Elvanse and Irritability

[tamibo]

Does anyone have any advice for dealing with the irritability that comes with Elvanse?

[tamibo]

Sorry to clarify, the irritability in my 9yo daughter who has recently started taking it because we found that Equasym made her too angry

[Elijah1]

In the USA, Elvanse is Vyvanse and Equasym appears to be the equivalent of Metadate CD (both manufactured by Shire, for those who want to know). If these make a child angry or irritable, check if she also has anxiety or a mood disorder since the medications can aggravate either one.

[tamibo in reply to Elijah1]

Thank you for your advice. I'd say she probably has both anxiety and a mood disorder. I thought that getting on top of the adhd symptoms might help her to feel less anxious but that hasn't been the case and everything just keeps getting worse. I'm very worried

[Elijah1 in reply to tamibo]

Talk to her doctor about the anxiety/mood and ask what would help.

[anirush]

Sometimes the irritability will get better, sometimes the longer they are on the worse it gets and you have to go back to the drawing board. You don't need meds that make things worse.

Talk to the doctor if it continues. You might need to add a mood stabilizer if that helps with the ADHD.

[tamibo in reply to anirush]

Thank you for your advice. What type of mood stabiliser do you mean? Are you thinking of an anti-depressant like Zoloft or is there something else that you've come across? She's been very irritable and also very very negative to the pint where she's convinced that nothing is working and nothing will work. It's very hard to see.

[anirush]

One of mine is on Trileptal, the other on generic Seroquel and Welbutrin along with ADHD meds. They are teens now and have been on other meds when younger.

[tamibo in reply to anirush]

Thank you again for your reply. Do you find that they work?

[anirush]

For the most part they are doing well in school. The younger one gets edgy quite a bit but at least it's not the extreme anger he used to have.

[bdhb96]

Please please please take the anxiety seriously. I have an 18 yr old and can tell you that by 9th grade the anxiety was paralyzing for them. It became a much bigger problem than the ADHD. Imagine having inattentive ADHD, dyslexia and high generalized anxiety in high school...it’s a triple wammy. Prozac by late 11th grade was the only thing that started to help but consider all that lost time, lost growth. Please take anxiety seriously and get a professional opinion for your child as anxiety in kids looks different than in adults. For kids it often appears as anger or irritability is one of the things I’ve learned.