strat and 5 of Focalin.Hi Sheryl
It's fine to give it at night. Especially during the ramp. It actually can hide the side effects that occasionally occur during ramp, tiredness, stomach problems. We didnt see any of these issues. We did for a while split our dose 2/3 in the a.m. and 1/3 after school, but now give the total dose in the mornings. You can always switch to morning dosing once you're at target and stop the stim.
WE have not seen any change in weight as far as loss or gain. She is gaining, but normally. She had significant weight loss on stims, but eats all her meals on the Strattera, and sleep is normal. Tics getting better. They were completely gone then we added Provigil VERY briefly a few weeks ago and they came back worse than ever and are still fading. They'll go away, they generally do once we stop stims.
Good luck, I hope the Strattera works for him. Keep us posted.
We give half the dose in the morning and half at dinner time to avoid stomach problems.