Hi! I am a mother of 3 children, ages 6, 5, and 3 years old. My 6 year old daughter has been on Strattera 18 mg since septmeber 2003. My 4 year old son is also on Strattera since March of 2003. I am having some problems with my son. Our doctor has just blown me off and told me to keep waiting, we will see, ect with my questions. He finally got sick of me buggy him and sent me to a psychologist(sp?)
My problem is my son is not growing. Last year he was in his 14 percentile and this year he has dropped to his 5 percentile. I am very concerned about my sons lack of growing. He is the same size as his 3 year old sister. He seems also to become immune to the meds. He was doing great on the meds for about 6 or 8 months. He takes his meds by 730 AM and by 230PM he is fidgety, angry, and very hard to handle. School is having problems with him being the "class clown". He is often put by himself so he doesn't rile up the other kids.
My daughter is now starting to be the same as my son. She is moody, overly emotional, and jabber jawing all afternoon. The Strattera was helping her with all these problems. But it is like her body became immune. She does great in school. She is in Kindergarden and reads at a third grade level. She does not have any problems with school, since Strattera came into our lives.
So we saw the psychologist today and he said Strattera builds up in the childs system and these concerns(weight and meds wearing off) are not known facts or side effect of the meds. He wants my kids to start taking Clonodine along with the Strattera.
I am looking for some input from other people, so please anybody with anything please let me know. I am just thinking about getting a second opinion. I do not want an additional medicine, since I do not see the meds working all day like the doctor said they should be; I would like to find a different medicine that works. Anything would help, please let me know. Thank you
Hello "caggy". I'm new to the forum...and fairly new to Strattera. I've been doing a lot of reading in the last week or so on Strattera since I started using it almost two weeks ago.
I'm not happy with what I'm finding.
Looking at the documentation that came with my trial of Strattera below the list of "possible side effects of Strattera" is the statement:
"Weight loss may occur after starting STRATTERA. It is not known if growth will be slowed in children who use STRATTERA for a long period of time."
This to me is a sign, that they have reason to beleive that growth may be affected, but choose to be vague in their disclosure.
Strattera is very new. It may be in the best interest of your kids to get them off now. Then find a new doctor. You may want to find a Psychiatrist who specializes with ADD.
-JA