My son who is 12 was put on Strattera after having either no apparent help or undesireable side effects such as nausea, frequent tics, and weight loss from stimulants. We started him on 25mg of Strattera for two weeks and then he was on 40mg for about 2 1/2 weeks. We started noticing that he was moodier than usual and talking about wanting to be dead. He had huge negative responses to doing homework--over the top kind of responses. He had a lot of meltdowns and we really had to treat him with kid gloves. In his mind he thinks it all has to do with stress from school. Anyhow after hearing he felt like dying we brought him immediately to the doctor. Last night was his last night on Strattera-- the doc wanted us to wean him off by putting him on 25mg for two nights and then discontinue the use. It has been a really trying and difficult week dealing with him and worrying about these terrible thoughts he has. I feel that these over the top negative thoughts have to do with Strattera. He was not like that before the medication. I talked with my sister in law about his reaction to Strattera and she said her son had the EXACT SAME response to the medication although it was when he was quite young-- 7 I think. She took him off immediately. Just so you know this, my nephew and my son are not biologically related so thinking there is a genetic link to the negative response is not part of the equation. I want everyone to know that there is a real link (in my opinion) to this drug and feelings of worthlessness/depression/ and suicidal thoughts. I will try to remember to update this post in a few weeks after my son gets this drug out of his system.

If you've had a similar experience I'd love for you to share. I'd especially like to know how long it took before your son/daughter had a more sunny outlook on life.

wow im so sorry to hear that, and you made the right decision to get him medical attention, i tried stratterta and i seemd to help a little but was too difficult to remember to take as it made me very tired, and accually would make me go to sleep EVERY single time i took it, was your son tired, maybe the drowsiness made him feel bad all the time, and that in return made him fel depressed because he was less active maybe less talkative due to tiredness, but i was tired while on it so your son might not have been tired on it but i was and i could see a conenction between constant tiredness and feeling liek crap just ask a coffee drinker who needs his coffee to wake up the day he cannot get his coffee he feels tired and like crap all the time

There were a few days where I had to really drag him out of bed for sure. The first weekend he was on it he slept much much later than normal but I wasn't sure if it was due to a growth spurt or something else. Maybe he was overtired-- who knows. I just know that he had bad thoughts that came to the surface. Whatever the reason it had to be stopped immediately.