7yr old son newly on Concerta... need some advice !

adhdmama · 01-09-2008, 01:45 AM

Hi all, I'm new here.

My eldest who's 7yrs old has had an ADHD diagnosis for some time, but we've tried EVERYTHING else but drugs.... and I mean everything. Chiropractic, homeopathy, naturopaths, herbal supplements, fish oil, vitamins, elimination diets, nothing was giving us results. Now, his self esteem is starting to suffer, so we've started a 2wk trial of Concerta today.

Today at school, there wasn't any great improvement on his behaviour. He was still seemingly unable to focus. He had a "so so" day at school. A scale of one to ten would put him at a 1 or a 2.

In addition to that, earlier he was complaining of a stomach ache, and now here we are, over 3 hours past his bedtime, and he literally cannot fall asleep. He wants to, but he's battling insomnia BIG time.

I know Concerta is supposed to work right away. He's only on 18mg, so perhaps he needs a higher dose? Is there anything I can do to help him fall asleep at night? Should I just phone my DR tomorrow and ask about all this? I don't really want to just keep notes for two weeks and live with it not really helping his symptoms at school, and him not being able to fall asleep every night. He said he felt tired all day, til bedtime, now he's total insomniac and cannot sleep.

Any advice/suggestions would be GREATLY appreciated !!!

ADHDMama... who's really tired herself and would love to go to bed

Mushy · 01-09-2008, 02:06 PM

We recently started our 11 year old on Concerta. The first week he was having break-downs every night around 7pm (when the drug was wearing off). The DR increased the dose from 18mg to 27mg and he is fine now. He has ADD, not ADHD, and he is able to focus more in school now. Overall, it took about a week to see some improvement.

index.html · 01-09-2008, 02:10 PM

Even though Concerta works immediately, you really need to give it some time to see how he adapts to the side effects. Give it a week or two and then talk to the doc about what you see.

Good luck!

bellablue2 · 01-13-2008, 12:41 PM

My 7year old is on concerta. It works well. He has no appetite. We give it to him at 7am. by 3 he is coming off. At night his appetite comes back. We too had to up the Meds. We also tried adderall and ritalin both really messed him up. All I can say is talk to Doc maybe try something differant. My son is now on Folkalin 20 mg to see if it will help with his eating in the day.

GoPS he weights around 60lbsod luck