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[quote=Anonymous]Just curious....

I'm a full believer that adhd is actually an umbrella diagnosis for several different underlying issues.  So I wouldn't be surprised if my experience is not universal.

DS(7) has been on Adderall since he turned 5.  At that age, he was extremely busy at home but manageable and mostly well behaved. He had good focus on many activities in the quiet of our own home, and had lots of fidgeting but was otherwise well behaved. For instance, we used to eat out all the time and he was always great in restaurants.

We started medicating because he had major sensory issues at school that resulted in wired behavior, impulsivity and over physicality with others.  He lasted a couple years in preschool without medicating, but with lots of oversight and having to do his own thing in the corner a lot.  Not-medicating was not really an option for us, just because of school.

For a variety of reasons, we are trying a medication holiday this break.  We've skipped meds a few other times, but only for short periods of 1-4 days.   Each time, he's been off the charts hyper at school (i.e., twice in K I forgot to give him his pill, and school had to call for me to pick him up). But he also gets hyper at home.  Today is the first day without Adderall and we're just having a quiet day at home, and he seems like a totally different kid than he was before starting meds.  He's bouncing off the walls, and can't focus on anything.  Before starting meds, he actually had really, really good focus on things in the quiet of our own home.  He got awesome new legos yesterday (his favorite toy), and spent 8 hours on them yesterday (on meds), and today can't spend more than 5 minutes on it.  That's different than how he was pre-meds. Pre-meds he could spend a few hours on legos.  I can give other examples where he is just clearly more hyper than he was before. And today is only day 1.  From experience, day 3 and 4 are likely to be the worst.  We've never gotten past 4 days before starting up on meds again, because he needs them for school/camp.

What's the likelihood this is just a rebound period of weaning of the stims?  Or is 7 year DS likely to just be more hyper than 5 year old DS?  Or have the meds permanently rewired his brain for the worse?

Anyone have any experience or theories?  [/quote]

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