hipporina
<font color=teal>I keep Kleenex in business</font>
- Joined
- Sep 26, 2001
- Messages
- 968
We have a DS 7 that we are in the process of adopting and he has been with us for about 1.5 months. He has been in the foster care system for a while and on several different drugs for his ADHD, but we started with Adderall for him when we got him in Dec. The Adderall does help alot of the behaviors for him, but it also severly decreased his appetite. He is only 40 lbs and wears a size 5.
We work with a really good child psychiatrist that sees all the children in our foster care agency and he switched him to Straterra about 1.5 weeks ago. It is a new drug that was released Jan 6 and it works in a totally new way. Instead of being a stimulant, it is a norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor. The benefits are supposed to be reduced side effects including appetite loss and irritability and it works 24 hrs. He has not been on it long enough to build up in his system yet, but he is eating better already. We have high hopes for this one!
We also added Clonidine for him yesterday to control some aggression that he is dealing with right now. Most of that is related to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and Oppositional Definace Disorder, both of which we are struggling with right now due to his unique background.
Do not hesitate to use medications. We tried going without when we first got him, but we were ALL miserable. If your child was diabetic, you would give them insulin. If they had asthma, you would get them an inhaler. ADHD is no different. Don't beat yourself up over it and just give it a try. If it doesn't work, you can always stop it.
We work with a really good child psychiatrist that sees all the children in our foster care agency and he switched him to Straterra about 1.5 weeks ago. It is a new drug that was released Jan 6 and it works in a totally new way. Instead of being a stimulant, it is a norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor. The benefits are supposed to be reduced side effects including appetite loss and irritability and it works 24 hrs. He has not been on it long enough to build up in his system yet, but he is eating better already. We have high hopes for this one!
We also added Clonidine for him yesterday to control some aggression that he is dealing with right now. Most of that is related to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and Oppositional Definace Disorder, both of which we are struggling with right now due to his unique background.
Do not hesitate to use medications. We tried going without when we first got him, but we were ALL miserable. If your child was diabetic, you would give them insulin. If they had asthma, you would get them an inhaler. ADHD is no different. Don't beat yourself up over it and just give it a try. If it doesn't work, you can always stop it.
