Guanfacine

[cristinaprofesora]

Hi!

My son began with concerta and it worked really bad. After that, the doctor recommended me to change to guanfacine. Anyone with the same experience? I hope this time works...

[mmmtv]

We have seen almost no benefit from Guanfacine but Concerta helps our son with attention considerably. I think every kids biology is a bit different even if the symptoms are similar, so some experimentation is needed to find what works. It doesn't feel very reassuring to take this approach but I think it's normal and necessary with AFHD, similar to other kinds of medical needs (e.g. antibiotics, statins, pain/fever, etc).

[Crunchby]

Wow..two totally different meds. Guanfacine acts on the autonomic (spelling??) system. It lowers blood pressure...in fact it was used for that exact purpose for many years. Concerta is Ritalin..a stimulant. We actually do Vyvanse a stimulant and 1 mg of Guanfacine at night to settle mine down. Guanfacine alone just makes 'em sleepy...IMO. Every kid is different. additudemag.com/ has a nice free, well for the price of your email...medication summary. Good luck!

[chicagodad]

Helllo. My 12 year old son started on Guanfacine, with some limited improvement, and he now takes a combination of Guanfacine and Concerta, and it has worked very well. As you may know, finding the right med or meds is quite the journey. Best of luck!

[Chickymama in reply to chicagodad]

Does your son take both his meds in the morning?

[chicagodad in reply to Chickymama]

He takes both meds together in the morning before leaving for school.

[Darinder26]

I myself have severe ADD and I was diagnosed when I was in 5th grade. I was put on concerta I took it for 3 years till I started 8th grade. Concerta made me gain 60 pounds and I was depressed and suicidal. (Not that your child is). I was then put on adderall xr 20 mg a day and I felt so much better! I was paying attention more and back to my happy talkative self! Only problem that I had with it was i had trouble sleeping so my mom got me some melatonin. It helped. My son is 6 and he was diagnosed last year(we always knew doc didn't wanna test till he was 5) He was on vyvanse in November up until 2 weeks ago that we noticed it was making him a little but more aggressive then normal. So we stopped it for a free days and he started acting better. So we knew we had to change his medicine he takes dexocymetaphatmine(generic for adderall xr) 5 mg but we give him 10 mg because he is big as a 10 year old boy. It's making him more aggressive and will be discussi g with his doc on Monday about new medication.