Intuniv

[Sassy2019]

Our daughter recently started intuniv for ADHD management. Any one with experience with this drug.

She did not tolerate stimulants- biphentin, vyvanse, concerta at the lowest doses. Made her extremely irritable, mood swings.

[Cjkchamp]

Our experience was very sedating. My son stopped doing things he enjoyed doing. It happened over time and as they increased his dose from 1 mg up to 4 mg. We ultimately found success with broad spectrum micronutrients recommended by our son's psychiatrist.

[EWF817 in reply to Cjkchamp]

What are broad spectrum micronutrients?

[Cjkchamp in reply to EWF817]

A combination of vitamins and minerals that have been proven to help with mental health. There are two companies, True Hope and Hardy Nutritionals. We use the Hardy Nutritionals, but we have friends who use the True Hope. I highly recommend people research them!

[Aspen797]

Our son has had a great experience with Intuniv. It primarily helps his emotional regulation and executive functioning skills. It is not as helpful as a stimulant for focus in our experience. Still, it has been extremely helpful—for us, probably more helpful than stimulants because so much of our son’s behavior stimmed from frustration/emotional regulation.

A few suggestions. Start low and go very slow in making changes. Guanfacine can have unwanted side effects. It can cause drowsiness and, paradoxically, interfere with REM sleep. Both side effects can be minimized or disappear entirely with dosage and administration timing changes done over an extended period of time. Our son has neither side effect now but experienced both briefly-sleepiness when first starting and interrupted sleep when we tried going up a milligram without tapering up in 1/4 milligrams. He sleeps very well through the night now and is his exact, cheerful exuberant self during the day (with an added pause before he reacts/less meltdowns)!

I hope you have as good results as we have had. There is no one path forward for our kids. But for ours, this medication was life-changing.

[Sassy2019 in reply to Aspen797]

Thanks for sharing.

Does your son take the extended release intuniv?

Does he take it at bedtime.

Are you combining it with a stimulant?

[Aspen797 in reply to Sassy2019]

He takes 1 mg extended release at dinner and 1/4 mg immediate release in am and afternoon. Goal is to increase to 1/2 in am and 1/2 in pm and then switch to extended release in am. We found that moving too quickly (doubling the extended release) was problematic.

He takes 10 mg Focalin for focus on school days.

As an FYI, there is some research out there on saffron as a stimulant substitute in case you’re curious

[Sassy2019 in reply to Aspen797]

Thanks for the info.

[mplaz]

Our daughter uses generic Intuniv along with Vyvanse. The Vyvanse is for focus and I’d say the Intuniv is for impulse control. It has a calming effect and takes the edge off of her sometimes prickly personality.

When the psychiatrist started her on Intuniv, he put her on one mg extended release, to be taken in the morning. Her psychologist noticed that she was having trouble retrieving words, which is NOT typical of her at all! And, she was tired. So, the psychiatrist put her on a half mg (split pill) in the AM and a whole mg at night, of the non-extended release. This has worked for her so far this year. Her mood is much better when she’s on it. Less argumentative, more polite, more agreeable, etc.

Good luck to you! With persistence, you’ll find the med or med combination that works for your daughter ✌🏻

[Sassy2019 in reply to mplaz]

Thanks for sharing

[ADHDson]

My son also has ADHD mixed type and he tolerated Vynase eventually but it didn't work as well as they thought it would so they changed him to Concerta which was a nightmare. He began being very aggressive and moody and terrible tantrums. I took him off it and we are going to talk to his developmental pediatrician. He seems to behave better off the medication right now. He has no attention span for his homework, however, and I think being home all the time and not on his schedule is making things very hard for him. He very much likes the same schedule every day.

[Onthemove1971]

Our son is 13yrs old and take intuniv with Ritlin. Both together have been life changers. He takes the intuniv at night time and it is a 24 hour dose.

It is not a controlled medication so we can mail order it to our house. This medication has really helped. We started at a dose and have not changed. Sorry I can't remember how much.

[Canadianmum]

My daughter is on 2mg of intuniv taken as an adjunct to biphentin. She takes it in the early evening. Not sure we have reached the optimal dose yet, but she is doing well on it. It does take time to see changes and we are still waiting to see if we want to increase again. I’ve noticed definite improvements in her executive function from the intuniv. She stills gets frustrated and has meltdowns a bit too quickly and they can be intense, which is why we may try going up another mg. She is still on the low end of the dose range at 2mg. I have not noticed a flattening of her personality on it, but she is way less hyper. In combination with the stimulant we are starting to see academic gains come due to her ability to complete schoolwork. Anyway, I like what it is doing so far.

[anirush]

One grandson takes Intuniv with Strattera, best thing he has ever been on. He is on generic Tegretol, too, but the addition of Intuniv enabled him to stay out of trouble the whole school year.

His brother is on it too but with Wellbutrin for depression.

Both had major anger issues with stimulants.

[Sassy2019]

Hello,

As a follow up to my post above, I would appreciate suggestions to help with focus.

We have had good results with intuniv when we titrated to 4mg at bedtime. It helped our daughter return to/ near to baseline in term of “removing rough edges” which I think were from use of stimulants.

However, she still struggles with completing assignments and I find that she does not express her needs eg request help completing a homework. Not sure if the latter is a side effect of intuniv.

We decided to try vyvanse again for focus starting about 5 days ago, in addition to intuniv.

Now, she is beginning to show rough edges again. Easy irritable, would yell at me, melt downs, refuse to participate in evening Bible study as she used, irritable.

Wondering if anyone has any suggestions to help focus. We would have to discontinue stimulants again.

I appreciate all the responses to my previous post and found them useful.

Thanks