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Introduction | Rule #16 | Medication Treatment
Medication Treatment
- Q: My son has been diagnosed with AD/HD. His doctor tried him on Concerta. There was a moderate benefit, but he got headaches in the middle of the afternoon. Will the same thing happen if we try Adderall?
- A: The occurrence of an adverse effect on one stimulant doesn’t necessarily mean it will occur on another stimulant. It is standard practice to try a medication trial of a different stimulant even though there is still some risk for the same side effect.
- Q: My twelve-year-old son has been doing well on Concerta for three years with no adverse effects. How long does he need to be on the medication?
- A: The answer to this question will depend on your son’s specific circumstances. There is no standard time frame for how long someone needs to stay on the medication. To best answer this question, there are several critical aspects that need to be assessed.
- The first aspect is the existence of any adverse effects. In this case, there do not appear to be any adverse effects, so there is no urgent to reason to stop the medication. If there were adverse effects, then, in discussion with your child’s physician, you would have to evaluate the current benefit of the medication versus the current adverse effects. The benefit would have to outweigh the adverse effects to be worthwhile.
- A second aspect is how well your child has learned other strategies and skills to compensate for his difficulties. Every child is unique and has differing amounts of struggles secondary to their AD/HD symptoms. The extent of the skills that your son has learned to compensate for these symptoms needs to be taken into account in this decision.
- A third aspect to bear in mind is that it is imperative to constantly re-evaluate the need for the medication. Sometimes there is a benefit to doing a trial off the medication. The only true trial will be during the school year since you will get a much more accurate picture of how well things go off the medication. Based on how well your child does off the medication, you can get an accurate picture of how things will be when you stop the medication.
- There are numerous instances when many children and teenagers continue to need medication treatment into adulthood, but this is something that needs to be continually reevaluated.
