Son wakes up on intuniv | ADHD Information

My 9 year old son started Intuniv 3 weeks ago.   He is now taking
2mgs along with 20mgs of Focalin XR.    He has been on the Focalin
for 3 years.   The Intuniv was added this fall to help with increased
anger and frustration at school.    He used to sleep well...even on
Focalin.    Now on Intuniv, he wakes up every night, sometimes
screaming, and has a hard time falling back asleep.   We are going to
try giving him the Intuniv at bedtime.     If this does not work, then I
am done with Intuniv. Has anyone had a similar experience?

My child had a similar problem on guanfacine, which is a similar medication.  You can try a couple of things.  You can alter the time that you give it to him and see if that helps.  You also can give him melatonin and/or benadryl to see if that gets him through the night.  The melatonin/benadryl combo. is what worked for my child when he was having a reaction to guanfacine.  We wanted to keep him on the medicine because this was the only side effect and it was an enormous help to him.

If you try the melatonin, get the sustained release version.  My child always woke up at 3 am until we used that one. 

my 5 year old son has been on intuniv 1mg for six weeks and guanfacine for
three weeks prior to switching and he is up at 230 at least six out of seven
nights. he says he's having bad dreams. sometimes i hear him calling out
and others he is just up. his clinician said it's a coincidence but it never
happened before.

have you seen/heard anything about twitching? i noticed this evening his
eye will twitch every so often. of course this had to happen on the holiday
weekend! i spoke to the pharmacy and am waiting for the on call doctor to
return my call. in your opinion am i overreacting? i have heard such horror
stories about kids getting twitches and them not going away for a while.Hi there.   Sorry for my late reply.   We started dosing our son in the
early evening.   He is still waking up, but it has only been two days.
My husband thinks he is doing it now out of habit.   We may resort to
the Benadryl or melatonin if it does not stop.    It makes me crazy to
think about adding sleep aids when just three months ago he was
sleeping fine.   Big sigh!

Regarding the twitching, I have not noticed any. Sorry to hear that
you have.   

On the bright side, he does seem to calm down quicker than prior to
taking Intuniv......so family harmony is better....not great, since we are
so tired.....but better.

I hear you on not wanting to add more medicines.  If it makes you feel any better, melatonin is a substance the body produces, so it's more of a supplement than a medication. 

I'm sorry to hear about the ticks.  I'd call the doctor.

Yes, my DD has been on Guanfacine 1mg 1xdaily for 1 week now and it has been rather nightmarish. She has not been going to bed till the wee hours of the morning, needless to say I finally give up and pass out and leave her sitting up entertaining herself and figure someone in the house needs sleep.

Before this her sleep had been doing okay. I put her down at 8pm with a routine and she would stay in bed and be out within the hour. Now it is the out of bed for many different things, multiple times a night, and a constant fight.

So yes I feel your pain and frustration with this.