Angry Little Person | ADHD Information

Hello,

I am new here. I have a 5 year old son who was diagnosed about a year ago. He has been almost every single ADHD medication and we have now settled on Focalin XR. It seems to do the trick, but wears off very quickly (for him) in my opinion.

I am not sure whether to post this question here or on the medication/side effects board....

My son was also diagnosed a month ago for asthma. In the past few weeks, I have seen a dramatic change in his mood. He is very, very angry and will argue with me about everything. If I say it is morning, he will say it is night and fight me tooth and nail that he is right.

Anyway, my question is do any of you think that his asthma med Asmanex Twisthaler (steroid) had something to do with his moods?

Thanks so much and I look forward to chatting with you all more.

 

I have to wonder about that too. I really wish they'd test asthma med/adhd med combinations to find which ones are the safest combos.

I have asthma and ventolin doesn't work. So I have to keep prednisone around for emergencies.

I found that prednisone+ADHD meds made me completely psycho. So I have to be careful.

I've stopped taking all "dailies" because they seriously impair me via depression and in my case seemed to increase the severity and length of the attacks.

I tend to have weird reactions to meds anyway.

I honestly don't know what to suggest here. I just know what I experienced.
My daughter uses the asmanex inhaler and has had no problems with it, but she is not on any ADHD meds. She is on several other asthma/allergy meds. Some on this board have posted about concerns over the asthma medication, Singulair. My daughter is on that too and has had no problems associated with it.
I would say it's definitely worth looking into changing the asthma meds, especially if the anger/defiance began or increased dramatically since he started the asmanex. There are certainly a lot of other choices for inhalers out there.
Another possibility is that, if his asthma is flaring up, he is not feeling well, struggling to get enough oxygen; that can make a person moody and irritable too.

Good luck!
Absolutely.

Also, have a proper pulmo check and see if the ventolin is actually working. If it doesn't work the kid is being traumatized because I can tell you from experience that heaving for oxygen and nothing working induces total panic. That's why waterboarding is used for torture.

There is nothing more terrifying than heaving for air.

I don't know if symbicort works for kids but I know I didn't have side-effects with it, unlike other stuff.

Another thing to consider is that if he just had his first few attacks, he's still traumatized by them. He hasn't had time to adjust. Especially being a kid who can't talk himself down, and hasn't adjusted to having a chronic condition yet, it's going to have some large impact on his life.

[QUOTE=MetisRebel]
I found that prednisone+ADHD meds made me completely psycho. So I have to be careful.

 

 

YES! Our ds was on prednisone and he went spiraling downward. I finally figured it out once my mom said, after watching ds for us for two hours, "He said he wants to die!!"  Our ds is WONDERFULLY HAPPY despite his troubles so this floored us. BEWARE of that combo!!

Prednisone alone at high doses can cause psychosis. I've known this to happen for adults over 100mg which is why they keep you in the hospital until it wears off.

I found that on over 40mg [if I get bronchitis/pneumonia] that if I am taking ADHD meds I am completely whackazoid for a minimum of 3 days AFTER I stop the prednisone.

Wish someone would research it