My 6 yr old daughter was just diagnosed with ADHD combined type with anxiety and ODD. Her psychiatrist prescribed her Concerta 18mg and today was her first day. We gave it to her at 7:50 AM. It was great until about noon. After that, it went downhill. She insisted on my husband or I being right beside her all day. She didn't do any of her usual activities like coloring. She wanted to build a circus with her figurines from her dollhouse. It took her three hours to do it. It was like she had thoughts in her head of what she wanted to do but she had no clue on how to do it. She was obssessed and fixated on this for hours. After that, came the building of a camp site for her doll figurines. Same thing happen with that. Fixated for hours and didn't know where to start. She lined all her toys up biggest to smallest. I asked her why she did that. She said because she could look at them to figure out what she wanted to do first. Then, she would arrange everything then immediately mess it up again to "fix it". She had major melt downs today. She kicked and hit my husband when he tried to send her to her room to calm down. (She has always been very defiant, but has never hit us before.) She didn't want her little brother any where near her today because she said he would mess up the stuff she organized. Is this her anxiety getting worse? Seems like some OCD behavior, too?
What should I do? Should I give the Concerta to her again tomorrow (Sunday) to see how she does? Or just be done with it now and call the doctor on Monday morning. If it was bad today, will it get any better tomorrow? What about school on Monday? Definitely not give it to her for school? What next? Strattera?
I will ask her doctor this on Monday, but right now I desperately need advice mother-to-mother, (or father-to-mother.)
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Your daughter, like me, is obviously suffering from a severely debilitating anxiety disorder which in her case is being exacerbated by the medication. Strattera would most likely worsen this further (I speak from a personal perspective as well as a pharmacological one).

It is likely that repeated use of Concerta will prove non-beneficial but it is at your discretion as a parent to test this. You will probably have better results with an amphetamine (e.g. Adderall). Your daughter will almost certainly require anxiolytic treatment, at bare minimum behavioural therapy, and it is likely that a serotonergic agent will benefit most in terms of medicinal treatment.

Unfortunately, an ADD/anxiety diagnosis is a difficult one as it can initially involve guesswork as to which is cart and which one's horse.

hey, you've GOT TO tell us the dosage. there is no such thing as concerta. there is concerta at 18mg a day, concerta at 54 mg a day, etc. ....

can you lower the dosage? ....call the doctor right away to discuss ....yes, there can be side effects, but these melt downs and all seem too much ....

But, it sounds like there was a part of the med that was working. that ability to organize things from smallest to largest---that's good right? ... it's the destroy it and start all over aspect and the meltdowns that are bad .... so there is some clear evidence here that she can be helped with focus ....

hey, you've GOT TO tell us the dosage. there is no such thing as concerta. there is concerta at 18mg a day, concerta at 54 mg a day, etc. ....

can you lower the dosage? ....call the doctor right away to discuss ....yes, there can be side effects, but these melt downs and all seem too much ....

But, it sounds like there was a part of the med that was working. that ability to organize things from smallest to largest---that's good right? ... it's the destroy it and start all over aspect and the meltdowns that are bad .... so there is some clear evidence here that she can be helped with focus ....

She did, she said it was 18 mg.

When my boy started Concerta last year at 18 mg, he had a really strong reaction to it. He was 7 at the time. It took 3 or 4 days before he got back control of his emotion. He was nervous, anxious and he was crying for nothing at some point. We were about to stop the medication, but we choose to try it another day.

It was the best decision we made. The side effects went away and we started to see good changes in his behaviours. He start making eye contact when talking to people, something he rarely did before. It slowed him down just enough to help him focus. He got really good scores at school and it helped him a lot socially. He is now at 36 mg per day.

I got diagnosed myself for ADD about 6 months ago and take Concerta for it. From my personal experience, it take 1 or 2 weeks to get use to it. Any change in dosage also bring some side effects that go away after a few days.

Good luck with your daughter, I hope she is doing better now.