need help..Son Just started on ADDERALL XR

[*love*2*shop]

He was put on strattera at age 5( 2 1/2 years ago)-he is now almost 8yrs old... The past 6 mos have been ROUGH< we went to the Drs for a talk on friday and thye put him on adderall xr every am at breakfast ( he is OFF STRATTERA and now ONLY o nthe xr) . he took his 1st pill this past SAT am and was up all night sat night ( he slept MAYBE 2 hrs all night!~) pill sun am and UP ALL nignt last night( slept from 8-11pm, has been up since 11pm LAST NIGHT!!!!he was dressed and ready for school at 300 this morning lol)

We called the drs of course and they were NO HELP, said he has to get used to it , give it a few more days...ANYONE have any thoughts..We are ALLLLLL EXHAUSTED( ok us parents and WE cant keep doing this???)

 

[samandryanmom]

Oh my gosh, I completely feel your pain. DS takes Adderall XR in the AM and also when he comes home from school. At night he takes Clonidine to help him sleep. For the past several months he's had no trouble sleeping at all (or so we thought). He had been staying awake at night playing his Nintendo DS Lite until he just couldn't keep his eyes open anymore. No wonder he wasn't getting out of bed.

What about Benadryl if you don't want to add another medicine?

Good luck.

 

[PirateFairy8]

I've been on Adderall XR since I was 14 or 15, before that it was just adderall. I'm 20 now and still on it, but if I remember correctly, I had to get used to it at the very beginning, and I still have to take it before a certain hour in the day or else I will stay up that much longer at night! If I take it around 10 am for example, I am often up to 11pm or 12:30 am or later, which is even worse for me sometimes because I also have fibromyalgia which does not allow me to get enough rest and I also have insomnia because of that. I hope he does get used to it, I find that it really helps me in school and to concentrate. If I don't take it then I cannot concentrate at all, even though there are some days where it works "too" well (all i do from getting up to going to sleep is study) and some days where it doesn't work at all (like today, when I should be studying for a quiz and writing a paper but I'm on here). Let me know if I can offer any other help.

 

[DisneyDiva13]

My son was on Adderall XR for a few weeks about a year ago. It was NOT a good choice for him. He had a lot of trouble sleeping, NO appetite and the worst thing was that he flew into a complete and scary RAGE when coming down from the meds. It was terrible. At first the doc said to give it some time and suggested that maybe he needed a higher dose. I refused. I just felt in my gut that Adderall was NOT the right medicine for my son. The last straw was the day he completely flew off the handle...one second he was in my face screaming in anger at me because I said we couldn't play UNO until after dinner. The next second he was in tears and saying things like, "I don't deserve to be alive, I wish I would just die", etc. That was it for me. We were at the doctor's office 15 minutes later. They prescribed Focalin XR...it has been WONDERFUL. He had a little trouble sleeping in the very beginning and he's not usually in the mood to eat at lunch time...but other than that things have been great. His grades have drastically improved and he's actually glad to go to school now.

 

[donnajon]

DS10 is ADHD and has issues sleeping no matter what meds he is on. He was on Clonodine but I had him see a psychiatrist I know to better check his meds. He took him off of the Clonodine because that is a heart medication and now he takes Remeron. I also give him a melatonin. He is now taking Desoxyn for the ADHD and his sleep has been the best on this one out of all he has tried (a lot!). He did better on the twice a day Adderall than the XR - it kept his personality while helping him focus. The XR made him real serious. He had issues with not eating and that is why we changed off of it. He started the meds at age 6. We did a sleep study this past December and the little stinker slept all night!