Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Aren't all 6 year old kids hyper? Having taken adderall since I was about 8, I think it should be illegal to medicate kids that young. It completely stripped me of my personality, it didn't help me do well in school and I don't remember a lot from after I started taking it. I only started doing well in school (university) when I stopped taking it.

Some kids are just really hyper. It's their child personality. If you work with it instead of medicating it away, you might find yourself raising a great person.

Has the dosing of stimulants changed in recent years. I have heard many adults who were on stimulants during childhood say the same thing - that they were robbed of their personalities. My daughter has been on Vyvanse for two years and there has not been any change in her personality other than a greater ability to focus.

Anonymous wrote:Aren't all 6 year old kids hyper? Having taken adderall since I was about 8, I think it should be illegal to medicate kids that young. It completely stripped me of my personality, it didn't help me do well in school and I don't remember a lot from after I started taking it. I only started doing well in school (university) when I stopped taking it.

Some kids are just really hyper. It's their child personality. If you work with it instead of medicating it away, you might find yourself raising a great person.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP reporting back. So we cut back the adderall from 15 to 10mg on a Saturday. He remained on 2mg intuniv. Saturday he was a bit hyper but manageable. Sunday he was dangerously hyper. Monday he was pretty nuts but not so dangerous (babysitter and speech therapist both commented on his energy and wild body- I hadn’t told them about the meds). Tuesday he was quite hyper but manageable. By Wednesday he seemed to settle into being hyper but not out of control. Like, we could deal at home and he focused at his camp (LEGO camp which he loves) but there’s no way we could send him to school.

But interestingly, we really did love the kid who showed up out from under the stimulant. Happy, joyful, mostly compliant (but requires a lot of corralling to get things done), making jokes, taking jokes, up for anything. The reason we wanted to try the reduction is because Ds seemed quite joyless and over sensitive in the last year. It seems at first blush that it really might have been the adderall. Of course, to get the happy kid we also had to take an unacceptable level of hyperactivity. Our school starts In two weeks so we had the option of either going back on full adderall, adding in some more intuniv over time, and trying to wean him off the adderall again in a few months (hoping that the intuniv countered the withdrawal hyperactivity, because there’s no way he could have gong to school on those days), or leaving him on the reduced adderall and adding in some intuniv now and hope it settles into him before school. We tried the latter. We have done threee days extra intuniv thus far and the hyperactivity is greatly reduced but he is, no surprise, very tired and more moody and less joyful. Really hoping the moody/joyful thing is just a temporary side effect that goes away once he is less tired. We will definitely give it the whole month. If we’re still seeing moodiness in a month, I think we’ll also have to contemplate if it’s still the adderall, and if the extra intuniv will give us a cushion to go down even more.

Anyhow, just providing an update in case anyone else experiences the same thing taking their kid off stimulants! You definitely need to hang in there a week before assuming your kid is too hyper to be without.

Have you considered something instead of regular Adderall? There are other formulations of the same drug that peak lower and last longer, or are made to reduce side effects, so you might get better symptom control together with the good personality.

Anonymous wrote:OP reporting back. So we cut back the adderall from 15 to 10mg on a Saturday. He remained on 2mg intuniv. Saturday he was a bit hyper but manageable. Sunday he was dangerously hyper. Monday he was pretty nuts but not so dangerous (babysitter and speech therapist both commented on his energy and wild body- I hadn’t told them about the meds). Tuesday he was quite hyper but manageable. By Wednesday he seemed to settle into being hyper but not out of control. Like, we could deal at home and he focused at his camp (LEGO camp which he loves) but there’s no way we could send him to school.

But interestingly, we really did love the kid who showed up out from under the stimulant. Happy, joyful, mostly compliant (but requires a lot of corralling to get things done), making jokes, taking jokes, up for anything. The reason we wanted to try the reduction is because Ds seemed quite joyless and over sensitive in the last year. It seems at first blush that it really might have been the adderall. Of course, to get the happy kid we also had to take an unacceptable level of hyperactivity. Our school starts In two weeks so we had the option of either going back on full adderall, adding in some more intuniv over time, and trying to wean him off the adderall again in a few months (hoping that the intuniv countered the withdrawal hyperactivity, because there’s no way he could have gong to school on those days), or leaving him on the reduced adderall and adding in some intuniv now and hope it settles into him before school. We tried the latter. We have done threee days extra intuniv thus far and the hyperactivity is greatly reduced but he is, no surprise, very tired and more moody and less joyful. Really hoping the moody/joyful thing is just a temporary side effect that goes away once he is less tired. We will definitely give it the whole month. If we’re still seeing moodiness in a month, I think we’ll also have to contemplate if it’s still the adderall, and if the extra intuniv will give us a cushion to go down even more.

Anyhow, just providing an update in case anyone else experiences the same thing taking their kid off stimulants! You definitely need to hang in there a week before assuming your kid is too hyper to be without.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Aren't all 6 year old kids hyper? Having taken adderall since I was about 8, I think it should be illegal to medicate kids that young. It completely stripped me of my personality, it didn't help me do well in school and I don't remember a lot from after I started taking it. I only started doing well in school (university) when I stopped taking it.

Some kids are just really hyper. It's their child personality. If you work with it instead of medicating it away, you might find yourself raising a great person.

OP here. I'm guessing you aren't the parent of a SN kid? No, some kids really *are* that much more hyper than others. Our DS was a danger to himself and others when he was unmedicated. We didn't go a day that some well meaning stranger would comment "whoa - he is really a handful" with a pitying look.

Further, it was literally impossible to "parent" our son before he was medicated. He was too hyper and couldn't sit still or process instructions because his brain was going a mile a minute. Once we started medicating, it was amazing because he could finally "hear" us for the first time. This was also the advice of all the behavior therapists we talked to, who said a 4-7 year old boy can't access the behavior tools you give him if his brain can't calm down.

I'm the mother of four boys. You might call them special needs if I don't take them out to the park or swimming or to one of their sports first thing in the morning to run off all their energy.