Au/ inattentive ADHD meds success stories?

[Anonymous]

12 year old DS struggles with poor social skills from autism and inattentive adhd in needing constant reminders, poor working memory and in general having to work much harder than others to complete his tasks. He is doing well academically, so we’ve held off on meds thus far. He also has sleep issues and is pretty skinny. That has been another factor. But I am curious about others with this profile: has meds for ADHD improved their presentation socially, made it easier for them to complete their work quicker and maybe eased their rigidity a bit?
Basically are there any cross over benefits of adhd meds for autism symptoms?

[Anonymous]

In our experience stimulants actually made the autism symptoms more pronounced.

[Anonymous]

This has been covered many times on DCUM. Do a search. Generally, a stimulant is going to help with academics not the social piece of AuADHD especially in the case of inattentive ADHD. But taking it will be a confidence builder as they feel more academically capable and presumably will have more energy available to mask or socialize once they are medicated so that they are not expending all their energy trying to keep up academically or worrying about the work they have to do (plus the rumination that comes with ADHD will be temporarily paused while their medication is in effect).

[Anonymous]

You won’t know until you try…

[Anonymous]

Yeah OP you need to try some meds now before the academics creep up. Sounds like he is already struggling really hard with a lot of effort to appear "normal" and this causes a lot of stress. If he is in public school, high school is going to be a much bigger struggle than middle school. Puberty is going to kick in too.

I think AuADHD seem to best on a stimulant with a combo of calming med like Clonidine, Propranolol, or Buspar etc... Intuniv might be a nice option too, especially because you said he was skinny (it can cause some weight gain)

Luckily you can usually tell if a stimulant is working within a week and the right doctor will mess around with a good combination.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In our experience stimulants actually made the autism symptoms more pronounced.

This has been our experience too.

[Anonymous]

Our psych says stimulants don’t help this profile and can exacerbate problems. Also risk of tics and repetitive behaviors. Wellbutrin has provided a little benefit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our psych says stimulants don’t help this profile and can exacerbate problems. Also risk of tics and repetitive behaviors. Wellbutrin has provided a little benefit.

How do you know this if you haven’t tried. And why wouldn’t your psych put them on a non stimulant first or a med that slows them down before starting a stimulant

[Anonymous]

OP, I would work on this over the summer. It is much easier to gage of meds work or don’t while you can observe them. Once they are in school all day it is tough.

And if stimulants don’t work, they are easy to start and come off. When one doesn’t work, another clearly can. But if none do, go another route or go back to no meds. But I think starting in the summer is the best way to go

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our psych says stimulants don’t help this profile and can exacerbate problems. Also risk of tics and repetitive behaviors. Wellbutrin has provided a little benefit.

How do you know this if you haven’t tried. And why wouldn’t your psych put them on a non stimulant first or a med that slows them down before starting a stimulant

Because the risks for my child are too high. Stimulants may trigger schizophrenia in people with a genetic propensity toward it.

[Anonymous]

Honestly an SSRI has helped my daughter with this profile the most. We also recently started Guanfacine but jury is still out on whether that’s helping.