Experience with starting ADHD meds

[Anonymous]

Hi,

We will be consulting with a new doctor soon, and we think we will be trying medication with our 6 yo DC (combined ADHD)

It has been a long road and I am trying to prepare myself for this process (having DC try meds, side effects, etc.)

Any tips or pieces of advice...?

Thank you. Sending kindness and empathy to all the families who are braving challenging circumstances.

[Anonymous]

I didn’t find it difficult at all. The biggest issue was getting through the first week of side effects like a headache. The longer term issues were remembering to give it, rearranging life to deal with lack of hunger and developing a bedtime routine given the insomnia that sometimes occurred. Good luck.

[Anonymous]

If you can get prescribed liquid methylphenidate and aim for a small AM dose, just enough to work but not cause headaches, then you can experiment with a mid day dose later. We tried 5mL in the morning, then dropped to 3.75, then came back up to 5mL and eventually added the second 5mL dose.

School will need to administer a second dose, so you fill out the paperwork. Our DS usually will eat something for lunch. But our kitchen basically becomes an all you can eat buffet from 4:30 - 9 pm.

We send carnation chocolate milk with protein and fiber in the lunchbox now and that’s helping with keeping weight on. The first grade teacher taught that chocolate milk is not healthy, and I wanted to wring her neck. Being underweight and hangry is not healthy.

[Anonymous]

Hi op. Good luck! It has been so worth it for our family. We did have to try two medications to find the right fit but once we did it was a huge help and well worth it. Go in knowing it might take a little to figure out, if it is a nonstimulant you may have to wait a little to see the effects and side effects are a little more in the beginning. We started with a nonstimulant (my son was 5) and it wasn’t a good fit for him but works well for many kids! With a stimulant you usually see the difference quicker, and for my son this was the fit. The side effects in the beginning like difficulty falling asleep or lowered appetite for us also lowered after a little bit of time. One short acting morning dose is all we’ve needed so far.

FWIW my child was 5 and we started with a pill. My son was able to learn to swallow the pill way easier than I ever imagined. Our dr encouraged us to try, we did and it was no problem! There are tips online and YouTube for how to practice.

I know how you are feeling, it felt like a long road to get there. For us, the start of medication was really the start of a brand new chapter for us where we saw our child really blossom and have so much more success and positive experiences. While still being his silly, wild, fun self. It has overall been a very positive experience for us. And of course there are still hard moments! But an overall major improvement.

You got this!

[Anonymous]

Oh I should mention we did use melatonin at night for awhile and that helped immensely. We now only need to use it intermittently as that has gotten better but it did help us through some initial struggles. We were hesitant because it felt like introducing a new medicine but our dr really encouraged us that it is pretty benign. He’s encouraged us not to use it long term every night because they haven’t studied it long term but otherwise no problem.