Did you medicate for adhd? Any regrets?

amother

Ivory

Mon, Mar 18 2024, 2:06 am

We medicated 2 of my kids with ADHD.
1 is much tougher case. We tried many meds. The best so far is quillivant. It's liquid and we can titrate the dose in tiny increments. We see how great it is working when we had insurance issues and ran out. My kid can function in the classroom and one teacher even told us they never would have guessed they had ADHD if I didn't tell them before school started.

The other was much easier- found 1 med that worked and was amazing. No side effects, no problems. Now it is out of stock and we can't get and the other similar med is just not the same... my kid is crankier and more impulsive.

Best decision ever to medicate.

amother

Kiwi

Mon, Mar 18 2024, 2:33 am

amother Steelblue wrote:

My son is only 5 so it’s been a tricky road with medications. We tried many dif meds with really negative side effects. I preferred my kid the way he naturally was so I took him off them all. Problem is he’s not functioning. I’d much rather give my kid medication (even if there are minimal side effects) and have him lead a functional productive life, than all the impulsivity, frustration, and anger he is dealing with now. He’s getting a ton of negative attention and I think the side effects of all the resentment he feels both at school and at home will harm him much more in the long run. His body seems to be very sensitive to the meds- very strong reactions and terrible rebounds. Looking into the patch now. I saw one posted above mention it. If anyone else has a positive experience with it, I’d love to hear.

I had a similar story with one of my boys - we found that concerta 27 he could tolerate. Most doctors try a higher dosage but that very low dosage worked with way less side effects.

amother

Offwhite

Mon, Mar 18 2024, 3:54 am

DD10 takes 5 mg of Attent. Don't learn from my bad ways, but her ADHD doc wanted her to take 20 mg. I said to myself no way. She was taking 10 mg but got the flu and afterwards I wanted to restart the meds slowly so I did 5 mg and she's really fine on 5 mg so we stayed with it.

My ADHD doc says higher doses have less side effects. I really disagree with her. Yes, I'm looking for a new doc but not so easy to get appointments.

DS7, who is much smaller than her takes 10 mg of Attent. He needs the medicine badly so he gets the full dose.

We also have short acting Ritalin which can be a savor if they need something during vacation and it doesn't need to work the whole day.

amother

Offwhite

Mon, Mar 18 2024, 3:56 am

amother Mulberry wrote:

Have you looked into an ASD eval? A couple of things
1. They are learning more and more that adhd and asd are strongly connected
2. Very high functioning asd can look a lot like severe adhd
3. Many asd kids struggle with finding the right meds
4. Generally VERY high intelligence and struggle with behavior.

Feel free to pm. ASD isn't always so obvious but can answer a lot of questions!

I agree with this. My DS7 also has ASD. (But IMO his ADHD makes him struggle more than his high functioning ASD.)

Where are you located? In Israel, you get a ton with an ASD dx. IDK about the US.

amother

Offwhite

Mon, Mar 18 2024, 3:58 am

We also had stages when they had trouble sleeping (more towards the beginning of when we started medicine). Melatonin was a lifesaver. Even just a 1/2 mg did a ton. Needs to be combined with darkness too.

Putting this here because I forgot to address this side effect.

amother

Jetblack

Mon, Mar 18 2024, 4:04 am

The only regret is that I didn’t do it sooner.
You can always stop the medication if you think it isn’t helpful.

amother

Eggplant

Mon, Mar 18 2024, 5:58 am

amother Offwhite wrote:

I decided to take short acting instead of time release. I also take less than the dose I was originally prescribed to take, and almost always only twice a day instead of 3x. But I discussed it with my psychiatrist and he agreed with my assessment. For me it takes less to get to regulated. When I take too much I'm less helped by it.

amother

NeonYellow

Mon, Mar 18 2024, 12:43 pm

amother Mulberry wrote:

He's on Ritalin la 10 and takes a fast acting 5g at 12. Takes clonedine before bed to help with anxiety and regulation. Bh he is doing well. Again not perfect but much better. He goes to a play therapist once a week (he is 7) and gets OT at school.

