Reply to ADHD Meds & tics?

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Reply to "ADHD Meds & tics?"

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[quote=Anonymous][/quote]OP, if your child really needs medication, tics are not your primary problem. Seriously. Since I'm a research scientist, I read all the primary research literature on ADHD meds. The take-away is that stimulants are the safest and most effective psychiatric drug there is. Side effects include appetite loss, possible moodiness and difficulty sleeping, tics, etc, but like all side-effects, not everyone will display these symptoms. My child never showed moodiness, for ex, and no difficulty sleeping. He has always had a small appetite and is very small for his age, so the appetite suppressing effect is serious for us, but we monitor it and he eats most in the evening, when the meds have worn off. The tics are hardly visible, or only to me.

The psychiatrist should start your child on the lowest dose, keep him on it for at least a couple of weeks, and incrementally increase the dose until either the side-effects become too serious, or the optimal effect is reached. The two weeks minimum (up to a month) are useful because at first the body reacts strongly to each new dose, and after a week or so the body adjusts and the effect of the stimulant diminishes slightly. This is the standard of care, and anything else is suspect.

So don't be scared. Keep a record and report every observation to the psychiatrist. [quote]

I am not the OP but am in a similar boat as OP and appreciate PP's response and have a followup question. Based on your reading, do you have a sense of what the effect on tics is of using a stimulant when the child already exhibits some tics (mostly eye/head movements)? We are at the point with DS where I think it's worth a try with meds. Aside from the inattentiveness, focus, and impulse control, he is also mindlessly eating food, just inhaling food, particularly when he has a difficult task to do (not difficult in terms of the work itself, but difficult for him to get and stay focused). He has gained a lot of weight this year, and was not small to begin with. I think if the medicine could help him focus and decrease his appetite, it's worth a shot. I just worry about the tics. It's so frustrating to face multiple symptoms and not know which to treat first and how the other symptoms will react!
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