water_baller13, I see you are from Spain, & understand there may be a language thing going on here with your "against ADHD" line, unless you do not believe it exists, that it is just a "bad" or "misbehaving" child.
I would be glad to help you with your paper, I think it would be nice to help educate both you & your class on how real ADHD is, & how real the effects of ADHD are on our children & how hard the necessary decision is to medicate them. It took us years to finally try meds, & WOW what a difference. From C's to A's. From being all over the place to feeling settled. From Adderall, which rebounded badly, to Straterra which, to quote my son " makes me feel like me just tamer". You might want to start a new thread & ask specific questions, you'll be amazed at the responses you will get.
I am sure you will learn how each of us has cried out of frustration, exceptance & when the child thanks us for helping them. Good luck with your paper.
We are reluctantly going to do a trial with ritalin for my 8 year old son. In my reading I have been concerned about side effects. Will he really be better off or are we just setting him up for more problems? We have to do something to help him. Do docs usually moniter heart rate and blood pressure? Mine says no, just hight and weight. danielsj30338074.8650115741 Thanks Momma. Thanks for the info. We have started using concerta and things have been relatively good with it so far. Doing better at school almost immediately, but having tummy and sleep problems. Our family doc started him on the concerta but he has just seen the pediatrician who wants to change him to ritalin. How does the changeover go for your son?I don't think that monitoring heart rate and blood pressure is something that is done routinely. Apparently, this is supposedly a less common side effect. Unfortunately, my son had this side effect. My doctor or pharmacist never said anything about this to me, but I put two and two together, did some research and found out it was a side effect. My son was only on Ritalin for 2 weeks, and I had noticed that at least 3 or 4 times, my son would come over to me and say "mommy, my heart is beating really fast!" After I figured it out, I called the doctor. He said to take him off the meds and get a baseline EKG done. We did and it came back normal. Then we put him back on Ritalin and got another EKG done. This time, he didn't complain to me at all that his heart was beating really fast, but when I went to see his teacher, she told me that he mentioned it to her a few times. Now I took him off for good. The second EKG came back fine, according to the Dr., although I would like to see the results myself. That is why he wants to try Straterra now. Straterra is not a stimulant like Ritalin is, so he said that shouldn't raise his heart beat. I'm still skeptical. I haven't given him the Straterra yet. One, because I don't really want to medicate him, especially if it is going to have an effect on his heart; and two, he has not been able to swallow a pill for us. After two weeks of trying with Concerta before switching to Ritalin, was enough of a challange for both of us in the morning. UUGGHH!!!
Good luck with your decision.
They need to take heartrate and bloodpressure because ritalin is a salt....the HCl part is...it is a normal procedure....they also do it when someone starts AD's
Sometimes they test liverfunction as well
After a few weeks the heartrate should get more back to normal...
brrrt38080.2816550926danielsj303,
You say your "family doc" put your child on Concerta, but that your "pediatrician" wants to put him on ritalin....I have to ask, have you taken your child to an actual child psychiatrist? The reason I ask is this: Family Dr's are family with the general treatment procedures for a wide range of things for all ages, pediatricians are basically the same only with a narrowed down field of age groups, but neither are specialized in the treatment of disorders such as adhd.
If you want my advice, I'd suggest you schedule an appt with a pediatric psychiatrist immediately before going any further with either med, mainly because of the concern between the Concerta and Ritalin....these drugs are very different from one another, and can affect your child in vastly different ways. My 11 year old son is adhd and is alternating back and forth between Concerta (54 mg) and Adderall XR (30 mg), as both are similar drugs, just with different potencies (as indicated by the difference in dosages) My son's Dr has avoided Ritalin at all costs, saying to me it wasn't necessary for my son, as his case wasn't "severe" enough.
Please, if you haven't already, seek out a child psychiatrist, it's scary to think that two different Dr's are giving you conflicting advice, and the psychiatrist can always review your child's medical records from either (or both) Dr's with your permission.
Keep us posted!