Medications Yes or No? | ADHD Information

I have a 7 year old son, who has suffered from ADHD for some time now. We have made several changes including diet, exercise and so on. We have had numerous meetings with school to have interventions in place that will help with concentration. He has just entered the 2nd grade and started to really fall behind. We just had an IEP today and his teacher informed us that he does not need special ed classes, in fact he is VERY smart for his age. He struggles with the attention span and when he tries to sit she said you can just see his body tense up like he needs to explode. He is not behavioral other than the typical running around, yelling out those types of things. He is not physical or defiant in school. I worry because his grades have gone from 80-90's down to 60-70's already. I am really against medications but have begun wondering if that is what he needs. His physician believes he does. I was wondering if anyone had suggestions and if medications are an option does anyone have ideas of meds to start out with. Keep in mind I am an RN and know most of the meds already but personal stories and experiences go along way when it comes to such a HUGE and BOTHERSOME decision. Thank you to all who respond!My son is similar, now 11. He needs the meds for academics. He is notably above his class average with meds. Without meds he works so hard to stay there, and so do I because I have to keep him on track, and the energy and time needed increases exponentially with each grade. We would have to spend 2-3 times longer each day studying without meds. In first and second grade it was easy. I resisted meds, and stims did not happen until the very end of 3rd grade. Academics held, with a HUGE amount of effort by both me and my son. We had to work so hard. In 6th grade, I am certain that homework would take 3 hours per night. With meds it takes 1-1.5 hours and he is averaging 96% on his math tests so far this year. His average would be much lower without meds because of the slowness in learning and the careless mistakes. But really, the big issue is self-esteem. When they do not do well in class they feel stupid. I cannot emphasize enough the impact that feeling stupid in class has. As far as what med to start with--it's more like what type of specialist to start with. That would be a behavioral ped or a child psychiatrist. Don't go the ped route. They do not have adequate training in this area.Thank you I will begin my search for the proper physician immediately. I appreciate your response. It does make the decision a bit easier to know that he is not the only one that could not make it with just our encouragement and dedication. We also work so hard with him, a packet of homework 4-5 pages takes us from end of school to bed time. It becomes a battle of wills and nothing but frustration for both of us. And the worst of it is for me is once he does get settled down he CAN do it easily. But every new page brings the new challenge of getting him down enough to start it. Again thank you and I will be looking right away. My son had his diagnosis, went a year without being medicated. The
environmental changes we made worked as well as medication. Until they
didn't. He went a year and a half on medication, and has recently come
off it. He is currently not medicated at all. So there's the first myth
disproved - that once kids are on meds they stay on forever.

It can be a hassle finding the right medication, but that's because there
are different drugs that work differently for different children, which is
good. You don't want a general pill to dope your kid, you want one that
matches your child.

Don't be put off by finding the right medication. You're hearing about the
struggles here because people are venting about it. Once you get the
right medication, you stop posting about it.

Read up on common side effects and decide what's acceptable and what's
not. The number one thing I wouldn't accept was a personality change in
my son, so we rejected his first medication when it happened. His second
medication had side effects when he started it - lack of appetite,
sleeplessness, and a racing heart. We adjusted the dose to stop the heart
issues, and learned to manage the other side effects - used melatonin to
help him sleep and had him eat breakfast before he took his pill and 2
dinners at night since he wouldn't eat all day. It worked out great.

Good luck on finding your solution. Let us know how it's going.Corrina is right, the idea of giving meds is to help your child succeed & be themselves w/o all of the buzzing that goes along w/ADHD.  You may have some side effects, you just have to decided what you can live with & what you can't when deciding if it's the right med.  Keep in mind that some side effects do wear off in time as your child gets used to the med.  Our DS always experiences a tic when dealing w/a new med or an adjustment in dosage or time given.  It's just an eye tic that is annoying but it's minor compared to others I've read about and usually within 2 mos of the change, it's gone.  The other common one is appetite suppression, which also can become better with time.  It's also manageable as far as getting your child to eat larger portions at other times during the day, when the meds are at their peak, or substituting Pediasure to make sure they are getting all the nutrients they need.  These two side effects are the most common & depending on how extreme they affect your child, they can be managed.  If they can't, then you move onto something else to try.  Remember the goal is to give your child the help they need but to still keep them "your child" with all of their unique characteristics, just w/o all of the craziness.  Good luck!