Our daughter, Moon Unit, is bright and funny, and has the attention span of “a junkie ferret with ADD” (quote from a friend, used to describe someone else entirely, but I love the turn of phrase.
Testing on several occasions says it’s NOT pure / true ADHD - she’s clearly got some anxiety / depressive issues and we’re working on all of those with counseling and medication - all of which have helped with her tendency to go from zero-to-fifty (e.g. gentle reminder to finish homework yields immediate “OH NO THE WORLD IS ENDING” response).
Though the anxiety is under better control, the ADHD-ish symptoms are not. As in, she’ll be literally in the middle of a routine task that takes 2 minutes, and that she does twice a day every day of the year (taking her allergy / asthma meds) and will walk away and forget she ever started.
Given her assorted issues, we had been warned that a stimulant-based ADD medication might not be the best choice - as it would possibly increase the behavioral issues. With appropriate medical counselling, we opted to give that a brief trial to see how it affected her, a year or so back. The school staff commented that her focus did seem to improve, but she did have more outbursts. So - good data point, worthwhile experiment, glad we tried it, but (as predicted), not a good choice for her.
The next step is to try Strattera, which several medical people have suggested can be a better choice with kids with her sort of anxiety / depressive issues. We’ve got a scrip for a fairly low dose of the stuff to try sometime in the next few weeks.
So - long-winded intro, but I’d be very interested in hearing any anecdotes - positive or negative - about this medication.
As a teacher I have indirect experience.
If your kid hasn’t got hyperactivity don’t let her close to the bottle of Strattera; “my” kids turn all taciturn, angry and more depressed-like.
My son has ADHD, and I’ve had no success with Strattera. It really did nothing for his ADHD symptoms, and seemed to increase his anxiety issues. He seemed much more weepy and nervous about changes while on it. He also had much more wild mood swings.
He’s been on Strattera , Adderall, and finally on Vyvanse for the second time. I have realized that a pill is not going to magically change him into a child without ADHD. It’s a give and take between controlling all his symptoms and not having side-effects.
Thanks for the replies (and a little monday-morning bump here in case anyone else wants to weigh in). Sounds like it hasn’t been a Good Thing for any of you, directly/indirectly. Must mull this over.
Strattera was horrible for my son. He was on it for a couple of months, and only that long because we had a doctor who refused to listen to our complaints. We switched to a different doctor as soon as we could. Thankfully, that doc immediately put him back on metadate, and he did much better. We hated to have him on a stimulant, but it was what he needed at that time.
Strattera addressed his inattentiveness adequately, but it made him grouchy and sad. However, the very worst side effect of Strattera was the nausea he suffered half the day. He would refuse to eat his breakfast after the second time he threw up on the school bus. To this day, be prefers not to ride the bus since the incidents embarrassed him so much. Our old doc kept telling us that the nausea would go way. It never, ever did.
He was a sixth-grader at the time. When we switched to the new doc, we also found an awesome therapist that also worked with him on coping skills. After three years, he was able to go off meds. He has to work harder than some kids to concentrate, but he is currently getting good grades in his junior year. He (mostly) channels his hyper behavior into making music in a band now.
Strattera has been very helpful to my boy. Before he took it he could not concentrate on his schoolwork at all. Since he went on it he has improved dramatically. I think it is no exaggeration to say it saved his academic career and kept alive his dreams for what he wants to do in life.