help... 9 year old son anger issues | ADHD Information

My son is 9 and he started taking adderall (which he has been on for quite a while) and prozac which he started around Jan. The last 3 months he has been getting into so much trouble at school I am wondering if it could be related to the prozac? I know that he has anger issues he has ODD, ADHD and FAE. I realize that his brain is altered from all of this. I am at the end of my rope and I don't know what else to do for him. We go to counseling for help and support.

Yesterday was the last straw for me. I got a call once again from the principal saying that he had threatened to kill a kid in his class several times. The kid had done something that wasn't nice and it made him mad and he just could not let it go. He was stewing about it all day long. Now he had to take a risk assesment test today to see if he really would follow through with the threat. I don't believe he would but then again with all that has happened the last 3 months I feel like I really am not sure what he would be capable of doing.

I also am worried because the only thing he could say to me yesterday when I picked him up from school was help me in a very sad little voice. it broke my heart. I know he doesn't want to get into trouble. When my husband and I were talking to him in our room he looked at the light on the ceiling and said it had an evil face. It concerns us that he may be hallucinating.

I love my son so much and I want to help him so if you have any advice or experience with prozac symptoms I would appreciate any help.

I am sorry to hear that you are going through this with your son.   I have a 12 y/o who deals with anger issues daily.  She is currently only taking Focalin XR and melatonin at night, but sometimes I wonder if there is more we can do for her. 

I would contact whomever is treating your son ASAP.  If he is coming directly to you and asking for help, and you are unsure of what he may do I would not wait.  I can usually tell if my daughter is serious about any threats she may make, but if for a second I am unsure I call her therapist right away. 

Our kids deal with so much in school the way it is, then an added disability really  puts them out there for bullying and so on.  I know how you feel about wanting to help him. So many days I wished I could just go to school with my daughter to protect her and help her get through the day.......if we could only do that!!!!! 

It could just be the Prozac causing so much anger in him considering it seemed to start when he started the Prozac.  Hopefully someone can figure it out for you and get your little boy the help he deserves!!  Good luck and remember we are all in the same boat here, so keep asking for help........I hope things get better for you soon!!!

Sorry, I am at work, but I honestly skimmed both posts and had to reply.

My son became angry, easily aggitated, psychotic to the point that his eyes were dialated and my husband thought he was high, all while he was taking adderall XR.

We stopped the med and it all went away.

Please call the prescibing doctor and tell him/her of this.

You should be able to find med/meds that will help with his anger issue. It could be due to anxiety or even depression or like you mention ocd but it still needs to be addressed.

Poor little guy, was the other boy bullying him?

Please update us with how things are going.

How this all started was my son decided to pick some flowers for his teacher before school. This other boy told him that their teacher was allergic to flowers and hit the flowers out of his hands. So, the other kid did start it by being mean but my son obviously shouldn't have reacted the way he did.

I will be checking into the reaction to adderall xr. I appreciate the input since I know all kids respond differently to different meds. I am hoping I will hear back from the psychiatrist that prescribes the meds since I left him a message this morning.

thanks again for the support and advice

Thank you for the reply.

Please keep us posted, it is so hard for our adhd'ers, they seem to be easy targets.  

Stay strong!

It's my understanding that SSRIs (Prozac is one) may cause manic
behavior in succeptible individuals. Manic behavior may encompass
everything from feeling grandiose and on top of the world to irritability
and anger. The Prozac may be exacerbating the anger/ODD. I hope
your son gets some relief soon. Good luck! I feel for you as my 12 year old son ADHD ODD Anxiety disorder and depression has his Tenex raised yesterday and had a psychotic reaction when he came down off it. If it happens again today we will definatly take him back down to 2mg which was helpful anyway. I am not looking forward to this afternoon. My son at some point around age 9 was on Vyvanse an adderall derivative and had horrendous reactions to it so we had to pull him off. everything after that has been pretty good until this last raise in dose. I would talk to the doc about the adderrall lol spelling stinks. it may be the cause.

I'm not a doctor but I've had a lot of experience with Prozac and I'm not familiar with that type of reaction to Prozac but that doesn't mean it doesn't happen-especially in kids!  But I have heard of that behavior with Adderall.  My son acted like that on Adderall when he rebounded as it wore off.  When he was on XR he would rebound right in the middle of the dose because the first granules had worn off but the second ones hadn't disolved yet.  When my son was in rebound it was CRAZY and there was no controlling the anger and moodiness.  Definitely talk to the doc right away.  It sounds like a medication problem to me! Good luck and please keep us posted!  

 

My son reacted to his first medication by threatening to burn down the
school. He took 2 pills before we stopped it. That is not an acceptable
side effect.

My son's doctor said it was the same reaction that teenagers who turn
suicidal have, but younger kids have a less self-loathing reaction. Instead
of turning inward, wanting to kill themselves, they go outward, wanting to
kill everyone else.

I hope you can talk to the doctor soon! Don't stop the medication
suddenly without the doctor's okay - you don't need a rebound reaction.

Good luck!That's great news!  Keep us posted!

hey Spamula,

what are the doses of his other meds? my son is 12, turning 13 and taking only 1mg of tenex. He is also on 104mgs of concerta. DS has grown, wearing a mens 31 waist pant/shorts.

we too had a psychotic episode on adderall xr, I know what that is like!

Please let us know how things are going.

I think so many of our adhd'ers are also depressed, have a touch of if not more of OCD, and anxiety. I believe mine does at least, at times. Definetley the adhd and anxiety. but I think the other two are there, just not daily.

hi there Bethann, my son is still skinney and wears kids jeans size 10 lol. he does not eat barely. he is on 72 mg of Concerta and we started off with 1mg of Intuniv but it did nothing so we went to 2 mg for 2 weeks and he said it helped a little so the doc upped it to 3mg. the last couple of days he has been so happy and fun to be around I am hoping this will be it. my son metabolizes like a mad man and the concerta is out of his system some days by 4 pm and he is starving on other days it lasts till 7 I do not know but he does need to eat more because his hip bones r sticking out way too much he has lost 5 lbs as of late not good.I think this is more adhd than ODD as the dr said, he was not tested. he is just too used to getting his way. we have to change our parenting style and so far it has been better since we hace. Thanks so much for the reply and info. your the best

If this isn't "it" for your son then it may be possible to go back up on the Intuniv without going all the way up to 3mg.  My son is on Tenex and we split 1 mg pills.  He gets a total of 1.25 mg per day.  I don't know if Intuniv is in pill form or capsule but it may be worth a try if it's a pill.

I hope this is "it" for him though... Wishing you the best!

actually after that epidode heas been doing great on the 3 mg of Tenex. He has been Happy and having a great time camping with Boy Scouts where almost everyone has issues lol tall order. If I see any more problems I will definatly back off on the Intuniv. Thanks for caring