We started giving dd tenex yesterday afternoon, .5 mg, and we are supposed to be ramping up slowly adding .5 mg every 5-7 days utlimately reaching 1-2 mg morning and 1-2 mg evening. We are adding this to her stimulant because she is SOOOO hyper and impulsive although she is not aggressive, angry or moody typically. Well, I could swear the last two days after taking the tenex she has been more argumentative, disrespectful and moody. I do think she is a little less hyper as the meds are wearing off but she is extremely unmotivated to do anything. I know we are not at the right dose for her but did anybody see negative results when just begining at the small dose but then positive results when upping the dose? I had such high hopes for this med as her hyperactivity and impulsivity really get in her way esp. socially. She has been on stimulants for 4 1/2 years which work well for her but she is at a high dose and her impulsivity/ hyperactivity are really showing through even on adderall xr 30 with an afternoon booster. We are hoping to add tenex instead of upping the stimulant. The stimulants are causing her to pick her skin like crazy.
Any insight? I know it hasn't been very long but I thought I might see more positive results right off the bat.
Thanks!!!!!!!!!!!
Jo58:
We just started our son on Guaficane (generic tenax) last week to help with his sleeping at night and rebouding when the concerta (54 mg) is wearing off. I have to tell you, I have seen nothing but positive reaction to this med. He takes 1 mg at 4:00 p.m. in the afternoon and concerta in the a.m. With doing this, he has no rebound issues and in the a.m. when he use to be so hyper and off the wall, I would loose it, he is as calm as could be. This a.m. he even got up on his own when the alarm went off, and went right into the shower! First time ever!!! He is 9 years old.
Since the concerta works all day for him until 5:00 p.m. (reason for the other med at 4) I am not sure how it works for keeping him calm all day. He is a bit more tired in the a.m. when he gets up. Therer is a long thread on this site with regards to Tenax so you might want to look there.
Good luck, I hope it works out for you.
Mars
Thanks for the reply mars!
Did you start at 1mg or did you start lower and then work up to 1mg? ANd did you see results immediately or did it take a couple of days?
She has had the .5 mg of guanfacine around 5:00 for 2 days only. She definitley sleeps better, is not as hyper in the evening, and is a little sleepy in the morning but calm. We used to have major hyper behaviors in the a.m. until we started giving her adderall 20-30 minutes before she wakes up so mornings had not been a problem for a while. IT's just that for those 2 days after giving her the .5 mg of guanfacine it'a almost like she has a bad attitude (which she normally doesn't) Maybe the dose just isn't high enough. We were hoping that the guanfacine might augment the stim enough to even lower the stim dose! I guess time will tell.........
I wonder if it would be better to combine guanfacine with concerta instead of adderall. WE liked her behavior on concerta (54 mg) except for the rebound and the not sleeping although her grades were not as good as they are with adderall. But maybe with the guanfacine on board the concerta would be better.
Thanks for the input!
JO58,
I found that adderall made my child very argumentative and rebellious. The concerta[both with guanfacine] works much better fr him.
My dd has been on adderall for 4 1/2 years and it has been great for her. It's just that we've had to keep increasing the dose b/c she seems to build up a tolerance to each dose. We are now at a point where the drs don't want to increase her stimulants b/c she is on a high dose, but the meds just aren't working like they used to so we decided to try adding tenex.........the jury is definitely still out.
We started guanfacine at night to get past the posible sleepiness that some kids get with this med. She started low and worked up to 2mg am and 2mg at night. In the early days with this med, on days that she only has the guanfacine and no stimulant, she was a bit sleepy. Now that she has been on it a year, it has little sleepy effects and only positive ones.Jo58:
Sorry I didn't reply sooner, just got a chance to check messages. We started my son right out on 1 mg in the evening. Funny thing is, if I give it to him at 5:00 p.m., it doesn't seem to work very well for getting him to sleep at night, but the hour difference seems to work for us. It did take a few days for it to show me any effects as far as behaving in the a.m. As for sleeping, the second night he slept good.
My son was on the new med vyvanse which I understand is similar to adderal and he was awful on it. Very nasty, hyper, ODD, just a child I had never seen before. It took a week after he stopped and went back on concerta for him to be himself again. For now, I will stick with the concerta and tenax as it seems to be working.
Good luck, I hope you find success. It is frustrating trying to find what works for our little ones.
mars
Thanks so much for the responses.
DD has been on adderall for so long and her temperment has always been great on it as well as every other stimulant that she has tryed and she's tryed a lot! On and off stims she has always been very even tempered and sweet (even when hyper, impulsive and overly silly) so I did not expect tenex to have any negative effects on her temperment. That being said, after school today she was just kind of out of it w/ a very "I don't care" attitude to the point of being disrespectful. This attitude has only surfaced since starting the tenex. i gave her the .5 mg of tenex at 4:45 and it took a while to work, maybe 1.5 hours, but then she did settle down and was pleasant this evening. The one thing I have noticed that I do like is that when she does seem to calm down on the tenex she does still have a sense of humor. SOmetimes the stimulants take that from her and it drives me nuts. I hope we can get this to work...........She definitely is not completely covered and where she needs to be.
BTW, we did not like vyvanse at all either. She was fine while on it but it wore off very early and the rebound was bad and strange.
Thanks so much for all the input!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Well today, day 4 of tenex (.5 mg in the afternoon only) was better. She was calm when I picked up from school. I gave her an adderall booster of 10mg along w/ the tenex at 4:30 b/c we were going to her brother's baseball game. I was nervous to see how the adderall and tenex were together but she was good, better actually than on adderall alone and 10mg is less than what I would normally give her. Normally on just adderall she is either zoned and too calm or impulsive and immature. Tonight she was not impulsive, yet talkative and playful with other kids. It seemed like a good combo and I hope we can get this to work. I will try adding a tenex dose in the a.m. this weekend..............Should I give her the regular adderall XR dose at first or try dropping it down???
Thanks!!!!!!!!
I would only make one change at a time.