Hi Everyone,

My son and I were both diagnosed with ADHD at the same time about 6 months ago. I have been doing well on Vyvanse and moved him to it because nothing we gave him seemed to get him through the day. We had tried Concerta and Focalin XR before Vyvanse.

He's been on it less than a week, doing very well in school, able to focus, get his work done efficiently and generally happy, nothing unusual reported from the teacher. We are on vacation and out of no where he's having some pretty bizarre fears and anxiety. He hasn't been getting his normal sleep because we are on vacation schedule, maybe that has something to do with it.... let me explain. Yesterday, while taking a walk on the beach he was acting really jumpy and nervous about bugs, there were a few flies, but he was really freaking out, he kept swatting at his head and acting paranoid, insisted on going back to the room, almost crying. Last night we were out to dinner and the kids (3 of them) were each given balloons, he was so freaked out about them either blowing away or getting popped that it just about drove us mad, once again almost in tears. Today, it was automatic flushing toilets, he went into a public restroom and would not go because he is terrified of automatic flushing toilets, if that wasn't bad enough, he wouldn't come out of the bathroom for about 15 minutes, then he lied to me (this kid is not known for lying) and told me he did go and later told me that he didn't, that he was too scared. Now he has always been a little freaky about them, but he has't refused to use them since he was about 4 years old. We were so concerned about it yesterday that we decided to not give him his Vyvanse this morning, so I expected some backlash, but not more paranoia behavior.

Do any of you have any insight on this? Should I push through this and give him a few more days to see if he adjusts, I tried to call our Doctor but it was too late to get in touch with her.

Any feedback will be appreciated......

Ask about Dexedrine. I"ve heard more than a few stories about it reducing anxiety.

It is very quiet and mild on the body and brain (unlike many of the meds you mention).

I think you should get out of the "ritalin-family" of drugs. You've learned that they aren't for your kid.

Vyanase is a manipulation of amphetamine, and I can't say I know anything about it.

You should know that Dexedrine is not HEAVILY marketed to Doctors b/c it is beyond Patent, and drug companies don't make money from it the same as they do Adderall and all the other heavily marketed big name ADD meds you mention.

(I take it your Doc likes to prescribe the drugs the drug companies "push" heavily.)

NB Sounds like your child his having some sort of SENSORY OVERLOAD issues on this Vyanase medication, eh?

Go with the tried and true. Dexedrine has been on the market for almost 70 years now. It is the most researched of the ADD drugs!~

I always am drawn the old drugs b/c they are the most researched in humans. Too many ADD drugs have been implicated in Liver Damage, etc. (Cylert, Strattera)

Can't live w/o a Liver.

http://add.about.com/od/medications/a/stratterawarn.htm

I have a friend who takes the same dose as adderall XR as I do, we both go to the same psychiatrist. Anyway he was asked to try vyvanse as well and for him it overwelmed him with irritability/anxiety.... for me it's almost like it reduces anxiety especially compared to adderall XR (he was on 50mg of Vyvanse, I was on 50, then 100). Everyone is different so yeah might be best to try a different medicine like Queen said assuming you're trying the lowest dose (30mg) already.

Yeah, it has been like a sensory overload for him. He was on 36mg of Concerta before and our Doc wanted to try him on 50 mg of Vyvanse, thank GOODNESS I didn't go for that one! I told her I wanted to start him on the smallest dose, only because she started me on 50mg after being on 54mg of Concerta and it was quite an adjustment for me, and I'm a 43 yr old, 140lb woman!!! But like you, Tylerlee17, it has a more calming effect than the Concerta did, my husband says not, he says I'm taking a "bossy pill", that's not what I feel at all! I was having anxiety issues on the Concerta, so when the Vyvanse seemed to alleviate that, I thought it would do the same for Carlton, who has been able to be quite hyper through all the methylphenidate drugs. I was told by our doctor that the Vyvanse rep said you need to give the medicine 2 weeks to really get used to it, and for me that was good advice, at first it gave me terrible headaches in the afternoon. Now I'm fine, it's been great now that I have adjusted. He's only been on it for 6 days, I'm wrestling with whether or not I should push it a little longer to see if he adjusts, it's too bad they don't make a 20mg, something tells me that may would work, he's actually told me how much better he feels on this Vyvanse and his teacher says he is doing great. All of this literally came up with us being on vacation, maybe he's on sensory overload because of the excitement of being away from home.....

You mentioned something about a 20mg dose being optimal. I have read where some doc's have patients opening their 30mg tablet and dissolving the contents in 2oz of water, then drinking 1 oz to get a 15mg dose. Maybe you could run this by your doctor to get the lower dose.

Yeah I've heard of parents dumping half a capsul into a glass of water and the child drinking it when they were worried about 30mg being too high. Could be the excitement like you said though.

I had baaaaad reactions with all methylphenidate products, big no no for me. Dexedrine/Vyvanse/Adderall are all similiar for me with certain advantages/disadvantages spread amongst them (although for me I see little difference between dex/vyvanse, but I wasn't on dex long at all). Adderall gives me anxiety when it wears off and it last until I go to bed but I counter it by exercising (totally nulls the anxiety affect). I figure It's some what of a good anxiety though since it motivates me to exercise.

I have also heard about cutting the dose by dissolving only part of it in water. I think I will give him the rest of the weekend off, and pick it back up on Monday after we get home, maybe cut the dose a little. He is a light sleeper anyway and has always had trouble sleeping away from home, unlike my other two, thankfully! It may just be an issue complicated by excitement, little sleep, starting a new medicine that is known to cause sleep problems, I know it definitely affected my sleep the first week. Felt like I couldn't get into a deep sleep, I was really restless, so much so, that I hesitate to take it any later than 7 am now......

