Sisymay
8/15/22 Q: Hi, I'm here for my 10yr old grandson. He was 48" tall and 48 lbs almost 2 years ago. He Looks more like 7 yrs old. He has been taking concerta for the last 3 years until about 2 months ago. It's good for him, but he will not grow and will not eat. Plus, it makes him have horrible constipation to the point of having to go to the hospital sometimes. He went to a gastro dr and was given miralax, it helped a little. Then, I found out it's very bad, so I stopped it.
l found out concerta causes stunted growth, no appetite and constipation. We tried other medicines to see if the side effects would stop. First was intuniv - after one pill, he slept for 18 hours, barely breathing, very slow heart rate.
Then, focalin. - No appetite, no growth . Then, risperdal - very bad nose sniffing tic to the point of crying and teacher keeping him out of class. Kept doing this for a month. Trileptal. - Started a new psych for insurance reasons. New psych very concerned, said it was for seizures. Stopped it. Focalin - no appetite, weight loss. Clonodine - very serious mouth tic for 4 months. Had to wait or neurologist appt, tic stopped before the appt. Strattera - took to stop tic from clonodine. Took one pill, was like a wound up monkey. Couldn't even stay in school that day. So I stopped that.
All these meds no appetite, lost weight, bad constipation . Concerta was the last one tried and helped the most with symptoms. That's 8 medicines in all.
Right now he's taking natural supplements. 3 types of magnesium, and creekside focused mind Jr. All summer, he has been fine. Constipation gone, eating normal, gained 10 lbs. Grew 2 inches.
School started last week, and just today teacher told me he's all over the place, can't concentrate, very hyper. It's very expensive to keep jumping around finding natural remedies that work.
I asked his last psych about all this. He said all stimulants and nonstimulants cause all these things. About 6 months ago he had genesight test done. It didn't test all meds for this. The ones he tested for showed the right ones for him are the ones he already tried.
I'm trying to find list of every medicine for adhd. If anyone knows them all, could you let me know what they are? I know this is very long and I'm sorry. Thanks. So much for reading this !
Chestnut Hill CAP A: Hello Sisymay,
I might have missed it in your post but it doesn't look like your grandson has been tried on the amphetamine-based meds.
Stimulant medications fall into 2 broad categories: 1) the methylphenidate derivatives (Concerta, Ritalin, Focalin, Metadate, Jornay...), 2) the amphetamine derivatives (Adderall, Vyvanse, Dexedrine...)
If your grandson was tried also on Risperdal and Trileptal, I suspect that he may have also been diagnosed with DMDD or some other type of mood disorder (which, unfortunately, can be exacerbated by stimulant medications).
A common protocol for this combination of disorders would be to stabilize the patient with either a neuroleptic (like Risperdal or Abilify) or an antiseizure med (like Depakote or Trileptal). Once the patient is stabilized then there should be a careful attempt at introducing stimulant medications -- during this process the amount of mood-stabilizing agent may need to be increased as well.
This approach usually identifies the lowest effective dose of medications for the child.
For the type of hyperactivity I believe you are describing, my guess is that stimulant medications may be needed to control his ADHD enough to tolerate school.
However, you can also try supplementing his diet with fish oils which have been shown to be helpful in controlling ADHD, but this takes weeks of consistent high levels for there to be an effect. In fact Omega-3's and PS's were shown to be so effective there was once a prescription "medication" that was just a combination of these. It was called Vayarin but it has since been taken of the market.
Good luck with everything!