No improvement at 20 mgs. daily, and 30 mgs. made her so dizzy it scares her, plus she called from school crying about the nausea and stomach pains. Poor little mite!

Plus, when she arrives home it is apparent that the meds have worn off and she is really, REALLY irritable, hostile even :(.

Waiting to hear back from the caseworker, who is doing her best to track down the very-busy psych doc.

Sounds like you might need a different med. My son had similar issues with Concerta. The 36 mg was to high, had him hallucinating, and in a zombie state, with high anxiety, stomach pains and headaches. 18 mg didn't do anything for him. 27 mg's didn't do anything for him either except have him talking about killing himself constantly.

We switched to Adderall which did wonders for his ADHD symptoms, but eventually we had to stop it as well because he was way to emotional and volatile on it.

We are now trying Strattera which so far is showing the most promise for him. We are finally having more good days then bad days:) .

It's all trial and error. Hang in there!

My son did well on Adderall for a while, but eventually developed some bad side effects: headaches, moodiness (anger, irritability, etc.).

We switch him to Concerta and he's got NO side effects and the cognitive improvements are even better than when he was on Adderall!

Many people respond poorly to one class of stimulants but very well on the other. About 95% will do well on at least one, so it's worth trying the other.

In addition, it could be Adderall itself that is the problem. Another med in the same class may also be worth a try if Concerta or Ritalin isn't working out.

Don't give up! You could also try the other types of meds like ladym is.

Good luck!

Thanks for the replies. Just reading websites about how it can be trial and error does not feel as good as getting a reply from an actual human in the same situation :).

She has an appt. with the psych on Monday and we have discontinued the Adderal XR until then...so it's bound to be a mighty interesting weekend!

Unfortunately most doctors don't receive much training in titrating the doses of ADHD medication. As little 2 mg can make a difference according to Dr. Dodson who spoke at the ADDA convention in Orlando (he runs a clinic and specializes in ADHD medication and dosing).

I'm no expert at all in medication but was worried about my daughter having stomach problems and headaches (which is kind of common for her anyway) when she started medication. The doctor prescribed her Ritalin (I asked for that since I had done well on Concerta which is also methylphenidate) and I broke the pill into thirds, halves, and so forth. My daughter actually had a huge response to about 2/3 of a 5 mg pill and the side effects were tolerable and have now gone away. Hopefully someone will be able to help you figure out which medication and which dose is best for your child.

Scattered

I have found that the doctor's just want to keep upping the dose 'till they get it right. My daughter (12) and I are both on just 10mg of Adderal. Any more then that for me makes me just wired and spacey.

I have an 11 year old son that was on Adderall, well back in March 2006 we had him in a psychiatric hospital for children because he was having sucidal and homicidal thoughts and anxiety all of the time, we found out that it was the adderal that was causing this, had the medicine discontinued and he is now doing really well. Good luck!

Thanks for the replies, I had forgotten to updat this thread. She went psychotic at 30 mgs and is now thriving on Concerta :).