Yes, we continue on the roller coaster of finding the right meds for our 6-year old hyper/impulsive type son. :) After success on Ritalin but wanting something longer lasting, we tried Concerta (but didn't give it a chance after a bad rebound), Vyvanse (controlled ADHD symptoms but brought out uncharacteristic moodiness and irritability), and Focalin (great at home but not quite enough for school and higher dosage had opposite effect) ...
SO, now we're back to Concerta 27 mg (and a different doc -- psychiatrist instead of pediatrician). We've only been on it two days, but home has been great. First day at school was yesterday and teacher said the morning was a bit "rough," but the afternoon was great. So my question is has anyone else had the same experience where the med took a few hours to reach full effectiveness? What did you do to help your child in the a.m.? Or did it just take a few weeks on the med to get the all-day coverage where it needed to be? Or was it an overall dosage issue? Just curious about others experiences in terms of how the Concerta kicked in and lasted throughout the day.
This whole finding the right med and dosage is soooo frustrating!!!! Especially with a crappy teacher and not-very-supportive school ... but that's a whole other story ... :)
I know how you feel. My son is on 18mg and after 1 month the psychiatrist upped it to 27mg. He was tired and sleeping after school. so we are back to 18. We give it 1 hour before school dtarts so it will be in his system.It is so frustrating, isn't it??? :)
We give it to him an hour before school, but his teacher still said the morning was rough but the afternoon was wonderful, so I was curious if it's just releasing a bit slow for him ... and what you can do to address that.
I can't wait until the summer and no school!!!
Concerta releases 22% with it's initial release and then he rest through out the day. It could be that initial release is too low for what he needs and things improve through out the day because more medication is in his system. You could try giving a small amount of short acting Ritalin along with the concerta to get him through the morning if the afternoon dosing seems good.