OT- ADHD | Arthritis Information

 

My college age son was just diagnosed by a neurologist to have ADHD. He has been having trouble in school. He was put on Strattera.
Has anyone heard anything about it and what do you think about adult ADHD?
He says so far the medicine makes him feel funny, sick and like he doesn't want to eat. It's only been 2 days.
I don't know what to think. In HS he was able to do well when he applied himself but he never felt like applying himself. He was very lazy and would never do homework. All his life his teacher's always said he was very smart and could do better. He did well all through elementary school (A's) The problems started in 8th grade and we all thought they were behavioral.
WTBPF, my son in law was diagnosed with adult ADHD but feels like he has had it most of his life. He is the one in medical school. He is on a med that starts with a V....not sure the name. He just could not focus as well as he wanted last year. He is doing better now. Straterra takes some getting used to. He will need to adjust and that sick/feeling should go away once the drug is in his system. Thanks for the reassurance lorster. I told him he should ask the doctor if it is normal to feel that way at first but he said he will give it a week and then....he didn't finish his sentence. He had gone on the web site and read all kinds of horrible things about the drug. I had already been there and most of it is of rare occurence but when it's your child it does worry you. The one thing he mentioned was it causes some people to want to commit suicide. wantto.. how was he DX'd?  what tests? 

Babs he said he was given a long questionnaire to fill out and then was asked more questions.
How old is your stepson?
No he is not acting energized- he never is. Last night I noticed he dozed off while we were watching TV which was odd. He is also not much of a conversational person- ever! Getting him to talk about his life is like pulling teeth!
The strattera is not a stimulant. I'm not sure what it is classified as.
I was diagnosed with ADHD at 41, by a panel of psychologists, and a close friend of mine is 38 and was recently DXed as well. He's using straterra, but I have yet another friend who is a psychiatrist and does a lot of work around the overprescribing of pharmaceuticals to people in general who sent a lot of information about strattera. It can cause suicidal thoughts and other side effects, but it's also not a stimulant which is why my friend chose it.

Personally, I'll stick with dexadrine, which you can take any time you don't want to deal with having ADHD, or not take any time you don't want to take pharmaceuticals. I feel like I am on too many drugs and lately I've only been using dex maybe once a week. If I was on straterra I would have to take it daily. After having undiagnosed ADHD for so long I figure I can get by just with self-awareness, but it is great to have the dex option if I have to write something or have some other task which requires sustained focus.

Not all people with ADHD exhibit the H part (hyperactivity), especially girls it tends to manifest more daydreamy.Gimpy-a-gogo2009-01-07 23:00:30my son has adhd, he's 21 now.......dx'd in first grade. It's been a long battle.  He's on adderol.....seems to work for a few hours.  He remains thin as anything he's tried as effected his appetite.  He'd go off of his pills on a weekend and eat like crazy.

my stepson is 13 now, wantto..  he was DX'd in 2nd grade.. went from an academic falure to a distinguished honor roll student... I knew from his vocabulary and other things that he was smart.. he just couldn't focus.... he does much much better now..

 

I was dx at 18.  I always did well in high school but my whole life was structured for me, you know?  So it was easier.  Once I had to do the structuring myself things became more problematic. Thank you all for your responses. It really helps to read about what other people have experienced and I can research the different drugs to see if maybe there is a better choice for him. My son was just diagnosed with ADHD. He was doing so poorly in 3rd grade that they moved him back to 2nd (with our approval).  When the dr. had me and the teacher fill out the Conners (sp) questionaire for ADHD I noticed he has most symptoms they were describing. I was SO nervous to put him on ANY meds.  He's my little 8 yr old boy, you know?   The dr. talked with me, reassured me and we tried Concerta. He was so emotional, crying about every little thing, cery moody, would get sleepy around dinner time. We then tried Adderol XR. Same thing happened. I then reasearched these drugs and found a horrible story of a child at age 7 diganosed and died suddenly at age 14. After the autopsy they said it was due to Rittalin (sp), he had deposits on his heart. It scared me to death and told the dr. i wasnt putting him on anymore medications. After a few weeks of discussing it with my sons dr, family members, teacher etc, they said you have to outweigh the good and bad. Yes, there are risks, but this was one child out of thousands that this happened to and we dont know the entire story...  You can find horror stories about anything if you look. My son has such a hard time focusing, and reacting impulsivly without thinking that I thought I should try one more time. We now have Strattera and will be trying it this weekend. Do I want my son to have a horrible time struggling in School, barely getting by  in each grade, getting into trouble and not getting along with other kids that don't understand why he's alway so wound up...or hope there's a medication out there that helps him focus and be a little more calm without taking away his personality and hope with regular check ups, he will be ok?  It's a personal judgement call regarding taking or not taking medication.  As I said, I fought the medication (wish I hadn't) and by the time I put him on it, he was at an age where he figured there was something wrong with him and then he fought the medication.  School was always a struggle, and every day was a challange at home.  His senior year when he decided he was going to go to college, he kicked in to high gear, took his meds and his life changed.  He's now a junior at a very hard college and has only received 2 C's, the rest A's and a couple of B's.  A huge difference considering he left highschool with a GPA of 1.9  He was fortunate enough to have a great resume, good interviewing skills and being certain that he wanted to get into a good college.  As I said before, now he freaks if he doesn't have his meds cause he knows how much it has helped him.Klynn let me know how your son makes out with the strattera. After taking it for 3 days he stopped today. He felt nauseaus and "funny" first. Then he kept waking up every hour when he went to bed and yesterday almost passed out once. He is going to call the doctor and see what he says but he did not take the medicine this morning.
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