I would take the DEX into consideration, but isn't that something that he would have to take several times during the day? I would prefer a long acting over having him crash at school or have to have him take medicine while at school. Does the Dex come in a long acting?

Thanks again for the imput!

Dexedrine Spansels / ER supposedly last 6-9 hours. Most people only take it twice a day. The only types of medicine I had to take another dose of during school were Instant release.

I can understand what your son is going through. My first day was the worst by far...I called my psychiatrist in tears because I swore I was dying. He told me to stop taking it, but later in the day I was feeling better so I called him back and I asked him if these were side effects he felt would eventually go away and he said yes. I asked him if I could continue the medicine to at least TRY and work with it. It was a rough three weeks before I felt "in control" of my emotions again...especially anxiety and crying. There was one day I had such a fear my mom was going to die I was calling her every 30 minutes, at the least.

It has gotten better for me, but if you feel like he's only getting worse than you might not want to continue it.

Follow up on my 8 year old son. I had a consultation with his teacher today, academically he's doing great, socially this medicine is not working out for him. He's developed paranoia and fears, he's very emotional and sometimes just stares off into space. He's become a loner where he used to be very social. This is definitely not my child....... he's bouncy like tigger at best and all the time! Very happy go lucky, very creative, very talkative and social.......

Guess we'll go back to Concerta, he was doing fine on it, just wasn't quite making it through the afternoon. I guess we could always do some short acting meds in the afternoons when we have a lot going on..... we see his doctor tomorrow, I'll run it all by her. Oh well, we all respond differently don't we? I'm on Vyvanse and I like it, even though my husband refers to it as my "bossy pill". I feel very focused and in control, not anxious like I did on Concerta. I'll stay put for a while, hopefully it will continue to be okay for me!

Best of luck to everyone, and hope you find what works for you or your child....

I just had my 7 yr old son taken off of Vyvanse and back on Adderall. He started out on 30 mg did not due to much for him so we increased it to 50 mg . (Huge mistake) He had problems with anger in tha a.m and in p.m nothing during the day. But today was the end when he just could not control himself. At first I thought it might subside if he takes it a little longer but I can say he was not the same 7 yr old I had 2 mths ago.

It is very interesting coming across your post. I had a very similar experience to your son and was looking for some answers. I'm 30.
Started Vyvanse on 11-13-07
started on 15 mgs. Felt a little wired, then it subsided. Felt normal and productive. After a few days I wasn't 'feeling' anything, as in wired. Then I upped it to 30 mgs after about 3 or 4 days. I don't remember the exact, but I think I did pretty good. Didn't feel overly excited or anything like that. I was being very productive at home (more than ever). Doing my tasks and all that.
I started taking multi-vitamins and Omega supplement along with Vyvanse.
Then I went on vacation about 10 days ago. My excercise schedule was kind of off. Before I started taking medicine, if I didn't excercise I would feel really blah. I'd feel like there was a dark cloud hanging over my head, I'd get depressed after a few days and would be almost non-functional. Taking the meds that I found that even though I wasn't exercising that I was fully functional. I did find that early mornings before taking the meds I was a bit spacey and late at night (after the meds wore off) I would feel the symptoms that I generally felt when I didn't excercise. But other than that I was doing pretty good.

Well got back from vacation on 12/12/07. Since then, I've noticed that during the day at work I've been feeling anxious and panicky at work. I have a very hard time focussing. I have all these fantastic ideas going through my head but I'm so distracted I can't do my work. Drinking water isn't helping. I feel like an internal clock is revved up. I've been trying to remember to breathe slow at work to calm down.


That's why I came to the forums to get some answers. It's very peculiar. In both our cases it was after Vacation that a lot of these anxious panicky symptoms came about.

I'm 30 and today I remember walking out to the parking lot at my work just to calm down and take slow deep breaths. Inside me I wanted to scream. I remember feeling like I had such crazy emotions within me that my body didn't have what it took to express how I was feeling. I don't remember experiencing such strong feelings of desperate caffeinated panic like that before.

I'm 29 years old and I'm actually having same problem.
I've beging taking Vyvanse a week ago just half of a pill (25mg) of vyvanse and it helped me a lot being more quite and patient. Then it seemed like the effect runned off during the afternoon and I was very moody and with less patient than usual.
I begin (per doctors request) taking the all pill since Wednesday of this week (50mg).
Wednesday was ok nothing changed and I felt quite and helped me. Thursday was fine too. Today Friday I am freacking out I'm panic!!, I can't deal with this anxiety that is going to burst I didn't go to work cause my son was sick but I'm feeling SO OVERWHELMED and I can't control anything! and I can not stop crying because I don't know where to begin... I don't know if these are normal side effects that I'm going to get used to, maybe I'm just getting used to it, but let me say is really hard to deal with it.

Crazy mountain:

Are you dealing better after several months??

Hi,

I have been on Vyvanse for 1 month. I read somewhere about building up the dosage. My first response was a huge crash after 6 hours. So I 1/2 my 50mg dosage by breaking open a capsule, mixing it with water and drinking 1/2. This helped with the head aches and physical rxns. And I made sure I ate breakfast- protien - I am NOT a breakfast person. This helped immensely.

Next I gave the meds 5 days- after which my doc said my body would adjust. And it did. Then I took ~ 1/2 tab at 7am and then 1/2 tab at 11am. This was great! I lost the crash after 6 hours and had a longer period of effective meds.

I do find I am a bit emotional in the evenings.

Hope this helps....it's just my experience.
Yoga helps alot too. I try to combine exercise with, diet and meds. I am so thankful that I can get up and fuction instead of want to crawl into bed and hide from life. I do take breaks every couple of days and let my body have some rest. I still feel this med the next day. Someone posted that it was originally developed to be a 24 hour drug but, most got 12 hours out of it.



Tigs