medication change

[crazymama30]

We saw difficult child's psychiatrist today, and starting tommorrow we are trying vvyanse. I am tired of him taking his patch off, and the 15mg patch is not enough and the 20mg is too much.

I work about 6hrs tommorrow, so don't feel too bad about going to work tommorrow, but Saturday I work 12hrs and Sunday 8hrs. With the way husband has been lately (not good, sleep really messed up) I am thinking I should use my fmla leave and call in for the weekend. I hate to do that, as the leave really is for husband. But then, if difficult child does not do well on this medication I will need to try to keep him from agitating husband.

Am I misusing my leave if I do that? I don't want to do that, but I am not comfortable being gone for 13hrs (with travel time) and then 9hrs.

We are still going to do a stimulant vacation, but right now is not the time. easy child and I are going to the coast on Monday for 2 days for her birthday, and I don't think husband could handle difficult child without a stimulant. We were almost out of the daytrana, so the choice was either go with vvyanse or more daytrana, and I am tired of him taking the patches off.

 

[susiestar]

You feel a need to be there because your family has several members with serious chronic mental illnesses. medication changes are stressful when only 1 member of the family is in crisis. You have far more than that on your hands. As long as it will be classified FMLA then it is exactly what that is for. Have you got the FMLA already set up and approved? The rules can be really tricky. Years and years ago I had a back injury and had to take time off. HR told me the wrong info (part of their internal policies), my boss kept calling and calling to pressure me back to work before the doctor okayed it, and I ended up almost getting fired because they said I didn't qualify (even though the Dept of Labor said it did the company would not accept it!). It was a nightmare.

If it is already set up or you have it arranged then I would go for it. Get the psychiatrist to give you a letter saying you need to be around on the weekends due to the complicated nature of medication changes and several ill family members.

I hope this helps. I would be FURIOUS about the patches being taken off. You have more patience than I!

 

[crazymama30]

I already have the FMLA leave, and am quite familiar with it as well as my employer's policies. Technically the leave is for husband not difficult child, but there is really no way for them to find out the difference. I can always tell husband's psychiatrist what I am doing, and he would go along with it. He already agreed to renew my leave as the last doctor that did it set it to expire next month.

Susie, I don't get furious about much anymore. I would spend all my time angry, and that just is no good for me or for anyone else. I save getting furious for really really big stuff, safety issue kinda stuff.

 

[jlsanchez08]

I am new here to this site but not to issues/children with issues. My step-son is on vyvanse for his ADD/ODD and seems to do really well on it (when he remembers to take it) so hopefully your difficult child will do good on it too and you will have a better weekend than normal (even though weekends with difficult child children are not always so great at times). Good luck!

 

[gcvmom]

I don't think there would be any way for them to know the difference as far as the reason why you'd stay home. I say go for it. And I hope the Vyvance works for difficult child.

FWIW, and I know you've already made the decision to switch, but we trimmed Daytrana patches (with psychiatrists full blessing) for a loooong time to get the right dose for difficult child 1 and had no problem at all. In his case, 20mg was not enough and 30mg was too much. I shot for 25mg and estimated the amount to trim based on the measurement of the patch and it worked just fine. He just recently graduated to a full 30mg patch, so I haven't had to do that for the past couple of months.

Let us know how the new medication works!

 

[graceupongrace]

CM,

If the Vyvanse works well, it may address the medication compliance issue. My difficult child notices that the Vyvanse makes him feel better, so he doesn't resist taking his medications. (Of course, that's about the only thing that he doesn't resist, LOL). He never really liked Concerta, so I suspect we would have had compliance trouble at some point if we hadn't switched.

Good luck -- let us know how it goes!

 

[dadalm]

difficult child started vyvanse here back in january. he has done really well on it (unless he is tired). i think that it is the one thing that got us trough the rest of the school year.