tenex | ADHD Information

oh no! I have taken tenex in the past and plan to start taking it again very soon (actually clonidine, but they are both very similar.) Thankfully I did not have this problem, but I have seena few other people post on here asking for advice with this same problem, just recently as a matter of fact. Generally you can tell immediately how it is going to affect your child, but there are defniitely people on here who say ti was a full month before full effects were reached. Hopefully womeone on here will have a solution or some better advice, although I do have one thought: if nothing else, before you give up on it, if you can't find a solution, try switching from tenex to clonidine. They are very similar, but sometimes that makes all the difference (i.e., sometimes a child will not respond well at all to dexmethylphenidate, but wonderfully to methylphenidate.) If nothing else works, it's certainly worth a shot before having to give it up. I hope you find something that works, as i know this med has helped alot of people. Good luck.My son is on Tenex but he takes it with Ritalin so I'm not sure what the side effects of Tenex by itself are. Sorry!  But I do know that Tenex takes up to 4-6 weeks to get the full effect.  I would call the doc and find out if this anger is a sign that the dose is too high or is it possible that it's just his body getting used to it and it will even out.  With my son the Ritalin made him angry and the Tenex took that away. Good luck!

tenex seems to be making my 9yo son angry...just started .5 in morn after giving .5 at night for 2 weeks, so for the past 3 days morn and night totalling 1mg.

how do you know when to back down again? some people see changes right away and some say to wait weeks?? i feel like i am making him miserable

he is on no other meds.

thanks for any help

Hi,

My DS started Guanfacine (Tenex) 1mg approx 3 weeks ago.  First five days were amazing!  Then he started acting like we forgot to give him the meds.  Dr suggested we up to 2 mg a day.  DS got increasingly hostile, frustrated and finally had a real "rage meltdown" this week..I though he was going to break out the windows in our van.  Called Dr and he is now off it all together..we are breathing a big sign of relief.  Back to Dr next Monday to "Discuss options".  DS hasn't had any luck with any medication  . 

I'm sorry you guys had such a terrible experience.   Did your doctor slowly increase him to 2 mg or just jump from 1 mg to 2 mg?   Was the dosage split through out the days?

Any time we've made a change,  we have done small increments - .5 mg at a time.  We also would slowly build it up as well.   For example .5 mg in the PM for a week, then add .5 mg in the AM for another week. 

I found if the dosage was too high,  we did have more behavioral issues.