ADHD/ Ritalin

[bubble_dreamer]

Not going to go into full details of what Kurt is like coz i would be here forever!
3 weeks ago he was diagnosed with ADHD by a paediatrician this has been an ongoing thing since he was 18months old but he has progressivly got worse to the extent that he is hiding sharp kitchen knives in his bedroom, hanging out the windows (i live in a 15th floor flat ) physically hurting himself, bethany and me.
They want to put him on ritalin i have heard a lot of bad stuff about ritalin and im not sure whether its a good idea or not

Does anyone have any opinions on it? what would you do if you were in the situation? is there anybody that has been in the situation?

any advice would be really appreciated

 

[mary70]

i have worked with children on ritalin and it does carm them down but there is alot of side affects and health inplacation which i would really look into my own personal oppinion is i would not use it

 

[chezzabell]

Hi hun

I have worked for the past 11 years with childrean and adults with behaviour problems iam not going to pretend that i know everything either hun, but i have to say that in my expreince give the medication a try it will work, it will get worse before it gets better but it should help him out in the long term. It also sounds like u may need some more help than just a doctor cos if he is hurting himself that doesnt sound good thats why something needs to happen sooner rather than later, iam not saying he will harm himself at all hun but u wanna try and nip it in the bud so to speak before his behaviour gets worse.

Not sure if i have helped hope i have

 

[bubble_dreamer]

thanks sophie i will pm you in a mo and explain it a bit better dont really want to put the full details on here tbh

thanks mary that was always my opinion aswell but now that im faced with the problem where it seems to be the main option they are giving me i have had to think about it a bit more still very confused though

 

[chezzabell]

Np hun

Just hoped i have helped a little

it will get better

 

[bubble_dreamer]

i hope so i really do

 

[Kim]

Hi

My stepson was dignosed with ADHD and was put on Ritalin. It was a hard decision to make but we were at our wits end and didn't know where else to turn. I must say it's the best thing that we ever did. The improvement was amazing, and now you would never tell he had it. He went onto the tablets at around 8 or 9 years old and came off them recently, he has just turned 11. He is in no way perfect now, but he is so much better and no longer needs the tablets.

What I would suggest if you decide against them is to try fish oil tablets, we use eye q tablets now on him. I wish I knew about this before as we would have given it a go but they supposedly calm down the symptoms of ADHD plus a whole load of other benefits for the child. I am putting Rubie onto the babies ones too.

Please PM if you would like to discuss it in more detail as like you, I don't want to put too much on here.

 

[bubble_dreamer]

thanks kim

have tried the fish oils and saw a little improvment but not a great deal tbh he is still taking them now.

i will pm you in a bit have rubie on my lap having a bottle at the mo and bethany attached to my leg

 

[Minime]

Hats off to you girls! My mates son has adhd and I watched him once whilst she nipped the shop for 10 minutes and was frazzled!!! In that time he dragged the hamster cage off the wardobe (she'd had to put it there out of his way) then charged straight into his room, bounced on the bed and dived at the window which was open. I caught him by his feet

If he was interested in say a car it was like he had blinkers on and wouldnt hear you until he'd seen what he wanted to see. He did respond quite well to one to one on the PC doing maths puzzles, he was a very bright lad but then he'd be off to go and upset his sister some more.

It is really hard work looking after a child with adhd and my mate had a battle to be taken seriously about his behaviour, accusations of bad parenting and whatnot. Her other 2 kids were NOTHING like him so that kinda blew that "theory" out of the water.

Good luck and I hope you make the right choice

 

[tracyM]

Callum was on ritalin for a year a couple of years ago - it was a godsend - gave us chance to get back on track. He was a complete zombie when he first went on it - all his good traits disappeared and we were left with the bad traits, albeit diluted. After about 3 months he started becoming a bit more 'normal'. He was becoming dangerous before he went on it - spiderman out of the window, obsessing with knives, he had no sense of pain or danger - he used to find drawing pins and stick them in his feet so he could have 'clunky' feet.

He's no angel now - he causes us as much stress as the other 3 put together, but if we manage his autism, dyspraxia and OCD effectively, the ADHD rarely rears it's head - ritalin gave us the chance we needed to handle his other problems. Now he's off it, we're extremely careful with his diet, and we make sure he's challenged mentally from the minute he wakes up - hard work, but it's paying dividends.

If you can handle the 'zombie' stage when he first goes on it (it's heart breaking) stick with it

 

[chezzabell]

Minine wrote

It is really hard work looking after a child with adhd and my mate had a battle to be taken seriously about his behaviour, accusations of bad parenting and whatnot.


Your poor mate, why do people say that about it being bad parenting that really really annoys me

Some people who the hell do they think they are, these people wanna try living with children/adults who have these problems and see how they cope!!!


Some people wouldnt last 5 mins supporting people with problems at all

 

[bubble_dreamer]

It is really hard work looking after a child with adhd and my mate had a battle to be taken seriously about his behaviour, accusations of bad parenting and whatnot. Her other 2 kids were NOTHING like him so that kinda blew that "theory" out of the water.

That sounds sooooo familiar! I have been telling them there was something wrong since he was 18months old and nobody would take me seriously at all. Infact it has only been recently (say the past 6weeks) that they have taken notice. I had all the its you its the way you have bought him up its down to your parenting skills blah blah blah
and tbh it all just makes you feel 10 times worse about the whole situation and it makes you feel like you cant ask for help with the situation - i dread to think how many people are sat out there struggling to deal with this on there own because nobody listened and they were made to feel like it was there fault - i know i came close to stopping as it was emotionally draining

He was becoming dangerous before he went on it - spiderman out of the window, obsessing with knives, he had no sense of pain or danger - he used to find drawing pins and stick them in his feet so he could have 'clunky' feet.

that sounds so familiar tracy it really does thank you so much for sharing yours and your sons experience with ritalin it definatly gives you more perspective when you know both the ups and downs of it.

 

[Kim]

How old is your son??

 

[bubble_dreamer]

he was 6 in june

 

[Lgibson2370]

I had to join in on this een though my son is only 5. so techinically this is not my group. Alot of the problems that you are describing sound as if it could be Severe emotional behaviour disorder and slight autism. Here is the usa ADHA is overly diagnosed. one of the biggest signs that your child has been misdiagnosed is if the medication that they are given to calm them does the opposite. MY son has these disorders. even benadryl makes him hyper instead of putting him to sleep. I would be glad to speak to anyone who is intrested in learning about my challenges with my son. We had him diagnost at an early age cause it was really bad. Also, i would definatly recommend medication to manage problems but don't always stick to the first one, it is a trial and error thing. since they don't normally so their tessting on children. We went through 5 anti-psycotics till we found the right one. Always trust your instinct. cause you are the mother and you know more about your own child than anyone else. Hope that helps.

 

[*saulino*]

Hi

My brother and my cousin were both adhd when they were growing up it runs in my family mostly on the boys side.
But i wouldnt recommend it but probably cuz of my own experience of watching them on it
It helped them a little bit but not much and tehyt were bone racks had no appetite at all and everytime my dad were to take him in they uped the doses my dad and my aunt eventually decided to stop them on it and they gained there weight back straight away and were much better off them then on .
But form what ive read on here there are cases where it has worked just wanted to let you know that lose of appetite is one of the possible side affects .
Katrina