Well i am mighty confused! Has many of you are aware my son has severe ADHD, (NO this is not a thread about whether ADHD excists or not). Well I took him to see his Dr, and he has increased his medication he now takes: MORNING 2 x 40mg Strattera 2 x 5mg Equasym AFTERNOON: 2 x 5mg Equasym EVENING: 2/4 5MG Melatonin (for sleep aid) but i have been informed by his Dr that he should just take 1 x 40 Strattera, on the weekend days, I.e saturday and sunday, now these drugs are a build up drug, (which means that they need to be in the system continuosly, for them to work), when i questioned his motives he said that, "it was the way it was going to be done, and to NOT ask to many awkward questions" So what do you think his reasoning for all this is? Yes my son is underweight and has childhood diabetes but he is now eating to a certain degree, and i keep an eye on his diet because of his diabetes, so what is is reasoning for this? i am so confused! :shrug:
Strattera is one of the better drugs available now for ADHD. It's non-stimulant, so there wouldn't be any sort of withdrawal or anything if he were to forget a dose or something. Like your doctor said, it will help more the longer he is on it. That's good, because he will slowly become accustomed to the drug, rather than having his body chemistry immediately altered by it. It's also non-habit forming and doesn't have insomnia as a side-effect, which is good if he has trouble sleeping. Equasym is a stimulant, and will immediately affect him. The probable reason that he has to take it more often is that it wears off within a few hours. Perhaps once the Strattera starts working well, he can get off of the Equasym. Unlike Strattera, Equasym does have more possible harmful side-effects, like dizziness, etc. Melatonin is simply a synthetic neurohormone that aids sleep. I've taken that, and it doesn't help me sleep, but then again I'm a skeptic, so maybe that has something to do with it. Or it might just not mesh with my body chemistry. Who knows? Anyways...hope this helped. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
A good thing to do is ask your pharmacist about the meds and amounts. They should be able to give you much better advice than people here could. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
i already have they know a fair bit about the strattera but the other they dont know much about, so they told me to talk to my dr again!
How old is your son? I'm not liking your doctor telling you not to ask questions!!! Maybe consider getting a second opinion. But like Cosmic suggests, talk to the pharmacist. They usually know more than the doctor does. I work at a rehab facility, and I have seen a lot of people with ADD/ADHD severely improve with strattera. But most of them had to be on it for a good month before I started to notice a difference. Doctors tried it on me once, and it didn't do shit for my ADD. All it did was make me really tired, and spontaneously ejaculate! Yeah, weird huh. Doc said he never heard of a side effect like that. But I have seen it help a lot of people. Ultimately though, I suggest people try to avoid putting their kids on meds for ADD/ADHD. and if they have to, then to put them on the lowest dose possible. Just enough to take the edge off, and then have the child learn about his/her disorder and learn some coping mechanisms. Often children with ADD/ADHD grow up to be drug addicts. Largely because they are trying to medicate their problem away. Many street drugs are very helpful to someone with ADD/ADHD. And they were so used to just being given drugs for their problem as a child that this instills the idea in their head that they NEED drugs for their problems. Sorry, I can go on and on about this, cause I have been there. I have ADD, have been a drug addict, and have tried medications for ADD, and work with teenage boys who are drug addicts who have been on ADD meds. Feel free to send me a PM with any questions.
LA, you should never listen to medical advice from internet forums. If you’re confused about medications then contact your doctor. If his/her answers don’t satisfy you then get a second opinion from another doctor. I know this represents a lot of effort and bother but please remember that internet forums are chock-full of crackpots who have no idea what they’re talking about and happily dispense potentially dangerous ‘medical’ advice based on their own fantasy-land notions and anecdotal experience. SciForums is certainly no exception.
LA, i agree with Hercules Rockefeller. Ring the goverment infomation line, read the infomation that comes with the medication, conact the UK version of the TGA or if your son is seeing both a psycritrist and a GP ask the other doctor what his opinion is.
If he really said that and you're not exaggerating and he wasn't joking or just having a bad day, you need a new doctor. That's terribly unprofessional behavior in the 21st century. I've got a college education and my own copy of the PDR. I don't expect doctors to talk down to me.
Its amazing how many doctors forget that they are our employee. If a doctor ever talked to me like that, I would take my money elsewhere. Why pay someone to treat you like crap?
Indeed. We pay the entire government workforce to treat us like crap. We don't need it from our doctors. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
that is a crappy excuse, im sure if your house was burning down and a 000 asked if you could pay your fire rescue bill before they sent out a fire truck that would make you being a libatarian happy
Where we live (at home in California, not here in the People's Republic of Maryland) is a semi-rural area and we have a volunteer fire department. It's not run by the government. Besides, even if you're talking about the more typical municipal fire department, you've picked the one government agency that generally does a good job and does it efficiently. I know things are different in Australia--or at least you continually assure us that your brand of authoritarian socialism is working better than ours--but I betcha can't think of a second American government agency that earns its keep. Don't even think about nominating the damn cops, who are still "the pigs" for us unrepentant hippies. Just in the Washington region alone in the past three years they have killed five people for no good reason and gotten away with it. We'd be safer paying protection money to the Mafia, and undoubtedly far cheaper.
LA, I'd advise you to get a second opinion from another doctor. I also agree with Hercules Rockefeller, in that an internet forum is the last place you should be seeking this kind of advice.
Fraggle Rocker i picked it on purpose (BTW even the volentieer fire service get paid by the goverment, they need equiptment, the 000 service and chain of command organisation ect) The fire service is a SOCIALISED invention and the US seems quite happy to have it even though socalised med is seen as evil. BTW i could have used the ambulance service as well
