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cyberdad
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01 Sep 2011, 10:59 pm

Our pediatrician has diagnosed our 6 yr old daughter with ADHD and we are about to start on a course of Ritalin to address her ADHD issues.

I have researched the side-effects of Ritalin and I am really confused at the different viewpoints from both scientists and parents on the long term side-effects.

I'm interested to hear from parents of kids with ADHD or people with ADHD if any of the following are true;

- Ritalin is an appetite suppressant and kids stop eating
- Ritalin interferes with sleep
- Ritalin dries out the mouth and causes thirst
- Ritalin stunts growth

I am really worried about the side-effects and would like some assurance that you can manage behavior/ADHD with Ritalin over a long period without major disruption to your child's life.



hoegaandit
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01 Sep 2011, 11:36 pm

I'm not off hand sure of the dates, but our son took Ritalin on a low dosage for a few years. I believe he had some minor side effects of appetite suppression (mind you he is always picky with his food) and also some trouble sleeping. I would class the side effects he suffered as minor. It does not appear that his growth has been affected (he is seventeen and nearly my - his dad's height). Rightly or wrongly we did give him Ritalin holidays at weekends and on holidays. Our son stated that the Ritalin helped him and we have recently re-started it.



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02 Sep 2011, 2:46 am

I'm not a parent, but when I personally was on it I found I really didn't eat or sleep a lot. I think it differs person to person though. Better to find out(if it works to satisfaction) early I think.

Just my opinion, and I'm just another teenager that knows everything :P


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cyberdad
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02 Sep 2011, 3:13 am

hoegaandit wrote:
I'm not off hand sure of the dates, but our son took Ritalin on a low dosage for a few years. I believe he had some minor side effects of appetite suppression (mind you he is always picky with his food) and also some trouble sleeping. I would class the side effects he suffered as minor. It does not appear that his growth has been affected (he is seventeen and nearly my - his dad's height). Rightly or wrongly we did give him Ritalin holidays at weekends and on holidays. Our son stated that the Ritalin helped him and we have recently re-started it.

Thanks for your feedback. Yes we are also trying a low dose (half a tablet) for 2-3 weeks. The pediatrician said the effects will be fairly quick. Start the first dose Saturday morning.



cyberdad
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02 Sep 2011, 3:14 am

Davuardo wrote:
I'm not a parent, but when I personally was on it I found I really didn't eat or sleep a lot.


Hope you were OK :(



Davuardo
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02 Sep 2011, 3:25 am

cyberdad wrote:
Davuardo wrote:
I'm not a parent, but when I personally was on it I found I really didn't eat or sleep a lot.


Hope you were OK :(


Oh yeah I was fine, though I kept on using it much more than the prescribed twice a day to stay up all night playing chess.

I guess what I mean to say is, mine weren't permanent. My appetite has slowly come back since I got off and I suspect the sleep problems are partly teenage.

If the side effects are sufficiently bad to outweigh the benefits, then she can go off again. I can't see a problem with testing to see if it works.


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02 Sep 2011, 4:48 am

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Annmaria
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02 Sep 2011, 5:23 am

My daughter takes Ritalin (ADD) she is 15yrs, did interfere with her sleep and appetite at the beginning but not now. No problem with growth.

Her grades improved at school from C,D to A,B and she manages herself much better. She continues to improve. Did take her off this holiday for 3 weeks she found it difficult concentration and focus.

She has the choice but feels they help her and doesn't like the idea of stopping over holidays but doctors and the drug leaflet does mention to take a break if you are using them for 1yr.


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cyberdad
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02 Sep 2011, 7:05 am

Annmaria wrote:
My daughter takes Ritalin (ADD) she is 15yrs, did interfere with her sleep and appetite at the beginning but not now. No problem with growth.

Her grades improved at school from C,D to A,B and she manages herself much better. She continues to improve. Did take her off this holiday for 3 weeks she found it difficult concentration and focus.

She has the choice but feels they help her and doesn't like the idea of stopping over holidays but doctors and the drug leaflet does mention to take a break if you are using them for 1yr.


Brilliant thanks for this good news, I feel much less anxious!



Ettina
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02 Sep 2011, 10:40 am

All of those you listed are potential side effects, but plenty of kids don't experience any of them. If they do, stopping the Ritalin reverses the effects - even with the growth suppression they'll grow faster to make up for it, which is why Ritalin holidays are recommended in case they need time for catch-up growth. (I suspect Ritalin holidays also help the kid to learn coping skills other than taking medication, as well as giving a sense of whether the medication is still needed.)

Every medication has potential side effects. You just weigh, on an individual basis, whether the benefit outweighs the cost.



