Vyvanse - Really odd side effects

[Anonymous]

Today is my son's first day on Vyvanse 30mg, and he has been acting REALLY strange. I looked up the side effects, and all of his weird side effects fall under the [b]SEVER category[u] that require immediate medical attention: here is what he's been experiencing:

blurred vision or other vision changes; fast or irregular heartbeat; nervousness, or restlessness; shortness of breath; uncontrolled speech or muscle movements (eg, tics); unusual weakness or tiredness.

I will not give it to him again till I talk to his doctor. Till then, can anyone suggest any Vyvanse alternatives?
We've tried adderrall, but he lost more than 10% of his weight!!

[Anonymous]

Sorry you are having this problem. We are having success on Vyvanse with one son and Focalin with the other. Did your doctor think that Vyvanse was less likely to cause weight loss? Just asking because my son is severely underweight (below third percentile) and he lost 5% of his body weight. I would love to hear if your ped had suggestions for other meds to prevent this. Mine didn't. FWIW, my son on Focalin had no appetite changes at all. He eats us out of house and home.

[Anonymous]

OP here -
Yes, pediatrician does not like adderrall due to the weight loss issue.
When we took him off adderrall at Christmas he gained 6 lbs in 6 weeks time!
Doctor was very sure that Vyvanse would be the "it" drug for him.

Tell me more about Focalin. FWIW - DS is ADHD combined (not hyper at all) with some LDs.

[Anonymous]

PP here - we initially tried Focalin for my little guy who is now on Vyvanse. It was like a miracle drug in terms of unlocking his brain. I had been so worried that he wasn't learning or not learning enough during his first two years in ES, but what I came to realize is that he was learning but couldn't access the information. Unfortunately for my son, he developed a very rare side effect, hallucinations. It happened shortly before bed and it was an awful two hours until he cried himself to sleep. But, no permanent harm. Vyvanse was our second medication and it works well for him.

My older son started on medication not too long after my younger one. His issues weren't as apparent. He had some learning issues and we had thought his poor grades and performance were due to that. (I feel really dumb as I admit this). But, when we saw how well our middle child was doing, we started putting two and two together and saw the ped, who prescribed Focalin. Like your son, my older one is not at all hyper. We chose Focalin because I had almost a full prescription at home and honestly, we didn't expect it was going to make a difference. (Yes, I feel really dumb admitting this too - we only went the medication route because he was failing in school and we had tried everything else and were desperate). Anyway, it works wonders for him. The only side effect he's experienced is some sleep difficulties initially. Sometimes on weekends, he'll have difficulty sleeping also, but I'm not sure that it's not because he's avoiding the end of the weekend. He definitely doesn't have any eating issues on it. And, my younger son wasn't on it long enough for me to know if he would have.

[Anonymous]

Thank you so much PP!!
Such a wealth of info. Focalin was first prescribed to my son two years ago but we never gave it a try as it was not covered under our insurance.

We now have new insurance, so I'm thinking - based on what you said - that we will investigate it again.

Again, thanks so much for your thoughtful response

[Anonymous]

OP, thanks for your info too. Focalin is covered by our insurance UHC, but at a higher rate. We pay $25 per 30 days instead of the ususal $10 I pay for almost everything else.

[Anonymous]

Happy to report that DS is back to normal this morning!
No twitches or tics. No funny facial contortions! No rapid heartbeat!

Calling doc first thing tomorrow to discuss Focalin.

[Anonymous]

If you look into the research on stimulants, you find that the benefit/side effect profile is different for each kid, and very unpredictable. There was a study at NIH quite a while ago (when there were fewer choices) that found that, of the kids in the study, roughly 30% did best on ritalin, 30% on adderall, and 30% on concerta. The other 10% didn't respond well to stimulants. So even if one stimulant didn't work well, or had too many side effects, that doesn't always mean you have to rule out all stimulants. OTOH, hearing that another child did well on one stimulant doesn't necessarily mean your child will do well, even if their symptoms are the same (although they might). For my kids, Focalin was the best possible choice for one (great efficacy, minimal side effects) and a disaster for the other (decent efficacy, caused OCD-symptoms as a side effect).

[Anonymous]

Original PP here - so glad to hear it OP. I thought that would be what happened, but I'm glad you posted. It's so hard as a mom to have thing go wrong and this was a pretty scary one.

[Anonymous]

Thanks everyone

will report back with what the doc has to say.

[Anonymous]

OP Update here.

After my DS' experience with Vyvanse, we put him back on Adderral XR 10mg. Had so much of it lying around that we decided it was worth a try.

So far so good! One week so far. No appetite change, which was the only reason we changed to Vyvanse. Attention and impulsivity is improving.