My son is 7 and has been on Concerta 18mg for about a year. It made a world of difference to us and he does fine in school, but started having more incidences/falling apart at home in the last 3 mos. or so. The dr. recommended increasing to 27mg Concerta and a behavioral psych. suggested a Ritalin 5mg booster after school.  We are doing 18mg Concerta in the a.m. and 5mg. booster Ritalin in the PM because we would rather get by on less med if possible. So far, (3 days only) he is still having trouble in the afternoon. Do we just need to "get used to" the medicine? How long does it take to kick in? I thought all this medicine was supposed to leave the system anyway, so why does it take getting used to? Does anyone have experience "mixing" medicines? Would it be better to just increase the dose to 27mg Concerta?

By "falling apart at home," I mean that sometimes (never can tell when) when something doesn't go his way, he goes into a tantrum -- yelling, belligerent, out of control of himself. Our doctor thinks that proper medication can help us through this and that's why we're trying different meds. We had bad effects last week even though just a few days of adding ritalin to the concerta. So this week we are just increasing the concerta to 27mg and hoping that the time release of an increased dose will do the trick. We have other issues at play in addition to ADHD. My son was adopted at age one from a baby house in Russia. There are things that come along with early maternal deprivation that may be separate from the ADHD. I am learning more about that -- but that's probably another message board! Anyway, just to let you know how our circumstances and reactions to things may be different.

RE: Jane

Hi Jane,

I am a new user and have read all the postings regarding concerta and thank everyone for their experiences. I is great parental support. My son has just started on Concerta from three years on Ritalin. He has only been on it for one month so were still in a trial stage. We have experience sleeping problems etc. We did try trying ritalin with the concerta but experience many problems. Our son experience a sleepless nights, tingling in the face, stomach ache etc.  I was beyond myself. I contacted my our doctor(ADHD) at Sick Kids Hospital In Toronto. There advice was not to mix the two and to give Concerta a trial period of two weeks/month with no mixing. We have increased his medication also which has been much better at school. I have notice he is back to his regular sleep pattern. It seems to be getting better. I must say though Ritalin had a much better effect on him. We didn't experience as many side effects.  Best Wishes on your journey.