text: Any ideas on which ADD medications are the best? | ConductDisorders - A soft place to land for battle weary parents.
  Any ideas on which ADD medications are the best?
  Discussion in 'General Parenting' started by whateveryousay2007, Nov 1, 2007.
  I'm becoming more frustrated with my difficult child medications. He was on adderall for two years. He's been on Vyvanse for two months. It works pretty good on the inattention but he is extremely difficult now.
  He still has his days where he doesn't quite get all of his school work done but his grades are improving. He exhibits aspergers. has for awhile. He's going to be tested but his behavior now driving me nuts.
  One minute he's fine the next he's unresponsive and ready to have a crying session. His peditrician is willing to change his medications/dosage after a period of time. The problem is until testing later this month is it better to deal with the emotional and try behavior modification or complain about the medicine?
  He's only tried these two medications.
  He started on Adderall XR 15 mg then after a year upped to 20 mg.
  Then he tried Vyvanse 30 mg. That DIDN'T PHASE HIM...so they changed him to 50 mg.
  whateveryousay2007, Nov 1, 2007
  Well, there is no 'better' medication - it is different for every kid.
  How is he with the emotional change? Is he complaining?
  He's always been a little emotional. Sensitive what I call it.
  BUT....he'll be fine one minute and the next he'll shut down. We had a real bad day yesterday (not candy induced). He's highly irritable.
  You can say good morning to him or ask him to do something and he'll yell at you. he's just hateful.
  I've been trying to watch to see if there's anything new going on his everyday life that might be stressing him out & I don't know of anything.
  If you ask him what's wrong he'll get ill. I'm trying to avoid spanking him for it because I'm wondering if it's his new medications.
  What you're describing may be the "emotional" part of Aspergers -- anxiety, mood changes, difficulty transitioning -- which ADHD stimulants like Adderall and Vyvanse tend to increase. That might be what you're seeing. I'd recommend waiting for the testing until you make medication decisions and then finding a good psychopharmacologist like a child psychiatrist to handle the medication management.
  Maybe....it's new to this medication.
  His new favorite sayings (reminds me of a teenager) is "I don't know" and "ok" (not as in okay I understand "OOOOOOOOOKKKKKKKKKKKKKAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYY")
  just hateful....
  He has this problem with dealing with environment. He was in a bad mood yesterday because a kindergartener was talking on the bus behind him & wouldn't be quiet. He told his teacher about it. I don't know.....
  For us adderall did not work. He was very jittery and his skin color changed to a pale grayish caste. At eight we had him on ritalin and after awhile at 9 years old we had added clonidine and this we used for the anger. The ritalin helped with attention to detail. After about 6 months we saw a child psychiatrist and he ordered zyprexa and concerta(long acting ritalin) He gained a lot of weight on the zyprexa. It did even him out moodwise I would not recommend it d/t severe wt gain. Now we are on(16 yo) straight ritalin and resperidol for irritability. We had been on abilify previous to this,but after awhile it wasn't effective for the irritability. We tried focalin and this was very good(it is a ritalin prep)It was very good but he required a high dose and my insurance did not cover it.I am not sure about atypical antipsychotics(zyprexa,resperidol and abilify) and the age and weight requirements they have to be b4 being prescribed.