New to this site. Son recently diagnosed with ADHD, started him on Adderal 10mg and now he is on 15mg, he is acting out.

[sethandsusan]

Hello all,

Our son, who just turned 9 years old, was recently diagnosed with ADHD. He is now taking Adderal 15mg (increased from starting does of 10mg). He has always had anger issues but he would mainly be mad at himself. Recently he started hitting other kids at school and aftercare when they annoy him, etc. At home, he acts like he understands when I tell him he cannot hit other people and he gets upset with his punishments (early bedtime, no computer time, etc.) but he still continues this aggressive behavior at school. Has anyone else notice an increase in aggressive behavior with their child taking adderal?

He is currently attending a charter school with 20+ students in a very small classroom but we need a school that has a smaller class size, a gifted program (he is in 3rd grade and testing at a 7th/8th grade Math and Reading level) and offers anger management/self control classes. We live in South Florida and I am not even sure if a school like this exist, does anyone have any information? We are also in the progress of getting him tested for Aspergers.

HELP! I don't know what to do.

Thank you for in advance for any information you can give me.

- SethandSusan

[Tifftuck84]

Me and my 9yr old son Cam'ron is having the same issues. He was diagnosed with ADHD, Bipolar and suffers from aggression when he was 5. Tuesday I'm scheduled to attend a hearing which they will kick him out of his current school and make him attend a charter school. The medication he currently is taking is Strattera and Risperidone but will soon be taking off of the Risperidone because its decreasing his white blood cells. I've been going through this trail and error with him since he was diagnosed at 5. The aggression is increasing and i don't know what to do. But his phycologist has never mentioned Adderal as a medication option for us.

[toyldc]

Hi my 8 year old son has been on Adderall 15 mg for a year now. He's been diagnosed with ADHD for two years. He was first on Concerta for about a year. When he started to get real aggressive and hit on kids almost everyday for two weeks we switched pills to Adderall. He also goes to a really great school who didn't want to give up on him and who wanted to help as much as they could.

He also was seeing a therapist twice a month and was in an outpatient group therapy center for 6 weeks. After that we saw a huge change in him. When he gets frustrated with kids or teased in school, he still will hit but it's now only a handful of times in a year instead of almost everyday like it use to be over a year ago.

So I will suggest finding a outpatient group therapy program for him at a hospital, get a therapist, and you may need to switch pills because it doesn't seem like that one is working for him. It's a lot of pills to choose from so it may be a long process finding the correct one for him. Do your best to stay sane doing the process. Stay strong and don't give up!

[anirush]

So many meds can cause increase in anger. It usually takes 2-4 weeks to know how a med will do. But I have had meds that seem like miracles at first and then get so bad after 2-3 weeks to the point we had to stop them