Hailey has never complained about taking her medication. I am proud of that. She’s really great at taking life as it comes. I could really learn from her. I get very overwhelmed when it comes to her medication, partly because, I was always an anti-medication for kids type person. Now that I have an ADHD Child with multiple other health issues, my attitude has changed a bit. I still hate all of the experiments with meds. You know, “let’s try this and see how it works”. It makes me cringe.
When we first put Hailey on ADHD medication they wanted to try Ritalin. I refused because I had this gut feeling that it was all wrong for her. After a lot of arguing and begging for something different (long and horrible story) we gave it a try. I was right! Hailey barely slept for four days. Her behavior was off the chain. We then began seeing an actual psychiatrist. He put her on Straterra 10mg as well as Rhisperdal. This combination seemed to do wonders for her. She was a different kid. I could not be happier with that decision.
During that time of her thinking more clearly we were able to work through a lot of her abuse and abandonment issues. (We had not adopted her yet) This past summer we did see a slight decline in her behaviors. I felt as though the meds had completely stopped working. I wouldn’t say that we were back at the beginning because we had worked through so emotions, but she had no impulse control, and could not focus. Her Dr. did not want to try different medication, but just upped the dose of what she was on. This helped some but I still did not feel that it helped enough. The Dr. wanted to wait and see how school went.
School was going fine (we home school) and then that dreaded day happened. It was mid September and we were doing school and Hailey past out. It appeared to me that Hailey was having a seizure. After an EEG, and a few MRI’s we discovered Chiari 1 Malformation and Syringomyelia. We are still working all of that out, but since that time Hailey had another decline in focus and impulse control.
Her Dr. did not want to change her ADHD Medication until we knew more about CM. I respect that. He did up her dose which I don’t feel has done anything. In Dec. Hailey began to have headaches, back aches and neck pain. We went to another NS and he said it was Migraines. (another post another time lol) As a result of his DX her Ped. Put her on a strong antihistamine. While this did help some with the headaches, it has caused other problems.
That brings me to my frustration with Medication. Sorry for the rabbit trail. Her headache medication caused her to become very emotional and unreasonable. I called and talked with the Ped. About this and he said that this was a normal reaction because it makes her tiered. He also said that since her headaches were not completely gone we could up the medication to Three times a day. All of this seems counterproductive to what we are trying to accomplish with her ADHD medication. I have since taken her off of the headache medication to see how that went and other than the returned headaches she has been better. I’m so frustrated about the trial and error process and that it seems that the Dr.’s don’t want to listen to me about her symptoms. It is also frustrating that it seems like they just keep putting her on medication with no consideration of what she is already on. Here is her current list of meds:
* Strattera 25mg (ADHD)
* Risperdal 0.5mg twice daily. (Mood and ADHD)
* Melatonin 5mg (Sleep aid)
* Miralax (Bowl problems)
*Cyproheptadine 4mg three times a day (She is not currently taking this. I just don’t give it anymore)
There has got to be a better way!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
