fotojunkie

My son played the ADD roulette for a while. Finally, we settled on Adderall about 6 or 8 months ago. He is 14 and against meds. We have usually treated health issues homeopathically or with alternative medicine or nutritionally. He was not thrilled with using scripts. We battled it for several years. Even when he got the Adderall script he balked. He didn't really want to take it, but I told him to give it a try and if it didn't work for him we would look elsewhere. Well, he tried it and said that he doesn't know how he functioned in school without it. His grades improved almost immediately. He now takes it on his own. He had so much trouble in school prior to the Adderall that he wound up failing two classes and went to summer school. He took the responsibility of taking it himself before class. He told me he wanted to take it because it helped him focus.

I will tell you what he told me about how it made him feel. He felt focused, like he could concentrate on what was going on. He didn't have the "channel changing" in his head like he used to. He can keep his thoughts straight. He isn't so easily distracted.
He said his appetite wanes a bit. We compensated by adjusting meals for him. He eats breakfast, some lunch, a small snack after school, but his appetite isn't near what it used to be. I serve him a good dinner when he is ready in the evening. I have found that quality of meals compensates for the quantity he eats. I make sure that good, healthy foods in a large variety are always available. We had to lose some structure to work around his eating habits (and his brother's who is on Concerta). He is a big boy at 14, 6'2" tall and about 215 pounds. He is also pretty mature for his age. I am really proud of him for taking the responsibility for this issue, owning it and taking control. We have always been very open and talked a lot. In my opinion he shows great maturity in taking his meds.

Watch out, though, he said that if he doesn't eat he gets weak and dizzy. We have found that keeping his blood sugar level (frequent meals) prevents this. He did not have this problem prior to being on the Adderall. He has actually passed out a couple of times, but once we did the frequent meal thing he did not have it again.

His moodiness also improved. He is in a much better mood.

At first he had trouble going to sleep. But we figured what time in the morning worked best to take the meds and with the diet that cleared up as well. He is actually usually the first to go to sleep now.