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04 Sep 2011, 5:46 am

In Temple Grandin's book, Thinking in Pictures: My Life With Autism, she writes: "individuals on the lower end of the spectrum often have bad resullts with ADHD medications" (p. 148).

My son's psychiatrist warned that a potential side effect of Ritalin is anxiety, and my older son with classic autism certainly experienced that. He already had a lot of anxiety (which the psychiatrist said was to be expected in an autistic child), and the drug caused worse and longer anxiety attacks and decreased the effectiveness of his Prozac, his anti-anxiety med. (It is used for both depression and anxiety).

We ended up increasing his Prozac several times until he became overmedicated, and I just said that I wanted to cut the Ritalin and see if Prozac alone could control the anxety without Ritalin in the mix. It worked, and I was even able to reduce the Prozac level.

Several other moms in the local Autism Society with kids with classic autism have also had very poor results with Ritalin and other stimulants.

Some kids with AS do well with Ritalin, though.

When I placed my son on Ritalin, he had not yet been fully tested for learning disabilities. He later scored a 70 on the information retrieval section of an IQ test administered by the school district. (Basically, he is unable to recall much in the way of facts and information without being "cued," having his memory "jogged.") His short-term memory IQ was 86, considerably lower than his overall IQ of 98. Considering the fact that he does well at school conduct-wise, and when I went to observe him one day, he appeared to be paying attention, learning disabilities (not ADHD) appear to be the main source of my own son's problems. (100 IQ is average, and my son scored over 100 on most sections of the test, resuting in an overall score of 98).

The IQ tester from the school district told me that information retrieval issues and different performance on different sections of the IQ test were common in kids with autism.


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cyberdad
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04 Sep 2011, 6:12 am

blondeambition wrote:
In Temple Grandin's book, Thinking in Pictures: My Life With Autism, she writes: "individuals on the lower end of the spectrum often have bad resullts with ADHD medications" (p. 148).

My son's psychiatrist warned that a potential side effect of Ritalin is anxiety, and my older son with classic autism certainly experienced that. He already had a lot of anxiety (which the psychiatrist said was to be expected in an autistic child), and the drug caused worse and longer anxiety attacks and decreased the effectiveness of his Prozac, his anti-anxiety med. (It is used for both depression and anxiety).

We ended up increasing his Prozac several times until he became overmedicated, and I just said that I wanted to cut the Ritalin and see if Prozac alone could control the anxety without Ritalin in the mix. It worked, and I was even able to reduce the Prozac level.

Several other moms in the local Autism Society with kids with classic autism have also had very poor results with Ritalin and other stimulants.

Some kids with AS do well with Ritalin, though.

When I placed my son on Ritalin, he had not yet been fully tested for learning disabilities. He later scored a 70 on the information retrieval section of an IQ test administered by the school district. (Basically, he is unable to recall much in the way of facts and information without being "cued," having his memory "jogged.") His short-term memory IQ was 86, considerably lower than his overall IQ of 98. Considering the fact that he does well at school conduct-wise, and when I went to observe him one day, he appeared to be paying attention, learning disabilities (not ADHD) appear to be the main source of my own son's problems. (100 IQ is average, and my son scored over 100 on most sections of the test, resuting in an overall score of 98).

The IQ tester from the school district told me that information retrieval issues and different performance on different sections of the IQ test were common in kids with autism.


Interesting observations. Our pediatrician didn't think she needed Prozac.

My daughter's been on Ritalin for 2 days and her excessive hyperactivity and aggressive behavior has moderated. No side-effects. However I do notice when she comes off each dose (she's on 5mg at the moment 2 times a day) she has a few withdrawal symptoms. The ritalin seems to have moderated her noise issues but this spikes between doses.

We are planning to bump up the dosage to 10mg but realize we will be entering the realm of Ritalin side effects.



blondeambition
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04 Sep 2011, 6:34 am

cyberdad wrote:
blondeambition wrote:
In Temple Grandin's book, Thinking in Pictures: My Life With Autism, she writes: "individuals on the lower end of the spectrum often have bad resullts with ADHD medications" (p. 148).

My son's psychiatrist warned that a potential side effect of Ritalin is anxiety, and my older son with classic autism certainly experienced that. He already had a lot of anxiety (which the psychiatrist said was to be expected in an autistic child), and the drug caused worse and longer anxiety attacks and decreased the effectiveness of his Prozac, his anti-anxiety med. (It is used for both depression and anxiety).

We ended up increasing his Prozac several times until he became overmedicated, and I just said that I wanted to cut the Ritalin and see if Prozac alone could control the anxety without Ritalin in the mix. It worked, and I was even able to reduce the Prozac level.

Several other moms in the local Autism Society with kids with classic autism have also had very poor results with Ritalin and other stimulants.

