Reply to Please share your experience with ADD (inattentive) medication

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Medication has been very helpful for my ADHD--PI son.  He was diagnosed in the beginning of second grade and had various supports in place both at school and at home.  By the end of 3rd grade it became apparent that these were not helping sufficiently.  We tried several different meds until we landed on a fairly low dose of Adderall XR (10 MG).  He had no side effects except a decrease in his midday appetite, but he ate a lot in the morning and in the evening and continued to grow normally.  Most of 4th and all of 5th grade were fantastic and my son was happy.  It wasn't a miracle cure, but it got the situation under control.  He also had fantastic teachers who supported him and we continued to work with him at home on organization and so forth.   In sixth grade we hit a rough patch and the meds were starting to make him feel emotionally out of whack and moody even though his focus was still good.  His psychiatrist confirmed our suspicion that this was likely a change caused by a hormonal shift as he enters puberty, and said that this happens quite often, particularly with boys at this age.  We tried different meds and then stopped for a few months at his request.  His ability to do anything at school or home went straight to hell, and my husband and I redoubled our efforts to support him in his decision to go off meds by sitting with him during homework (which we had stopped doing in 4th grade), emailing his teachers to get extra reminders, increasing his outdoor/exercise/sleeping time etc but nothing worked.   He felt so out of control and miserable, but we didn't push him because we wanted to give the "no meds" experiment a fair try.   When his quarterly doctor's appointment came up he made the decision, along with his doctor, that he wanted to go back on the meds.  We went on a super low dose of 5 MG XR and that has helped a lot.  (The literature I've read suggests that the inattentive type tends to respond better to very low doses of stimulants).   No side effects and now he is able to function.  His focus is not as good as it was at 10 MG but this is the sweet spot for now where he gets some relief without the side effects, so we are sticking with it.

I encourage parents making these decisions to have an open and ever-ongoing conversation with their kids about their meds and how they feel about them.  I let him know that it is ultimately his body, his choice, and that we will give him our best guidance but that ultimately we can't be inside his mind and feel how he feels, so we will follow his lead.   I also think it is important to realize that this is not a decision that is etched in stone.  You can try something, try something else, change course, take a break, go back on them, and so on.  As your body and circumstances change, so may your meds.  [/quote]

Thank you for this thoughtful response.  My dd is in 2nd grade, and I think we will need to give meds a trial.  I am going to save your post to help me with this process.[/quote]

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