Clonidine dosage help
ok. we have been all over the place with dd's meds since august, so heres a little background..
dd is 9, 54 pounds.
we tried adderal xr and short release, celexa, ritalin, stratera and focalin. everything makes her grumpy and zommbie like, and very ocd.
we cleared the slate last month and started in with clonidine currently at .5mg twice a day and trazadone 50mg at 7pm.
this combo is working great so far (shes homeschooled so no this isnt helping here focus for school at all, but she is happy again and herself and calm and she says she feels good).
the only problem is.. the clonidine she takes a .5mg dose at 10am and then one at 3pm and trazadone at 7pm. it doesnt stay in her system long enough and also when she first wakes up she is the tazamanian devil on speed! she even knows now when she starts to feel hyper and always around 1pm everyday, but she cant get her next dose till 3 to make it last till 7 for the traz. now it takes about 30 minutes for her to calm down once taken, so all day she has an up/down cycle. ive spoken to the pscy, but they dont want to increase the dose for her. plus im wondering what all this is doing to her heart, so now they want an ekg.
does anyone have any ideas? is anyones child taking a larger dose of clonidine at this age and weight range?
i also asked about tenex, but the pschy says she has never used it and therefore doesnt want to write it. ive also told the pschy that i want to hold off adding stims again until we get this organized, since we just had to clear the slate last month.
help!
anyone any thoughts?I don't have personal experience with clonidine, but one site I looked at said the optimal Rx is split into 4 doses per day. Have you looked into that? Also, that at 54 lbs, she could have .1225mg. Of course, I don't know if that small of a dose is available, it would be somewhere around .03mg, four times a day. Maybe they have a .025? Or can you cut the .5 in half and split it that way? They also mentioned a dermal patch, and if a child's optimal dose was .2mg, they could use the .3mg patch. But I don't know if you can up her dose that high. The thing about a patch, is that the meds are released more evenly through the day. Same with a long-acting pill, so it could be that 4 doses would help with those ups and downs.
Again, I am not familiar with this med, but if your psych doesn't have the answers, ask her to call someone who does. My DS's ped has to do that, and has no qualms about it. He knows that he doesn't know everything about ADHD and medications, and since we are in a very rural area, he calls specialists in the big city
. I'm sorry I couldn't be more helpful, perhaps someone else has more personal experience with clonidine. oh thats very helpful thank you! could u possibly link me to that dosing info?
the pschy said she couldnt have the patch, the dose was to high and that .5mg twice a day was as high as she could have ! not that i WANT to give her more blood pressure mediciene, but dang... its like a miralce for her right now! she is just doing great!
I actually used my own calculations to figure out the .1225mg aspect, just by converting micrograms to milligrams, and pounds to kilograms. But, the dosage of 5 micrograms per kilogram is pretty standard on medication sites.I think I looked on the Encyclopedia of Mental Disorders, because it is also used for alcoholic rehab,etc...they mention the pediatric dosage as well. PSYweb says 3-10 micrograms/kilogram split into three times a day, which seems to fall in that same area. I think it was the PSYweb page that said dosing is variable. You wouldn't want to go too high, but up to 10 micros/kilos can be used if results are better. Of course, all the webpages I looked at warned against missing doses, or stopping abruptly, and one or two also talked about "poisoning" or overdoses, so I guess that can be an issue as well.
You might not want to look up ADHD for this info, because you have to sort through a million sites, and half of them tell you clonidine isn't for kids the other half are just trying to sell you something. Sometimes internet research can be annoying, but other times you can find info that you can take to your ped or psych just to compare. It might drive them crazy, because they went to school for this, but they also can't possibly stay up to date on all the new research that's out there, and you can do specialized searches that they don't have time for. Also, if blood pressure medication is working, then why not use it? It's common enough that it's listed as a possible med for ADHD and it sounds like you are carefully regulating the dosing. I think it's great that you found something that works at all! I know what a hassle that can sometimes be.
P.S. these sites were pretty adamant about not mixing clonidine and stims, so good for you on not trying that right now!
My son used to take 1 tablet 3 times a day, but now that he is on Concerta
he only takes 1/2 tab at 8 a.m., 1/2 tab at 4 p.m.and 1 full tab at bedtime.
One time we took him off his stimulant for a few days, but continued the
Clonidine. He can be very HYPER and then I gave him 1/2 tab every 2 - 4
hours, but NEVER over the max dose of 3 per day.
It worked out pretty well.... but giving pills that often was a pain in the butt!Try combo of Concerta and Clonidine!!
Enter Your Email below to claim your Free Book