Risperdal side effects | ADHD Information

My daughter started on Risperdal four weeks ago - we just increased the dose this week. Since the increase she is night waking 3-4 times a night (we had a similar thing happening w/ Strattera) and she has a constant runny nose. The psych says these things are not related to the med, but from different message boards online I see that people attribute both things to the risperdal.

Anyone experience this?

Will these things eventually go away? Anyone? I am pretty discouraged at the moment.

Don't get too discouraged!

Yes, those are possible side effects from risperdal, though.
Risperdal is an atypical antipsychotic that is supposed to increase sleep.  If it's waking her up, she may be refractory/resistant to the medication.

This happened to our daughter who is bipolar (not ADHD).  We had to try three other antipsychotic medications before we found one (Abilify) that didn't wake her up and make her manic.  She has been taking it for a couple years now without a problem.

Audrey



My son started taking risperdone one week ago, hes not having a runny nose or waking up, however he is more hyper with a shorter fuse and I feel I cannot get him to listen to me no matter what.  I'm trying to hang in there as there are so many different side effects for this med, and i know they say after a week or two the side effects can/usually go away, but the way  his behavior is now, hes driving me up the wall and its a huge chore to take him anywhere.  Hes taking for anixety/asperbers symptoms/adhd along with 1 mg of tenex.  Let me know what you decide with your child about the risperdone, im not so sure of it either.  Hang in there our kids need us to stay strong for them! 

Well, I'm not sure what the hyper/anger thing is about, but I am sorry you are going through this.

We went off Risperdone last week. I figured we gave it a fair chance. At the end, she was night-waking 9-10 times a night - nearly every hour. She said she had horrible dreams, about people "gunning" her. That's pretty much all it took for us to stop.

The pdoc kept insisting these things are not med-related, so we are seeing a new pdoc to see what his opinion is.

Maybe your son's reaction has to do w/ the tenex? Something about the combo? I would call the doc right away. Our doc did say that you should pretty much see the effects w/in a few days.

Hand in there and good luck! Which, really, is what this business is all about, I am discovering.