Strattera and a terrible Halloween

[shardstar]

TEXTHi all, I love this new site!

This seems to be a frequent cause of concern with a lot of people at the moment, but I thought I'd see what everyone thinks...My six yr. old daughter, who at the time weighed 46 lbs., started Strat in July. I was very pleased with the results. It made her pleasant to get along with, she was able to actually hold a conversation with someone before going off on a tangent. When school started, I got some great feedback from her Teacher and her Sped, and I thought "boy this stuff is the greatest!". They said that ofcourse she still had some problems stemming from the ADHD, but that she was really focusing and staying on task. Great, but in the last couple of weeks, she has begun acting very combative and a few meltdowns where she called me some very bad names and told me that she doesn't care about anything. These are usually followed by a nap whrere she just crashes and falls asleep. I was going to wait until her ped appointment in two weeks, and discuss this, but last night took the cake! We went out Trick or Treating with her cousins and we were all having a great time, and had been to about 7 or 8 houses, when all of a sudden she goes in a pouty way "humph! I want to go home. I'm not having fun and I don't want to see any more people" . We tried to get her interested by telling her that she could see the people's dogs, which normally she would go gaga about, but she just wanted to go home or stand on the sidewalk and sulk. This was just so uncharacteristic of her, because she has been talking about going out Trick or Treating all week and saying "when's it going to be Halloween?" etc. I finally had to take her home and when we got there, she said she didn't know what was wrong with her. I decided to weigh her last night and the scales say that she is 40 lbs. now. She doesn't look like she has lost weight though. The dose she takes is 18 mg. in the am and 10 mg. in the evening. Do you think I should try doing a half a 10 mg. pill in the eve. now? I did the calculations, and her dosage still seems like it is in between the min. and max...I'd appreciate anyone's advice, and sorry this was soo long...)

[Mayleng]

That dose might either be a tiny bit too high or she is having some build up, or a little of both. Being that it worked for well for her for a good amount of time with no problems, I'm guiessing both.

My son is 56lbs, we found 35mgs to have the best effectiveness without any changes to his moods. We tried 40mgs for a few weeks and he displayed the same behaviors you are describing in your daughter, also, uncharacteristic in my son. Mouthy, defiant, oppositional. All unprovoked and unconsolable. So my gut feeling says she is might be on too high of a dose or has had some build up that needs titrating. It doesn't take much, 3 to 5 mgs too much can bring out the nasties. If not right away, eventually as it builds up in her system. So even though the dose might seem right, if its even a little high, in a matter of time it won't be right
.
I had a situation where my son was getting like this over the summer on his normal 35mgs, so I lowered it to 25 and he was fine in a day, within about two weeks he started getting "fussy headed" again and we went back up to 35mgs, no problems since then, but I feel better knowing that lowering temporarily corrected this. I'm alert now that I may have to do this from time to time. Medically speaking this is called tirating down. Ask your doctor if you can do a trial of this. You will be going lower, not higher so there is no real danger except for some loss of effectiveness.

I have been reading more and more about situations like yours, now that so many kids have been on this med for a good stretch. It might be yet "Another Trick" we have to use to keep Strat as an effective treatment.

I hope your doctor will consider this. I have found the doctors being the most open to playing around with small amounts of mgs are having the best success.

[Mayleng]

I had to do the same thing too. My son was getting more emotional. He is on 40mgs, and so I just gave him 30mgs for a couple of days, and then upped it back to 40mgs and he was back to normal.

I agree this may be something we have to do from time to time.

[shardstar]

Thanks! I talked to the doctor and she suggests giving her 18 mg. in the am and 5 mg in the evening. I hope that works. I want the girl I used to know back.