adhd in your children and medicine.

We have an ADHD (and ODD) 9 year old boy. We've been struggling with this since he was about 4 years old. We were really against medicating him, but he got to be out of control both at home and school. So we tried it. He has been on too many different meds including Straterra, Concerta, Ritalin, Adderal, Medidate...and the list goes on. He was starting to do ok on Concerta, but then he leveled off and it wasn't effective anymore. We then tried Adderal XR (extended release). He became very violent and wouldn't sleep with this. Through many doctors, we took him off that and put him on regular Adderal. He now takes 15mg twice a day (in the form of three 5mg pills). One thing we have found and that seems to be a fairly new discovery from what I understand is that he also was prescribed Tenex. 1/2mg twice per day. This is a blood pressure medication, but seems to work with the side effects. Since he started taking this as well, he sleeps normally at night and he is eating better. Not to mention the violence is gone. As to the other questions...we give the meds every day, including summer and weekends. Some of these meds aren't meds to mess around with. Some you have to gradually go off of them. That is something to discuss with your doctor though. Just make sure you get evaluated by someone you trust. There are many cases where the schools want kids medicated to keep them quiet / not hyper throughout the day. Good Luck!

Treatment depends on the age of your child, the type of ADHD he has and any other conditions. It should be tailored to the individual child, and may include:- Counselling for the child and parents from a psychologist, Behaviour management advice, Strategies to help your child learn and deal with social problems, eg teasing by other children, strategies to increase your child’s self-confidence and self-esteem, one-to-one help at school, Most of the types of medication offered are neurostimulants that work by changing levels of brain chemicals called neurotransmitters. This means the ‘controlling’ and ‘inhibiting’ part of brain works in a more efficient way so your child can concentrate better and behave more calmly.

Check out http://www.drdavestein.com for a non-medical approach to ADD/ADHD. His program worked for my son. I used his program about 6 or 7 years ago, and just 3 months ago I started managing his website. Just wanted to be upfront about that! We were concerned witht he side effects of medications, and wanted to do something without meds. Stein's program worked great for our son.