Strattera is an antidepressant
Aha! So THAT explains things for us a bit more - whenever difficult child 3 has been tried on various antidepressants, it affected him weirdly. The first one did seem to help to begin with, but it also stopped him sleeping. After several days of difficult child 3 being wired and getting worse, we had to stop the medications. Besides, the school was getting frantic also.
I also get weird reactions to antidepressants. Either they sedate me far more than one would expect (quarter of a tablet and each day I was still increasingly zonked - my doctor had said I wouldn't get any therapeutic benefit for the pain, until I got up to maybe for or five tablets a day) or I would be spaced out, seeing things crawling over the ceiling or thoughts racing so much I couldn't work out where I was in the middle of it all.
If your son has been on Strattera for five days and you've not noticed major, problematic changes, chances are you're one of the lucky ones who haven't got the problems we had. That is great news!
Even better news - the box of samples for you. At $12 a pill, that is great news. And after the mucking around you've been put trough, it's the least they could do.
I just wish I could package up and send you the large supply of pills we were given by the doctor - difficult child 3 can't use them and the doctor doesn't want them back. We've got half a (small) cupboard full.
I hear you on the "invisible disability" thing. I just had to develop a hide like a turtle to withstand all the dirty looks etc. Often I would cheerily announce to the world, "Ain't it fun when your child has autism?"
If I see another parent struggling with a child, even if I suspect that child is "only" throwing a tantrum, I will sometimes pat them on the shoulder and say, "Hang in there. You will value the experience when he's a teenager," or something similarly uplifting.
The biggest problem parents that I see - they fall into two categories.
1) The ones who loudly threaten the child/publicly spank the child, inappropriately in my view. For example, a little kid who is distracted by all the unusual sights/sounds and stops in the walkway to watch, getting a bit in the way. parent hauls the kid off and yells abuse at them or spanks them. I hear from the parent things like, "You're a lazy, good-for-nothing brat, you're always in the way, stop being so selfish!" Often spoken to a kid who is barely 4 years old...
2) The self-conscious parent who grabs ineffectually at the tantruming kid hissing, "For pete's sake get up, everybody's beginning to look, stop that." These parents are thed ones who make more problems for themselves and others, because the kid is learning, very early, that they have the upper hand.
The best parents are the ones who either walk away (to a discreet observation point) and pretend it's someone else's kid. For them - I stand and applaud (discreetly, so as not to reward the kid).
Ya know? Either I'm really thick, or I've been lucky. Or maybe it's Australia and our kids are generally undisciplined. I don't know. But I have rarely copped the glare from other parents/grandparents. There was one time when we left easy child 2/difficult child 2 minding her baby brother (who was on a leash with a five-point harness, because he would wander away). The leash was actually an elastic cord. We came back to the spot where we'd left them (for a few minutes only) to find easy child 2/difficult child 2 "sweeping the floor" with difficult child 3, swinging him around on the end of the leash in ever-increasing circles, difficult child 3 on his back on the floor at the end of the tether like an orbiting satellite. And difficult child 1 playing "jump the tether" every time the leash came round to him. There was a circle of horrified onlookers and husband had to weather the glares of people at the appalling behaviour of the kids towards their little brother (who surely was too old to be tethered?)
THAT was embarrassing.
But we're getting our revenge - easy child 2/difficult child 2 is now studying hard to be a child care worker. Boy oh boy, do we have embarrassment material for HER!
They do say revenge is a dish best served cold...
Marg