I made an appointment yesterday for Wednesday to discuss meds. DD was diagnosed a few months ago and yesterday's antics at school was the final straw for us.
lucybrown , that's fantastic that she has improved in all areas!!
Thanks! I'm really happy she is completing her work and not making as many careless mistakes.
This medication trial and error takes patience. OMG...so much patience. I don't think 10 mg of Focalin is working for her, but we have to give it another week or so before increasing. Now that she has been medicated and able to focus, the lack of focus seems so much harder to deal with, lol.
Does anyone have feedback on the short vs. long-acting meds? Our doctor tends to prefer the long-acting, but said some kids do better with the short-acting ones. If Focalin XR isn't giving us the results we want, I think the next step will be to do a shorter-acting Adderall, with an afternoon booster to get through homework & the evening routine. Do the shorter-acting ones eliminate some of the sleep issues?
Hi! Thanks for checking in! DS started on Guanfacine about 3 weeks ago. Nearly immediately he was like a new kid, huge improvements both at home and at school. I happily reported back to the pedi, here on GBCN, etc that meds are awesome.
And nearly right away it stopped being so helpful. He had some intense tantrums at school that involved hitting. So we just met with the pedi yesterday and have decided to increase the dosage. The pediatrician is hopeful that because he did see improvement initially, it can mean that it's a good med for him, just not a high enough dosage to give him a level feeling throughout the entire day. And to be fair, we started at the lowest possible dose. Yesterday was the first day at the new dosage, so we'll see. I thought the pedi would think I was crazy that I was raving about the meds, and just a week later responding that his daycare wants to kick him out. She said it's not unusual for there to be a honeymoon period when trying a new med and boy was she right.
I did have to laugh when you mentioned that once they have been focusing a bit, it's so much harder to go back. Those two weeks after initially starting on meds, where is behavior was great were life changing. I didn't fully realize how his behaviors had impacted so many areas of our life. I didn't realize how much of my time was spent tip toeing around to avoid a tantrum or not going to certain places in public because he couldn't be trusted not to run away. I'm hopeful we will settle into a good level and return to some easier days, because I noticed he was more confident & happier those days because he felt successful & in control of his body for the first time ever.
kdubs923, sorry I missed the initial update. I was nodding along with everything you wrote. This is so hard! Fingers crossed that it gets better for both of our kiddos.
lucybrown , that's fantastic that she has improved in all areas!!
Thanks! I'm really happy she is completing her work and not making as many careless mistakes.
This medication trial and error takes patience. OMG...so much patience. I don't think 10 mg of Focalin is working for her, but we have to give it another week or so before increasing. Now that she has been medicated and able to focus, the lack of focus seems so much harder to deal with, lol.
Does anyone have feedback on the short vs. long-acting meds? Our doctor tends to prefer the long-acting, but said some kids do better with the short-acting ones. If Focalin XR isn't giving us the results we want, I think the next step will be to do a shorter-acting Adderall, with an afternoon booster to get through homework & the evening routine. Do the shorter-acting ones eliminate some of the sleep issues?
YES. And it's a challenge to give feedback to the pedi when you don't see your child during the school week and have to rely on teachers. We have a fantastic teacher, but she also has her hands full. She gives the feedback as best as she can.
Focalin XR wasn't giving us the results we wanted either-he's on Adderall XR now. We had the genetic testing done and know that he metabolizes the medication faster than most-but right now the pedi isn't willing to go up from 10mg. DS seems to not be consistent as to the time of day he is struggling. We don't seem to need an afternoon booster at the moment, and I am trying to avoid that since I'd be 100% reliant on the school doing it.
We are going up on the Guanfacine though, up to 3mg. DS is still impulsive and we have had a couple of bad weeks. I'm fighting with the school right now because they aren't holding up what they said they were going to do since DS was identified as not performing at grade level for behavior and he was supposed to be pulled out 1x/wk for small group behavior counseling. We have a meeting on 4/1 to see if his behavior is now bad enough to qualify for EC services, which would be more intensive behavior therapy. The problem is-if they aren't pulling him out 1x/wk, I have no hope that they will follow through with this. 50ish more days of school-and then we're moving.
Ugh, that sucks arch01. It is hard to rely on teachers for feedback. We like DD's teacher, but she seems to hyperfocus on the ADHD and be pretty hard on DD. Which, isn't a bad thing entirely, but it makes her feedback feel fairly biased too. But overall, she's been okay.
What genetic testing did you have done? I'm wondering if it's the same thing another parent mentioned to me (I can't remember the details). We're seeing her pedi in May, so I could ask for it then.
lucybrown, it was GeneSight. Basically it broke down medications in 3 categories: use as directed, use with caution, and higher chance of issues. Insurance did not cover it. Essentially what it did for us was identify the medications that DS was likely to metabolize faster, what meds he was more likely to have side effects on, and so on.