I recently had a conversation w/ my sister about her 9 year old son. She's been concerned over the years w/ his not being able to focus/concentrate at school etc. She recently had him evaluated and was prescribed adderall, which I've found is prescribed for similar symptoms as Ridalin. I don't know what the exact diagnosis was but he's definitely not hyper in my opinion, that's really neither here nor there though. I told her my main concern would be with addiction. My research on the internet says that Adderall is something that causes dependency, and that one has to be careful to gradually wean oneself off of it. Does anybody have experience w/ this or related drugs and what is your experience w/ the addiction factor and have the desired results been maintained?

[This message has been edited by markyman (edited 09-21-2002).]

The first thing you need to do is be sure this child has a proper diagnosis and had proper testing for whatever they diagnosed him with. Ask you sister what they diagnosed him with and what tests they did to reach this diagnosis. Adderall is used a lot for ADD/ADHD children and often works well. Be sure you understand though that kids with plain ADD are not hyper which is what this child sounds like. Adderall is not something you would really want to stop cold turkey if you decide to quit it but it is not something that have to depend on forever. Just for the sake of comparison many pain medications can be very addictive or habit forming but yet if you needed them after an injury or surgery I don't think you would hesitate to take them if the doc prescribed them for you. So long as there is a proper diagnosis via proper testing I see nothing wrong with using a medication if it helps. I do have an ADD son and we did use meds for a while but have him off meds at this time since I didn't see a big change anymore when we misplaced his bottle a year ago.

Thank you for your response, I relayed the information to my sister. One question, when you say you didn't see a big change anymore was it b/c you were satisfied w/ what you considered permanent change and therefore he no longer needed it or was it that he had developed, perhaps, a tolerance to the drug?

When stating I didn't see a big change it meant that I felt he was funcioning as well without the medication as he was when he was taking it towards the end. With medication you can usually see a big difference be it good or bad and I didn't see that difference anymore so we opted to leave him off medication since he seems able to manage Ok on his own. If it ever gets to the point that I think he needs medication to help him stay on track better I will certainly put him back on something. This is the plan that both his doctor and I have agreed on at this point. My son has had some therapy though to help him deal with school and homework and I do think that helped some. The big thing will be to see how he is doing this school year as he just started Junior High and his homework load seems lighter but I will find out when conference time rolls around.