Reply to Anyone decide not to medicate for ADHD after trying the meds?

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Reply to "Anyone decide not to medicate for ADHD after trying the meds?"

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[quote=Anonymous]My 7 year old daughter was diagnosed with ADHD-combined type a year ago after her kindergarten teacher recommended an evaluation because my kid seemed highly distracted.  Her main symptoms are spacey-ness and distractibility.  She loses things and often forgets what she's doing in the middle of a task--e.g. she start to make her bed and I'll come in 5 minutes later to find her talking to herself under her covers. She's totally surprised to see me and seems almost disoriented--e.g. "huh? what was I doing? Oh wait, is it a school day? Sorry--I was thinking of a story and then somehow forgot to make the bed and got in it instead.  Did I miss school?"

Anyway, her current teacher reports that she's pretty fine in school, both on and off medications.  She's distracted, but not disruptive because usually she's distracted by the stories she's telling in her head (so it's not like she's calling out answers or bothering other kids).  The teacher doesn't report the level of spacey-ness we see at home.  Per the teacher, my daughter is mostly on-task at school and is well-behaved.  The teacher does acknowledge that she's not working up to her potential because of her distraction--e.g. she sometimes doesn't complete work or she misses concepts when she isn't listening.  Basically, the teacher was like "your kid is really not one of my problem kids, so I have no advice on whether to medicate her."

In the past year we tried vyvanse, which caused insomnia and then Concerta and Focalin, neither of which seemed to make a big difference, except for suppressing appetite and maybe making her a bit grumpy as they wore off.  Her kindergarten teacher and the stixrud evaluator made me feel that medication was the only reasonable option.  They said that she's missing a ton of content in school because she spaces out so much.  That said, we're now half way through 1st grade and her 1st grade teacher says that my kid seems "fine."  There are 25 kids in the class, some with pretty severe ADHD/behavioral problems, so I get that she doesn't think of my kid as a problem.

Anyway, we stopped the meds during xmas break and haven't started them up again.  I'm just wondering if anyone else has stopped the meds.  Why? How did it go? Did you end up going back to the meds?

My daughter said she's fine either way. She doesn't mind the meds, but says that she can't feel any difference.  Thoughts?[/quote]

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