Help! Anyone need some Concerta?

Post Reply New Topic

My son has recently been prescribed a doubled dose of Concerta (36mg) and this doubled the size of the pill!! He has a super sensitive gag reflex anyway, so this is not a good situation. He got the 18mg pills down with some pudding with no problems, but this morning (after him being able to get down the pill the past 2 days fine) could NOT get it down and it was so frustrating!! I just threw away a $5 pill! I paid $150 for that bottle, and now I don't know what I'm going to do. I called his Dr back to see if we can get 18mg back, but take 2 pills instead - BUT, how much is that going to be?? 60 18mg pills!!??! ! I am so stressed out, I don't know what to do. I don't think there are many people out there who can just 'eat' a $150 bottle of pills. Does anyone know if the pharmacy would take them back? Wouldn't that be nice? ACK! I don't know what to do!

I'm sure the pharmacy can arrange something, maybe exchange them 2 18mg for each 36... ?

I would not recommand that you sell them since it's a controlled substance and you could be arrested for traffic Check with your local laws.

Also don't try to cut the pills in halfs, they are "slow release". Breaking them IS dangerous because the peak blood concentration gets way too high too fast!

personnal comment: This drug does wonder for me, beeing on it since april. we upped the dose up to 54mg but it was a bit too much (one side effect for me is stress...), now on the 36 and will stay there for a looooong while.

Good luck!

I think you need to contact both the doc & the pharmacy.....let them know that your son is having trouble injesting the pills- ask for the dose to be replaced with 2 half doses if possible

Maybe he could practice swallowing M&M's and other pill-like candy.Maybe the pharmacy can also coat the pills with something like M&M shells.(There is something about making medicine taste better for children.)

Where I am, the pills cost the same no matter what the dose is so 4x18mgs would be twice s much as 2x36mgs, and pharmacy doesn't take returns because they could be counterfeit or tainted.

Also, the 2x36 Concerta prescription is a special case that might be covered by a drug plan even if other ones are not, because it is used to treat a specific condition that requires one or two doses per day as needed. In all other cases, Concerta is usually taken strictly once a day, and as I mentioned, all the pills usually cost the same regardless of dose. This paragraph is relevant in the USA.

Well, I'm not trying to sell it. I do know better. Wish I could though! I am going to be contacting the manufacturer to see if there is anything I can do.

Can you tell me, if Aspergers Syndrome is the case, what medication you are giving/taking for it? What have you tried in the past?

THANKS!!

I've tried every single ADHD drug on the market. Didn't work. What weight is he? I went up to the max dose with concerta XL 100mg I think it was.

Let me warn that even if these drug work you got something like 10 years max if that before they wear off. There hasn't show to be any long term benefits to taking methanphenalate which is in concerta and ritalin.

He is 7 years old and 48lbs. He's little. I am thinking about asking for Zoloft for him. It is somewhat mild, and a whole hell of a lot cheaper! Anyone else on Zoloft??

I take Zoloft but not for AS or concentration. I started on it when I had postpartum depression, and I've never been able to wean myself off of it.

Which is the major issue: once you start, you're stuck. It makes me very easy going, and causes me to sleep quite a lot, but I'm not sure those things are all that great. It was necessary at the time I started it, but I would like to have my normal waking hours back. I could get so much more done. It's not an end all to anything; it just chases the terrible demons away (if you have them) and keeps you from stressing over every little thing (which can be managed for most people in other ways).

I honeslty consider medication a LAST resort, LAST resort for kids. The number one thing that helps them is finding the triggers and modifying the environment to suit their needs. This CAN be done for kids. It cannot always be done for adults with mortgages, kids to care for, and obligations, but it CAN be done for kids. It took a lot of patience, time and insight, but we've been very successful with that road for my son. If at all possible, save the medications for adulthood, when the choices are limited and the child can make the choice for himself. Medication should be used when you are fearful for safety, but not to get better school results, just my personal opinion. These things are very difficult to discontinue.

I was on sertraline hydrochloride (zoloft/lustral) a while back before I was diagnosed I didn't find it particularly helpful but had no problem coming straight of it. Then again I have never reacted typically to drugs.

