How can chlonidine work one night and not another?

Jena

New Member
so i have a question in regards to my difficult child who i can't figure out.

how can it be that on some nights she is able to sleep without a problem when given the chlonidine and other nights she can't. it's almost as if it wasn't even given to her.

those to me are the nights she is manic, when she can't sleep.

any thoughts on this???
 

amazeofgrace

A maze of Grace - that about sums it up
Hmmm my difficult child II is on .05 of it 3 x'a day and it never makes him tired enough to go to bed, he's just too manic and hyper, I have to give him a low dose of melatonin to get him to sleep, the psychiatrist says it's safe and ok, and it works, thank God!
 

Jena

New Member
so you give 3x a day? i only do once a day at bedtime. melatonin does nothing for her, it's like candy.

what i dont' get that certain nights it works, and others it doesnt' work???
 

Christy

New Member
There are times when my son's evening medications will knock him out rather quickly and other times when they seem to have no impact on his sleep and do not even make him tired. Usually this relates to his mood. If its been a "normal" day, he settles in pretty well after taking his medications. If he is high strung due to anger or excitement, the same medication will have no impact.
 

4sumrzn

New Member
I'm with Christy. On most days that it's been a normal routine day/evening, my difficult child will settle around the same time & go to sleep. If we have company or the lights are all on.....something "out of the norm" for her, she will fight the sleepiness. difficult child takes .05mg Clonidine twice a day (am & after school~doesn't make her sleepy at all), but doctor said I can alternate .05/.1 up to 4 times a day if needed!
 

Shari

IsItFridayYet?
Our doctor, too, allows for adjusting as needed, up to a certain limit.

We dont' use it regularly cause it makes difficult child mean as snakes the next day. But when we have to, the amount it takes to work varies.
 
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butterflydreams

Guest
For awhile my difficult child was taking 50mg of Seroquel at bedtime. Sometimes it would make him drowsy and within 1/2hr to 1hr he would be out. Othertimes, he would fight it and sometimes be awake all night. Come to think of it, it would all depend on his mood for the day and how well his day had gone if it helped or not.

Now, in the psychiatric hospital, they give him Benadryl at about 6pm and I guess it helps. He is also taking Seroquel again 3x day, his last dose being before bed.

Christy
 

Jena

New Member
interesting. yup seroquel calmed my difficult child also yet her anxiety went thru roof and so i had to pull her off.

it's weird when i tell school pysch. about it she says oh get them to prescribe another sleeping medication. i say it doesn't matter what it is i'm not going to overdrug the kid to get her to sleep. if her mood is such she'll bypass anything inside of her.

is that in your own opinion at least of your own difficult child manic behavior? when they by pass the medications like that?
 

Tiapet

Old Hand
I have a thought, if you haven't already thought about it or looked into it. My little dude has food allergies. Specifically to corn products (corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup, maltodextrin, dextrose, etc. - many hidden names in products). I can tell you that if he has ingested something with this in it Clonidine will NOT work at all! My Ms Emo was the exact same way years ago before she out grew her food allergy. It will not matter what amount of Clonidine as it can not over ride it.

We had tried to find some kind of PRN to use (as there is no Epi pen for food allergies because this is a behavioral food allergy). We tried Thorazine which is an old school rough medication and neither I nor the psychiatrist like it at all but it seemed to be the only thing that worked (sometimes). Other times it would paradox and make him more hyper. We tried Ativan. NO Way! That stuff made him absolutely psychotic to the point that he didn't know who I was or where he was. We just recently agreed to revisit Resperidal as a PRN as we had tried it before with bad results also. Only this time this psychiatrist offered up a new formulation of it. This type is a melt tab and it is the lowest dose possible. It works!!! :) With less then 20 minutes it calms him down (the food allergy causes serious hyper/rage like attributes) even if what ever was ingested hours prior and we didn't know it (he gets physical signs that show us besides his behaviors). Previously we would have had to catch him ingesting it within 20 minutes to counter act the effects.

Just my .02 on why the medications may be working one night and not another as we've been through that and this is what we found out.
 
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butterflydreams

Guest
interesting. yup seroquel calmed my difficult child also yet her anxiety went thru roof and so i had to pull her off.

it's weird when i tell school pysch. about it she says oh get them to prescribe another sleeping medication. i say it doesn't matter what it is i'm not going to overdrug the kid to get her to sleep. if her mood is such she'll bypass anything inside of her.

is that in your own opinion at least of your own difficult child manic behavior? when they by pass the medications like that?

that was my opinion of my difficult child's behavior, it didn't matter what he took, if his mood was off, he bypassed the medications. He's always had a certain amount of problems going to sleep, even when he was little. But the last couple of years have been worse as BiPolar (BP) symptoms have started to really emerge, there are just times he will fight it and fight it and end up being up all night.
 

amazeofgrace

A maze of Grace - that about sums it up
difficult child takes .05mg Clonidine twice a day (am & after school~doesn't make her sleepy at all), but doctor said I can alternate .05/.1 up to 4 times a day if needed!

Wow my psychiatrist has me so paranoid about the accuracy of the time and dosage I give Clonodine to difficult child II, she told me if it's off his blood pressure could go out of control.
 
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