Reply to Best way to do an Adderall XR trial for 6yo with ADHD

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]No great advice except sympathy, as we have been there.  I was the OP of the other thread asking about stimulant withdrawal, because we dropped our son's adderall from 15 to 10mg a couple weeks ago, and the first few days without the full dose were *way* worse than he was before starting meds. He settled after a few days (into a hyperactive kid - but not dangerous hyperactive like he was on the first few days).  Point being is that your son is probably so bad not just because he's not getting as much stimulant as he needs to thrive, but *also* because his body is going into crash/withdrawal/rebound because it's not getting the stimulant that it's used to.  This totally sucks. I'm always surprised that there is not more discussion out there about how to transition from one drug to another.  Everyone on this site and other sites is always talking about how they had to try like 6 different meds, at different doses, before they found one that worked.  And i'm thinking: every time we try a new med, we effectively can't send our son to school or he would get suspended.  How are these people doing it?  And i jealously wonder why they are even subjecting their kid to adhd meds at all, to the extent their kid *can* get by at school without.  The only reason we started stimulants is because DS literally cannot be in a school setting without them.  [/quote]

It took us a long, difficult year to get the medication right.  Fortunately the school worked with us. We started new medications on weekends or breaks so we had a few days to look for side effects.  We always told the school when we made the changes so they could monitor for any changes up or down.  We asked them to call immediately if there were negative behaviors.  [b]Because we were able to work with the school and were upfront with all information, suspensions never came up. [/b] Also, having a behavior plan helped.  But my kid did spend a lot of time sitting in the office and had to come home early a few times.[/quote]

I'm the person you were responding to.  Of course we also work with the school.  I have always had amazing relationships with my son's teachers.  I consistently get the feedback that they wonder why all parents can't be as proactive and involved and caring as me.  That said, if we have to change to a different med type, there is zero chance my son can go to school the next week.  Of course we start on weekends.  It's not about side effects.  It's about the requirement that you start slow and work up -- PLUS, as i said above, your kid is going to have major withdrawal symptoms from not having the full dose of another stimulant in their body.  In our experience, for the first 5 days following starting a new stimulant, DS's behavior will be TWICE as bad as it was before ever starting meds.  It is literally impossible to send him to school on a starting dose of, say, ritalin, when 3 days ago he was on a full dose of Concerta.  Ask me how i know this?  Because every time we've tried, he has to come home within an hour or so.  The times we tried on a non-starter dose of the med (so, converted over from, say, full dose concerta to starting ritalin at a comparable dose), we ended up with scary side effects that also made school a non-starter.  So don't act like OP should just "work with the school" and start on the weekend, and this solves the problem.  [/quote]

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