Well, Cayden is finally on summer break, and excited to say the least. He is a typical 8 year old boy who moans and groans about going to school. This was our first year on medication for his ADHD and I was pleasantly surprised at the amount of good days vs bad days we had. We finally have him on a medication regime that seems to be working, and that definitely contributed to the good vs. bad.
I am also a proud momma....not only has he adjusted very well to a new ADHD diagnosis, new medications, new school, new kids, new teacher,\ he has also earned the "Cool Kid Award" in his class twice - once at the beginning of the year and once just this past April. The class votes on this and then each student writes a compliment on a post it and hands it in (anonymously of course lol). He has received so many nice compliments that it is almost overwhelming. He also made Honor Roll every single 9 weeks this year, earning straight A's for his final grades; except handwriting which he was given a U in (Unsatisfactory). But he's a boy that thinks way faster than he can write, so what does the teacher expect? Anyways, I'm totally ok with that, maybe he will become a doctor....
Since we got straight A's, I told him he could pick some colors to dye his "Faux-Hawk". We used Manic Panic temporary colors and put a few in, they should wash out within a month. He already has light blonde hair, so no bleaching is required and it won't damage his hair because it's a natural temporary dye. He is so pumped by such a little thing and that makes me so happy. It is his reward for the Straight A's
Dealing with ADHD has definitely been a struggle for our family. We yell, scream, argue, probably more so than other families. We just take it one day at a time. If we have a bad day, I put him to bed and tell him it is ok - we can start again tomorrow and have a clean slate. When we wake up, I tell him it's going to be a good day, the past is the past. We try to set some short term goals for attitude, listening, following directions etc. and assign rewards for what we can complete. I use the word We to describe our days, because it's not just his bad day, we all have one and it's not necessarily because of his actions/words/tone/attitude etc. I have noticed that if hubs has a bad day at work or I have a bad day at the hospital, he picks up on it and it kind of takes him over as well. It's something we all have to work on and will do it together.
I have instituted a few different reward/consequence programs over the past year to try to help out with our behavior issues, some have worked and some haven't. The one we are sticking to is the token program. We have a set of poker chips and we made a list together of all of his responsibilities. We assigned token values to each one and also made a list of "rewards" he can cash his tokens in for. It ranges from 5 tokens for an hour of video games to 20 tokens to pick a night out for dinner and choose the restaurant, to 50 for a new video game. This seems to work out well and also teaches him the principle of saving. We tried a chart with stickers for completion of tasks and rewards for getting a full weeks worth of stars, but it isn't something tangible that he can keep with him and see and feel in his hand.
Since we are entering summer months and focus isn't really needed, I might discuss a small drug holiday for him to cleanse his system and see how he is doing without medication. I feel like summer break might be a good time to try some natural fixes like no food dye, no sugar or artificial flavors, and see if this has any impact on his focus and impulsiveness.
I think that is all for now, everyone is in bed and I think I am heading that way too.
Showing posts with label ADHD. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ADHD. Show all posts
Thursday, June 5, 2014
Friday, March 14, 2014
Lets talk ADHD......
We were diagnosed almost a whole year ago. I say we because this disorder doesn't just affect my son, but the whole family. Cay will be 8 in 11 days. Lets start from the beginning.....
From the time we started our first year of preschool (maybe even before then) I knew we would most likely end up with this diagnosis. At every check up with the pediatrician, I would tell her that he was a spitfire with an endless supply of energy. Doctor would say "he's just being a typical boy." He stopped taking naps at about 2 years old and literally would run around in circles at time, from sun up to sun down he was just always full of activity.
Cay started preschool at 3 years old, it was a half day program and he attended in the afternoon. We would drop him off and the school would bus him home with the rest of the elementary kids. About a month in, the bus driver informed us that Cay was not allowed to ride the bus any more because he could not sit still and was constantly up and down and even under the seats at times. At our first parent teacher conference, the teacher spoke about how he just didn't act like other kids. During "Mat" time where all of the children sit on a mat and listen to a story or a lesson, Cay would be crawling around under desks or trying to talk to other kids or interrupting the teacher. At home, we noticed the same type of behaviors. He would constantly interrupt adults when they were speaking, wouldn't sit down at the dinner table to eat but instead take a bite then get up and walk around or crawl under the table. I again brought all of this up with Doctor at his next check up and she again said he is "just a typical boy." We had these same issues in our second year of half day preschool (except a new bus driver actually allowed him on the bus), kindergarten and first grade.
