Anonymous wrote:OP here. Thanks for the feedback. It seems like the guanfacine would be a good thing to try and we absolutely would consider the short acting dose. We're seeing Dr. Conlon on Tuesday (we saw the regular pediatrician yesterday - he's also good and knew we'd be seeing Dr. Conlon soon) and will ask him about it. Thanks again!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My 12 year old son is on 36mg Concerta and 1mg Intunive. He gets good grades and was doing well when the pharmacy gave him Guanfacine instead of Intunive (which they said was the same medicine, but the generic), so continued on with the Guanfacine and I began noticing his anxiety was higher than normal. (I did not think about the change from Intunive to Guanfacine, because they said they were the same). I thought his rise in anxiety was due only to starting the 6th grade, and all the different classes, new kids, hurrying from class to class, and the fact that he had two teachers who were sarcastic and intimidating and mean. And my son is sensitive as it is, like most ADHD kids. He began to hate going to school, and began having panic attacks. After doing some more research on the web site "ADDitude", I found out that many people have taken Guanfacine and then when going to a new Dr., they were given Intunive because the Dr. Thought it worked better! I am pretty sure he is right , (in my son's case anyway). I found out that if the Dr. wants the patient to have the Intunive, they have to write that on the prescription so that the insurance company doesn't make the pharmacy give the generic instead. We did go to the school and have a parent /teacher/school counselor, meeting to let them know just what we thought of the sarcastic remarks and embarrassing and intimidating my son, (and other students too from what my son said).
Intunive works on "Emotional Sensitivity", the Guanfacine was not doing the same thing! So don't believe it if they say, they are the same thing! They are not, if they were the insurance companies would care about paying for the name brand because their wouldn't be a difference in price.....but their is! Beware!

Good Luck and God Bless!
TakeAStand, NH

It is only in the past few months that there has been a generic version of Intuniv. That explains why the cost of our son's prescription just went down substantially!

Anonymous wrote:My 12 year old son is on 36mg Concerta and 1mg Intunive. He gets good grades and was doing well when the pharmacy gave him Guanfacine instead of Intunive (which they said was the same medicine, but the generic), so continued on with the Guanfacine and I began noticing his anxiety was higher than normal. (I did not think about the change from Intunive to Guanfacine, because they said they were the same). I thought his rise in anxiety was due only to starting the 6th grade, and all the different classes, new kids, hurrying from class to class, and the fact that he had two teachers who were sarcastic and intimidating and mean. And my son is sensitive as it is, like most ADHD kids. He began to hate going to school, and began having panic attacks. After doing some more research on the web site "ADDitude", I found out that many people have taken Guanfacine and then when going to a new Dr., they were given Intunive because the Dr. Thought it worked better! I am pretty sure he is right , (in my son's case anyway). I found out that if the Dr. wants the patient to have the Intunive, they have to write that on the prescription so that the insurance company doesn't make the pharmacy give the generic instead. We did go to the school and have a parent /teacher/school counselor, meeting to let them know just what we thought of the sarcastic remarks and embarrassing and intimidating my son, (and other students too from what my son said).
Intunive works on "Emotional Sensitivity", the Guanfacine was not doing the same thing! So don't believe it if they say, they are the same thing! They are not, if they were the insurance companies would care about paying for the name brand because their wouldn't be a difference in price.....but their is! Beware!

Good Luck and God Bless!
TakeAStand, NH

My daughter has been taking Intuniv for 2 weeks today. Last week she was bumped up from 1mg to 2mgs. In the last several days I have been seeing her not be able to sleep because she is having horrible nightmares or she will fall asleep but then wake up from nightmares that seem to be very vivid? Has anyone else gone through this and has it subsided with time

Anonymous wrote:My daughter has been taking Intuniv for 2 weeks today. Last week she was bumped up from 1mg to 2mgs. In the last several days I have been seeing her not be able to sleep because she is having horrible nightmares or she will fall asleep but then wake up from nightmares that seem to be very vivid? Has anyone else gone through this and has it subsided with time? I also will notice her face being very pale which makes me think her blood pressure is dropping. She has never had problems with sleeping before and is taking Intuniv for her inability to concentrate not hyperactivity. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!!

Anonymous wrote:just wanted to say I'm blogging day by day our experience with Intuniv for my 7 almost 8 y.o son ADHD-HI. Only on day 2 of loading does, but so far no side effects at all, and perhaps slight improvement at home