need medication advice

amy1129

New Member
hi all, havent been here in awhile, been way too busy and overwhelmed at home to even think of "surfing" anywhere online.

its been a long slow road but we have been referred to yet another therepist and pychologist, one for therapy and one for medications. We are trying to find the right fit for difficult child and medications and now I feel like I am second guessing the medication road. He is on Vyvanse 30 mg taken in the morning, and newly added 5 mg dextroamphetamine (sp) taken at dinner time. both for adhd symptoms. Dr thinks he is not truely clinically depressed, he thinks the adhd is fogging him up and is causing the depression, if we clear the fog, the depression will go away. fingers crossed.

teacher reports he is doing much much better in class, focusing better, almost to the point of hyper focusing on the task at hand, which is a complete 360, before he would focus on what he would want to do, now she can get him to do what he needs to do, but sometimes cant break that concentration. but he does seem to walk with shoulders down and not smiling as much....but he is not off the wall like he was. Not sure if this is good or bad.

At home, I can only comment for the weeknights, he is like a shaken bottle of soda, around 4-5pm, his cover comes off, and he explodes, almost worse than he was before medications.....anger, off the wall, crying, short fused, off/on with the mood swings. during the weekends, he was great 8am -4pm, i did see the hyper focus, he would stay with one toy, game, book etc all day, it was nice for me (selfishly) but if I dared to alter his plans with say lets go to the movies or we have to do an errand, he would flip his lid. dr went from 20 mg of vyvanse to 30mg thinking 20 was too low. On 30 we were still having same issues. So dr added this dextroamphetamine stuff, 5mg taken between 4-5 every day. adding this, he became very angry with 30 minutes of taking it, almost unbareable. So i cut it to 2.5 mg on my own with the same reaction from him.

What am I doing, is the vyvanse and dextro the wrong medication? am i wrong to put him on medications? am i messing him up? what do i do now? I dont go back to medication dr until end of Feb....should i call him and take him off dextro completely and ask for something different than vyvanse? I feel like I am screwing with nature here and I wont be able to get him back. I feel like he is going to hate me for what i am doing to him.....
 

InsaneCdn

Well-Known Member
medications are tricky. There is no "formula"... it depends on how the person's body reacts to the medications.
And... the younger they are, the trickier it is.

I'm not familiar with those medications in particular, but I can tell you...
1) it is not uncommon for kids with issues - even as "simple" as ADHD - to end up with depression... and yes, if you can get the underlying problems under control, the depression goes away.
2) if these medications are stims - not unusual for ADHD - it is not uncommon to get a rebound effect as they wear off, which may be part of what you are seeing. This should be discussed with psychiatrist.
3) It is VERY common for a kid with ADHD, to have all sorts of other issues... including LDs, Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD), and APDs. So, some of what you are seeing may be problems that go beyond the ADHD.
 
T

TeDo

Guest
Add to that the possibility that he is one of those kids where certain medications can make things 100 times worse. Sounds like the Vyvanse is working but the dextra isn't. I, personally, would push to dump the dextra and try something else as an afternoon booster.
 

BusynMember

Well-Known Member
I have been told my a few doctors of late that stimulants do not really work before a child is six. Is he your seven year old?

Also, I would not trust a psychologist or a therapist to either diagnose or medicate him. Have you considered a neuropsychologist evaluation? As for the medications, I'd prefer a child psychiatrist if he needs them and only AFTER his diagnosis. My own rule is: If the child is worse, I don't use the medications. Not saying you should do that, but that's what I do. I don't like our kids being used as guinea pigs, and basically that's what happens with medications, especially with "iffy" diagnoses...

JMO. Good luck!
 

amy1129

New Member
sorry I didnt update my signature.

we did have a neuro psychiatric done last august and she told us he is severly clinically depressed, anxiety disorder and adhd combined type. She discussed that he may need medications but she doesnt prescribe them and the social worker we were seeing didnt either.

So back on the hunt we went to find someone to medicate and help us. Found a place, started with a therapist, thought she would be the one to medicate, but no, we had to meet with child psychiartrist, he medicates, so we we meet with one one week and the other the other week. I think I used phychologist in my orig post, I always use that term and dont realize there is a big difference...sorry for that.


He is seven and 1/2 years old now, dr told me the same thing too, medications normally dont work as well on younger children.

I wonder whatthe anger and reactions to the current I am seeing are either.....wrong medications......wrong dose....body still getting used to medications....treating the wrong thing, meaning is there something else going on? dr thinks is not really depressed cause of his answers in office to a few questions and that he might, i repeat might have been having a bad day when he did the neuro psychiatric. he said he finds kids this age, the adhd clouds them up and they get depressed, once we clear the adhd fog, the less depressed they are. i see that but i dont think we can just dismiss the original test results either.
 

buddy

New Member
I would be more suspicious of answers in a short dr visit than a long neuropsychologist evaluation. The questions involved in neuropsychologist testing are not one off questions. the same target concept is asked in several different formats (example: I like to tease animals, then... teasing animals is fun.... then..... sometimes it is fun to play in a teasing way with animals...not exact words but you get the idea... and often way more subtle than that... I feel hopeless.... there is always hope...... etc. then different tests are compared to each other so they support or contradict the findings of each test...

Kids will answer a doctor in an office with "fine" "no" "yes" I'm ok.. no I am always happy etc... they want out of there. (and with NO SHOTS/bloodwork)

Just MHO...

What does your mommy gut say???

RE: medications
True, the ONLY people that can give medications are MD's.... NOW, sometimes a physicians assistant or a nurse practitioner will be in charge and write scripts or arrange for the medications, but all is supervised by an MD. (Psychiatrist, Pediatrician, Neurologist, Developmental Pediatrician, etc...)

Psychologists, Neuropsychologists, Social Workers, mental health professionals who are not MD's all can say "maybe a medication trial would be called for " but can't legally give you medication.

In any event, you seem well connected now...

Is school still going OK? How do you feel overall about all of this... One thing we all start learning to do more and more as we go through this is to trust our gut about these things. It is usually right.
 
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