Once Cay got to first grade, his grades started to drop and his attention span (what little he had left), just disappeared. We were pretty much on a first name basis with the teacher. At the beginning of the school year, she said she would try a few different things to help get him focused. She put his desk right next to hers, tried to put him in groups with kids that were calm, anything to help him try to focus. It was heartbreaking to hear that kids just didn't want to be around him because he was so distracting and would get them in trouble along with himself. We even took a couple trips to the emergency room because of his inability to sit still. Twice, he was under his desk for some reason and cut above his eye. Luckily they were able to use glue both times. Once we got to the end of the school year, the teacher told us to seek some kind of help. I contacted the pediatrician and got an appointment.
At the appointment, Doctor asked some questions. She asked about grades (his had dropped), behaviors (I brought all of our notes and emails from our teacher), injuries (gave a rundown of the er visits and had her take a look at his legs, which looked liked he was abused - they were bruised and scraped up and down both legs), and finally agreed that this was not "typical boy behavior." She said that they usually don't try to even start the diagnosing process until the child is at least 7 years old and has shown some drop in grades. I was relieved that someone finally realized what we were dealing with but also scared because I didn't want to put my child on medication. She referred us to a therapist and we made an appointment for the following week.
Our first appointment with the therapist was surreal. At the beginning of the hour long appointment, she handed us questionnaires to fill out. One was for us and one was for the teacher, we would take these home and fill them out then bring them back to her for evaluation. After she evaluated the forms, she would call our pediatrician and discuss the results with her. She spoke to us about the disorder, what we could expect from the visits, and medication/treatment options. She somewhat alleviated my fears of the medications - that Cay would get addicted, or would become a zombie, or would have problems later in life from it. Here's the best part - at the end of the appointment, she told us that we could take the questionnaires home but that she could call the doctor and set up another appointment with her because she could basically diagnose him based on his behavior at this visit. FINALLY - someone understood what we were going through! We called the doctor a few days later and set up an appointment to start the medications.
Our very first medication was Vyvanse at 20 mg (lowest dose). We were on that for a month and decided that it wasn't really working. It was a once a day pill and it took the edge off of his hyperness, but didn't make that much of a difference. Doctor upped it to 30 mg and that was better, but then he wasn't sleeping. So we got a pill for that at the next appointment along with a pill to increase his appetite because he lost weight. After a few months, he got "used" to the 30 mg dose, so we switched to a completely different medication - Concerta. We started on the lower dose, it wasn't really lasting all day so we combined it with a Ritalin "booster" at lunch time. This was keeping him up at night despite the sleeping pill so we upped the Concerta to a higher dose and d/c'd the Ritalin. That was working great until about homework time, so we added Straterra in the afternoon, right when he got home from school. This was also causing sleeping problems, so we had the sleeping pill upped to add an extra half dose at night. This is our 3rd month on this combo of medications: Concerta 27mg and Periactin 4mg (appetite pill) in the morning; Straterra 10mg in the afternoon; Clonidine 0.15 mg at bedtime.
Yes, this seems like a lot of medications for an (almost) 8 year old. I am hoping that we can stop taking the Periactin soon, we haven't lost any weight in the last few visits. That does still leave 3, but I am hoping that we can work with the therapist on some different techniques to help control his impulsiveness and attention span which can help us with maybe lowering doses or eliminating the Straterra in the afternoon.
Thanks for reading our story, I know it is a long one! If you have any questions, suggestions, comments, or are going through this same thing - please leave a comment!!!
I hope to continue to update this blog with our progress and setbacks.
From the time we started our first year of preschool (maybe even before then) I knew we would most likely end up with this diagnosis. At every check up with the pediatrician, I would tell her that he was a spitfire with an endless supply of energy. Doctor would say "he's just being a typical boy." He stopped taking naps at about 2 years old and literally would run around in circles at time, from sun up to sun down he was just always full of activity.