This thread is really helpful for me. I am thinking maybe to switch to a psychiatrist because my dev ped only ever gives one med at a time, maybe a combo would be better.

My ds gets OT also and speech but not play therapy. Do you get that through insurance from the dx of ASD?

amother

Scarlet

Mon, Mar 18 2024, 3:17 pm

I apologize in advance for any typos in this post, since I'm using voice to text and I don't have time to write it all out. I did want to add my two cents though based on my experience.

I have two kids on ADHD meds. one of them has been on them for almost a decade, and one of them for only a few years.
the older one is almost 6 ft tall, and neither my husband nor I are all that tall. he did stay on a relatively low dose, because that worked for him.
the difference between my oldest before medication and after medication was like night and day. when we first gave it to him he was socially ostracized, thought that all of his teachers hated him, his siblings were terrified of him, and he got frustrated with himself so easily. he was really miserable and not thriving at all. we had tried therapy, we had changed his diet, we had even tried fish oil pills. the only thing that finally worked was medication, when he was in second grade and hit rock bottom and I couldn't avoid it anymore.

suddenly, his siblings were cautiously excited to play with him. suddenly, he had friends. suddenly, the fact that he had leadership qualities became more obvious, whereas we never been able to notice that before because of all of his impulsive reactions and his distracted nature. my relationship with him got better as well, even though I've been trying so hard for years, taking so many parenting courses, worked on my own reactions to keep myself calm and authoritative, only after he was medicated did I actually feel like I was able to build up a relationship with him. he is in Yeshiva now in high school, and is Baruch Hashem thriving.

my other child hadn't hit rock bottom at the point where we decided to medicate. that child was generally a happy, well-liked child. Even before being medicated. but he would do random things, impulsively, that seemed completely out of character for him. after looking into whether he was having sensory issues, or anything else, and after it had gotten to the point that we were Fielding phone calls from his principles on a semi regular basis, we finally decided to start him on a trial of medication to see if that would help. but hashem, it did.

in terms of side effects, both of them don't eat as big lunches as they used to, but they make up for it at breakfast and dinner time. the older one believes that the medicine doesn't do anything, he doesn't feel a difference on it. but on the days that we forget it he comes home thinking that everyone else in the world is so mean, that he acted the same way he does every other day, but that the rest of the world has somehow changed. he refuses to believe it's related to his medication, but bah Hashem he still agrees to take it. my younger son is so grateful. he used to say that he had no idea why he did the random impulsive things that he did, and now he told me that those things don't happen anymore and he is so glad that the medication is helping him to act the way he wants to act. other than that, their personality seem unchanged. my younger son is still a bundle of laughs, who loves making jokes and being silly, he just knows where the silliness needs to end or else someone will get hurt. my older son needed a slightly later bedtime when we started him on the medication, because he was having a hard time falling asleep, but that was short-lived, and now he sleeps longer than most of his friends at night. my younger son has never had any issues with sleeping.

I really hope that helps! hatzlacha if you decide to start them on medicine.

ETA:
They have been on ritalin, Concerta, and Focalin. we had to switch from one to the other for insurance reasons, and Boruch Hashem have done well on all three.

Ooh, I just thought of an actual con...My kids have both had tics for a coupole of periods of time. BH they have resolved with time but we were nervous while they lasted.

amother

NeonPink

Mon, Mar 18 2024, 4:34 pm

Im literally crying reading this. How were you all so lucky?????? My daughter needs to be medicated but no medication works for her. She has extreme executive functioning deficits and focus issues. No hyperactivity. She can't get through a day of school or fill out a single worksheet even though she is bright enough. We've tried medication and all it does is make her irritable, depressed, anxious, and a zombie. And they hardly helped the focus.
I am at a total loss.
We tried vyvanse, intuitiv, focalin, and Adderall.

mha3484

Mon, Mar 18 2024, 4:41 pm

Medication changed my life and my kids lives for the better I am a huge fan. This podcast just posted today and has so much good information about medication for ADHD. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/.....44177

Highly recommend listening.