Restarting meds before school starts

 

Is anyone else restarting meds before school starts?  I gave my son his first pill today. He had a major emotional breakdown when they wore off, didn't eat lunch and vomited in the car on the way home.  UGH!!!  Now I wonder if I should have increased the dosage slowly. We didn't do that last summer, but he was on a smaller dosage last year.  I remember him feeling queasy the first week or two.  He is very emotional when the wear off for a while, but this is the worst I've seen in a while.  School starts Tuesday, I hope that I've given him enough time to adjust.I have the same fears on a different level.  We reduced his dosage of Focalin XR from 15 to 10 mg, simply so he could participate in daycamp without incident.  Just started up on the higher dose this week in prep for school next week.  It is only 5 mg difference but I see the effect in rebound and appetite.  Give it some time but keep your eyes open.Branden didn't sleep last night.  He came downstairs right after I posted this.  I put him back in bed with a book at 11. Apparently he stayed up playing a game and building until around 1am, which means he got 6 hours sleep last night. On the plus side, he is happy, focused and ready to take on the world this morning-he's not tired or cranky at all (although I am).  I am going to give him a half a dose this morning and see if it helps.   

I have heard that stopping and restarting is very difficult on the person. His body isn't used to the meds again. We don't stop. My son's body adjusted, he eats and sleeps and takes his meds 24/7.

I hope things get better!!

< =text/>_popupControl(); Whenever we stop for longer than two days, we alsways have to allow several days to build back up to the regular dose, simply because of the nausea and headaches. I would pull back a little for a few days (we have our doc's okay to open that capsule and shake some out), let him adjust, and then increase.Fortunatly it is easy for me to adjust the dose since we always open the capsules anyway and he eats it on yogurt.  I have him a half a dose this morning. He was slightly less emotional tonight.  We'll see how he sleeps.  Despite only 6 hours of sleep last night, he jumped right out of bed this morning happy as could be. 

You see all of the outward signs of how his body is adjusting to the change, imagine how he feels on the inside?  Maybe starting and stopping the medication is harder on his body (and mind) than getting him stablized and leaving him there.  It was sooooo difficult getting my son's system used to his medication that I never take him off of it.  It would be too traumatic on him. Just a thought...

Good luck and I hope it keeps getting better for you!

We didn't have this problem last summer. However, I will definately keep this in mind for next summer.We start back up with our meds tomorrow, 30mg of Vyvanse
and I of course have some of the same concerns.

When my son first started Vyvanse back in December of '08
he had a fairly significant initial reaction; vomitted
for the first 2 days. We think it was because it was on
an empty stomach so we're going to make sure he eats a
nice healthy/filling breakfast tomorrow before he takes
it and see if that helps. Obviously, we have 2.5weeks
until school starts so we have some time to play with the
dosage/med if we need to. I'm to call the ped back next
week and give an update.

My son gained 5lbs since his well child checkup in April
... SIGNIFICANT weight gain for him and weight he
definitely could stand to gain, which was the biggest
reason why we took him off the meds for the summer. He'd
lost a lot of weight when he started Vyvanse and never
really caught back up so he's back up to his highest
weight now. We'll see how that goes once the meds are
back in his system.

 


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