Some kids with AS do well with Ritalin, though.

When I placed my son on Ritalin, he had not yet been fully tested for learning disabilities. He later scored a 70 on the information retrieval section of an IQ test administered by the school district. (Basically, he is unable to recall much in the way of facts and information without being "cued," having his memory "jogged.") His short-term memory IQ was 86, considerably lower than his overall IQ of 98. Considering the fact that he does well at school conduct-wise, and when I went to observe him one day, he appeared to be paying attention, learning disabilities (not ADHD) appear to be the main source of my own son's problems. (100 IQ is average, and my son scored over 100 on most sections of the test, resuting in an overall score of 98).

The IQ tester from the school district told me that information retrieval issues and different performance on different sections of the IQ test were common in kids with autism.


Interesting observations. Our pediatrician didn't think she needed Prozac.

My daughter's been on Ritalin for 2 days and her excessive hyperactivity and aggressive behavior has moderated. No side-effects. However I do notice when she comes off each dose (she's on 5mg at the moment 2 times a day) she has a few withdrawal symptoms. The ritalin seems to have moderated her noise issues but this spikes between doses.

We are planning to bump up the dosage to 10mg but realize we will be entering the realm of Ritalin side effects.


Well, I'm very glad that she is experiencing no side effect! Perhaps she does not have as much anxiety as my sons or many of the kids with cllassic autism--a very good thing. Also, if she mainly has a severe case of ADHD, milder autism symptoms, and no major cognitive issues, that will be much easier to treat and deal with than a true case of classic autism. On the other hand, with a young child with limited verbal ability, it can often take a while to figure out if a med is causing side effects or benefits.

Sometimes, there will be a placebo effect on teachers, confusing things further. If the teacher is told that the child is on Ritalin, she may see improvements that are not there. This happened with my son's kindergarten teacher.

Finally, between being on a local Autism Society Yahoo! Group with over 500 members, active in my kid's school, and being well read, I have read a lot about different drugs used to treat autism. I have never heard of using Ritalin alone for treating classic or low-functioning autism (other than when the child is initially misdiagnosed with ADHD). With kids with classic or low-functioning autism, it is commonly tried as an add-on to an SSRI anti-depressant (like Prozac or Zoloft) or to an atypical antidepressant that is FDA approved in the US for treating aggression associated with autism (Risperdone and Abilify) when the child is doing poorly in school. Unfortunately, it often produces too much anxiety in this group to be beneficial.


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joestenr
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04 Sep 2011, 1:27 pm

Side effects i can list from experince with ritalin.
Headaches, nausea, stomach discomfort, growing up being told there is something wrong with you, but thats ok you can fix it with drugs. As opposed to being taught coping skills and given meds only as a secondary therapy to help overcome the immediate symptoms so that you can function.


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04 Sep 2011, 2:37 pm

cyberdad wrote:
I'm interested to hear from parents of kids with ADHD or people with ADHD if any of the following are true;

- Ritalin is an appetite suppressant and kids stop eating
- Ritalin interferes with sleep
- Ritalin dries out the mouth and causes thirst
- Ritalin stunts growth


I have an ASD and ADHD (the combined type). Ritalin was the first ADHD medication that my doctor put me on (then long-acting Ritalin, then Dexedrine, then Adderall XR--which I still take).

The side effects you mention are true for some people, but I haven't experienced them.....That said I couldn't experience stunted growth, because I was put on Ritalin at age 21 when I had finished growing. (Medication holidays are supposed to prevent or minimize the risk of this side effect in children.)

I'm not sure how common my experience is but:

The only really pronounced side effect I had with Ritalin (the short and long acting formulations) was "rebound"--the medication would work for two hours, and then when it wore off I became twice as hyperactive as I am normally....it was horrible, I couldn't stand it.

All of the stimulant medications I've taken have had a sedating effect, rather than keeping me awake--including Ritalin. Before taking me off Ritalin altogether (because of the rebound), my doctor raised the dose and I couldn't do anything but sleep. When I tried to stay awake, I couldn't even talk to people--I couldn't get my brain to wake up.

None of the ADHD medications I've been on have suppressed my appetite--I don't think they had an effect on it either way. They did, however, improve my awareness of being hungry.

Can't say I've ever experienced dry mouth or excessive thirst either.



cyberdad
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04 Sep 2011, 10:21 pm

animalcrackers wrote:
The only really pronounced side effect I had with Ritalin (the short and long acting formulations) was "rebound"--the medication would work for two hours, and then when it wore off I became twice as hyperactive as I am normally....it was horrible, I couldn't stand it.


My daughter's current dosage seems to kick in 1 hour after taking and lasts exactly 2 hours before it wears off.