Cay started preschool at 3 years old, it was a half day program and he attended in the afternoon. We would drop him off and the school would bus him home with the rest of the elementary kids. About a month in, the bus driver informed us that Cay was not allowed to ride the bus any more because he could not sit still and was constantly up and down and even under the seats at times. At our first parent teacher conference, the teacher spoke about how he just didn't act like other kids. During "Mat" time where all of the children sit on a mat and listen to a story or a lesson, Cay would be crawling around under desks or trying to talk to other kids or interrupting the teacher. At home, we noticed the same type of behaviors. He would constantly interrupt adults when they were speaking, wouldn't sit down at the dinner table to eat but instead take a bite then get up and walk around or crawl under the table. I again brought all of this up with Doctor at his next check up and she again said he is "just a typical boy." We had these same issues in our second year of half day preschool (except a new bus driver actually allowed him on the bus), kindergarten and first grade.
Once Cay got to first grade, his grades started to drop and his attention span (what little he had left), just disappeared. We were pretty much on a first name basis with the teacher. At the beginning of the school year, she said she would try a few different things to help get him focused. She put his desk right next to hers, tried to put him in groups with kids that were calm, anything to help him try to focus. It was heartbreaking to hear that kids just didn't want to be around him because he was so distracting and would get them in trouble along with himself. We even took a couple trips to the emergency room because of his inability to sit still. Twice, he was under his desk for some reason and cut above his eye. Luckily they were able to use glue both times. Once we got to the end of the school year, the teacher told us to seek some kind of help. I contacted the pediatrician and got an appointment.
At the appointment, Doctor asked some questions. She asked about grades (his had dropped), behaviors (I brought all of our notes and emails from our teacher), injuries (gave a rundown of the er visits and had her take a look at his legs, which looked liked he was abused - they were bruised and scraped up and down both legs), and finally agreed that this was not "typical boy behavior." She said that they usually don't try to even start the diagnosing process until the child is at least 7 years old and has shown some drop in grades. I was relieved that someone finally realized what we were dealing with but also scared because I didn't want to put my child on medication. She referred us to a therapist and we made an appointment for the following week.
Our first appointment with the therapist was surreal. At the beginning of the hour long appointment, she handed us questionnaires to fill out. One was for us and one was for the teacher, we would take these home and fill them out then bring them back to her for evaluation. After she evaluated the forms, she would call our pediatrician and discuss the results with her. She spoke to us about the disorder, what we could expect from the visits, and medication/treatment options. She somewhat alleviated my fears of the medications - that Cay would get addicted, or would become a zombie, or would have problems later in life from it. Here's the best part - at the end of the appointment, she told us that we could take the questionnaires home but that she could call the doctor and set up another appointment with her because she could basically diagnose him based on his behavior at this visit. FINALLY - someone understood what we were going through! We called the doctor a few days later and set up an appointment to start the medications.
Our very first medication was Vyvanse at 20 mg (lowest dose). We were on that for a month and decided that it wasn't really working. It was a once a day pill and it took the edge off of his hyperness, but didn't make that much of a difference. Doctor upped it to 30 mg and that was better, but then he wasn't sleeping. So we got a pill for that at the next appointment along with a pill to increase his appetite because he lost weight. After a few months, he got "used" to the 30 mg dose, so we switched to a completely different medication - Concerta. We started on the lower dose, it wasn't really lasting all day so we combined it with a Ritalin "booster" at lunch time. This was keeping him up at night despite the sleeping pill so we upped the Concerta to a higher dose and d/c'd the Ritalin. That was working great until about homework time, so we added Straterra in the afternoon, right when he got home from school. This was also causing sleeping problems, so we had the sleeping pill upped to add an extra half dose at night. This is our 3rd month on this combo of medications: Concerta 27mg and Periactin 4mg (appetite pill) in the morning; Straterra 10mg in the afternoon; Clonidine 0.15 mg at bedtime.
Yes, this seems like a lot of medications for an (almost) 8 year old. I am hoping that we can stop taking the Periactin soon, we haven't lost any weight in the last few visits. That does still leave 3, but I am hoping that we can work with the therapist on some different techniques to help control his impulsiveness and attention span which can help us with maybe lowering doses or eliminating the Straterra in the afternoon.
Thanks for reading our story, I know it is a long one! If you have any questions, suggestions, comments, or are going through this same thing - please leave a comment!!!
I hope to continue to update this blog with our progress and setbacks.
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