Anyone have experience with Intuniv?

[Kat77]

Does anyone have the good, bad and ugly to share on this drug? I do not care what the dx is, just your experiences. Now that I'm seeing Intunive is actually Tenex, I'm mostly concerned about weight gain.
DD12's pedi has been campaigning to try out Intuniv for about 7 months now... I told him we would consider trying it out over the summer and today he loaded us up with samples even though we're still unsure about switching. She is currently on clonidine to control her tourettes related tics and very happy with it.

 

[tinytreasures]

they are talking about it for our son too

 

[deerhart]

My son started it in mid march. He is doing really well on it.

We started with 1mg at night and after 3 weeks moved up to 2mgs still at night. After another 2 weeks we moved to taking it during the day.

Lots of tired/grogginess with starting it and then with the increase. Each time it lasted about 3-4 days and then disappeared.

Not seen any side effects from it at all. While it does not do everything we hoped it would do, there is a significant difference that we and the school both saw.

Doc is talking about maybe going up to 3mg, we don't want to increase unless we absolutely have to. But we are also backed up against the wall because if this doesn't work, we only have a single other option before much harder stuff that we don't want to try, so we might not be able to drag our feet.

My youngest son was on clonidine to help him sleep and I hated it (it also didn't do what we needed either just made things worse). Intuniv does not seem to have as severe sleepiness side effect as the clonidine.

As for weight gain, we haven't noticed any. He hasn't gained any weight while on it (mind you my kids are REALLY REALLY REALLY active.. they put the H in ADHD) and my oldest is pretty petitie. I will add that we also haven't ever seen the appetite problems with either of my boys on the stimulant medication either.

Clonidine is also originally a blood pressure medication and I would expect that if she didn't gain weight on it, its less likely she will gain weight on Intuniv

 

[Kat77]

Thanks so much, Deerheart!

I keep reading great reviews from others with kids on Intuniv. I am interested to see how the adhd properties effect DD's learning since it is a benefit of the drug. She has an LD but is not adhd. The pedi has suggested adhd meds to assist with learning several times but we refused to medicate any more than necessary. There is nothing wrong with learning at her on pace as long as she is progressing.

DH does not want to mess with anything that is not broken yet. DD is totally fine with trying a new drug to test how she feels on it instead. She sees her psych. on Monday so I will ask for her opinion then. The psych. has more experience with DD's atypical reactions to drugs than the pedi. She did not seem very enthusiastic when I mentioned it months ago. I don't know if that was because we were in the middle of tweaking anxiety meds at the time or over the drug itself... guess we'll find out. I'll update for you. Tinytreasures, when I find out!

Benedryl never effected DD, clonidine no longer makes her sleepy and she is on 4 mg! (Half a mg knocks out DS9 for the night). Clonidine did make her tired for the first couple months and I think she only gained about 5 lbs. on it which was great, she was really skinny at the time. Currently, she's underweight by 4 lbs., and could stand to gain another 5, but would completely freak out if she suddenly put on 15... I worry she would refuse to swallow a new med ever again and suddenly fear a future spent force feeding meds to a teenager .

LOL! I had too much coffee this morning. This post is a novel for me.
Okay, it looked much longer before publishing than it did after. Silly me.

 

[deerhart]

Benadryl doesn't make either of my kids sleepy either (or me) in fact it makes them hyper. I know for me it makes me hyper due to the red food coloring in the capsule (for some reason coloring, especially red in medication still makes me wound).

My son's ADHD really mellowed at around age 8. It really only shows its head in his shortened frustration level and rushing through school work (some pacing but that's another story) and with his anxiety.

We put him on stimulants in Kindy because we needed to address his CAPD and due to his ADHD he could not get through the treatment. The medication allowed us to do the remediation and he made HUGE strides forward. We ended up having to end the meds due to growth concerns and rising anxiety levels

 

[GoofTroop]

Tenex caused my oldest son to lose weight. We started giving him Ensure to try and maintain his weight while on the Tenex....But he continued to lose. We ended up having to take him off of it because of the drastic weight loss.

Elizabeth

 

[Hasil72]

We switched DS from Strattera to Intuniv a few months ago so that we would have more SSRI options to control his anxiety. It has been fabulous, no weight gain. Both the therapist and the psychiatrist said that they noticed an increase in his eye contact during conversations as well as his ability to focus on a topic he didn't initiate. He takes his in the am, is fine throughout the day, then is sleepy by bedtime. They tell me it's formulated to work that way.

Good luck!

 

[Holdenboy]

Just found this site, our son (5) has been taking intuniv for about 3 months now. It has helped out a great deal. He started out on the 2mg dose and has since moved up to 3mg. The only negitive thing we have to say about it, is that he dose not want to sleep. Other than that it dose work. He has been doing well in school all day kindergarden he stays focused and is doing very well One thing to note since the incressed dosage he has been complaining about his tummy other than that it appears to be working.

Hope this helps