Okay,

My DD takes Adderall XR 20mg in the am and the doc has kindly provided us with *something* for her to take after school. I would like to note that the booster pill does not seem to help much if at all?

Anyhow, the extra dose is methylphenidate, my understanding is that this is from the ritalin family. Is this the norm? Don't the two stimulants have different reactions or non reactions based on the individual? If the person was presenting very well on the Adderall wouldn't it make more sense to have the "booster" be at least Adderall IR if not another dose of Adderall XR?

Looking forward to any input, this board has been a miracle for me in working out some of mine and my DD's issues especially as far as medications and dosing goes.

You guys (and gals of course!) are great!

Laura

The problem is amphetamine lasts a long time; dextroamphetamine's half-life is 10 hours, levoamphetamine's is 13. Whereas methylphenidate has a mere 4 hour half-life. So if she took 10mg of dextroamphetamine after school at 4pm, by the time you wanted her to go to bed at 11pm (or whatever), more than half the drug would still be in her system and could negatively affect her sleep. MPH however tends to leave the system very rapidly. (actually those are the adult numbers, I think children execrete the drug a little faster iirc)

It is true that different people react differently; some people just don't have MPH work well for them, or need a higher or lower dose. Perhaps you could bring this up with your doctor; some options are a higher MPH dose or an additional dose of AMP of some type. Personally, MPH didn't work particularily well for me.