Conserta is stupidly expensive. I had to get it privately before I could get an NHS prescription. Dexedrine is pretty cheap in comparison. It is a lot simpler, been around for ages and doesn't have ridiculous evergreening of patents. Having said that the expense of conserta is not justified at all. Major drug companies rarely do the initial research nowadays, and rarely pass much of this money on to those that do. They owe most of their success to the great binge and yes doctors of the 50s and 60s. They have the money to buy up patents till kingdom come.

Price shouldn’t be the deciding factor, but often is. I was on Aricept. That stuff is stupidly expensive. If you look a Huperzine A that is cheap but at the cutting edge, much better than the crude synthasised Aricept, even thought he mechanism of action is the same.

That is the thing the same applies to adults. Many people can probably get by without the drugs. However those on the extreme end, like myself, the drugs never work in the first place. So really there is a question over whether these medications are justified. Personally I don’t mind being a guinea pig, but many people don’t know what there are getting into. They don’t know that they are the ones that make or break these drugs.

I should also point out that I believe Zoloft, as with all anti-depressents, is NOT approved for use by children. There have been some very scary results with the use of this category of drugs in children, and several warnings have been issued to this effect. Always ask a ton of hard questions when trying a drug for off-label use, which is what using Zoloft (a) in a child and (b) for AHD or AS would be.

I honeslty consider medication a LAST resort, LAST resort for kids.

I do agree, and maybe I did jump to medicine too quickly, but when there are so many little things that you just can't figure out how to remedy, medicine always comes up. I am no longer giving him the Concerta (mainly b/c he can't get the pill down!!), and so far so good. No bad rebound effect. I have not heard back from his doctor yet, and I'm not sure what I'm going to tell her.

Here is a thought, however... what do you think about St. John's Wort? It's supposed to have an 'herbal' action to compare to Zoloft. I have taken it myself at times with no bad side effects.... Well, it is a big pill though. ?!?!?!?!

I haven't tried that one, either, but I do believe others here have. You may also be able to google it for results with children.

I think making these decisions is so difficult, and I may have been different for my child if I hadn't grab a drug lifeline first for myself, and became too aware of the downsides. It is really difficult to see it all when things appear to be in a desperate state, I know that, I've been there. I mostly worry that with the hectic schedules they have that doctors, and possibly believing parents aren't going to be patient for slower results and methods, are too quick to hand out prescriptions.

Have you tried elmininating either gluten or diary (cassien)? Some AS have found that cutting out certain foods clears their thinking. In essence, a food allergy (if your child has one, as a relatively high percentage of AS seem to) can cause side effects in the brain. Common ones to look at are gluten, casien, and soy. You should NOT have to go the whole route with all of them; most AS seem to be able to identify one as a problem for them (if they have food reactions at all). The good thing about our kids is that they can report for themselves how they feel and how they have been affected.

Also look carefully at lifestyle. One reason AS may not have been prevelant 100 years ago was simply because it hid more easily in a more quiet, less stimulating life. Imagine your child on a farm, either homeschooled or at school with less than a dozen kids, walking to school through meadows, never encountering a TV set ... I believe my son would have been so at peace. And he would have observed all the details of nature and its creatures, lol. But in our crazy world, there simply is so much going on, so much to excite but also to trip into sensory overload. When we calm all that down and simplify, I honestly believe our kids do so much better. It's a really good place to start, anyway.

I totally believe that lifestyle plays an important role. We are both working parents, and I have noticed a difference in Carson since I've been working, but what can ya do these days? Both parents have to work in order to make a living. I only work part time (which is 2 12hr night shifts), so that helps. He's mostly asleep during my shift.

Also, dairy is a big part of his diet! He loves his chocolate milk. Also, I give him Pediasure shakes to compensate for his crappy diet. I do have a friend who's son has Autism, and they are true believers in the diet thing. I'll look into it more.

Just FYI, very UNscientific, just my impression from reading boards, I think the diet element that the most AS find it helpful to remove is gluten. Second most common is the casien/diary. A smaller percent remove both. Soy is easy to avoid if you aren't removing diary so I really don't know how many go that route (I think the problem with soy is that it naturally chelates a mineral that the brain needs to function properly).

The work schedule change probably is affecting your son, but I understand what you are saying about "what can we do?" It's a constant struggle for us, as well. Sometimes it's just time, the child needs time to adjust. Sometimes it's a little more. We all do the best we can. Stay tuned in, keep re-evaluating your options, stay as flexible as possible. Life as a parent is all consuming, it's just the way it is.