Clonidine effective or not for ADHD?

[TruSoma8]

Anyone have any experience to share with clonidine for adhd and aggression? we just started 1/2 tablet of .01mg at bedtime and one in morning but doctor upped the dose to 1mg at bedtime and 1/2 in morning and we are finding he is waking up a lot and very cranky!!!! We have tried so many different drugs that I'm feeling very frustrated and hopeless. Any advice would be most appreciated.

[Onthemove1971]

TruSoma8- many of us have been there. Can I recommend that you "slightly" wake him and give the medication then let him go back to sleep with the medication in him. Then when he wakes up the medication will be working. This seems to really work for younger kids.

Also, please don't give up hope. You guys will get there with something that helps. Our son is 13 years old and one day I asked if he remembered trying a number of medications and he said "Nope.. can't remember any of that", so I felt better.

Promise once you find the right combination you shouldn't have to change it for a long time. Are you working with a child psychiatrist? Or a pediatrician? We have had the best luck with the psychiatrist and have been very stable for many years.

Big hugs for all your frustrations!

[TruSoma8 in reply to Onthemove1971]

Thank you for the hopeful reply. Yes we are working closely or as closely as you can during covid19 with both a psychiatrist and psychologist. I've never been more perplexed with this little guy and I've raised two others in my early 20's but this young man is unique for sure. I'm not sure what you meant about wake him up? I give him melatonin just before bedtime which is 8:00 and both his PTSD med and his clonidine which is 1mg at 8:00pm and he's still waking up and cranky sassy and aggressive. Its only been 2 days on the increase of clonidine at bedtime but going from 1/2 to 1mg seems to be causing insomnia again like guanfacine did to him. So so tired and frustrated. Kind of at the end of my hope rope!!

[Hidden in reply to TruSoma8]

I think Onthemove means wake him a little early in the morning- for morning meds, and let him fall back asleep. So that when he wakes, his morning meds will be active, and cause less crankiness?

[Eucharisma in reply to TruSoma8]

give it time honey...i know patience is in big short supply. try to get a walk in today if you can..go outside...its my big goal of the day after a shower

[Hidden]

We use guanfacine instead of clonidine, but they are similar. I’ve been happy with guanfacine, we are going to titrate up starting tomorrow to see if it will bring the aggression further down.

[TruSoma8 in reply to Hidden]

Good luck we tried guanfacine and it made our little guy more aggressive and waking up in the night a lot.

[Adhdisasuperpower]

We use it at night (0.01 mg) and started about five days ago and so far I’m seeing that he is more restless when he sleeps at night, bad quality of sleep, and doesn’t seem rested when he wakes up. We use the amazon blink camera system in his room at night to monitor him and his sleep and so far I’m not impressed with Clonidine but we are going to give it about another week to see if anything changes. He took Guanfacine (1 mg) for the past two years and we may end up going back to that.

[waw2112]

We used Clonidine and he was asleep within a half hour from taking it we were very happy with it.

[Hidden]

Just an aside, I was talking to my sons psychiatrist yesterday, and she says that Clonidine and Guanfacine are not supposed to have a side effect of sleep interruption at all. I asked her because my son has had some night terrors lately.

[Eucharisma in reply to Hidden]

Night terrors...lovely new side effect of Covid right? i get to hear details every day of the latest nightmares from both my girls (3.5 and 7)..and get tears a lot of night afraid of sleep!

[Adhdisasuperpower in reply to Hidden]

My sons doctor said that night terrors are common on clonidine.

[Hidden in reply to Adhdisasuperpower]

Did the doctor say why that is?

[Adhdisasuperpower in reply to Hidden]

No he just told us when our son started taking it that it had been reported to happen to a lot of kids.

[Hidden in reply to Adhdisasuperpower]

We were taking guanfacine 3x/day, and as soon as I removed the bedtime dose, the night terrors decreased.

[Reeeba1]

We use Clonidine to help our son sleep at night. He takes .2 mg and it takes about 1.5 to 2 hours for him to get tired. When he does start to get tired though he gets super cranky and grouchy. I can’t imagine using this medication to combat grouchiness! But different things work for different kids. We recently switched to Focalin XR and that has been pretty effective with few side effects. Of course we haven’t been able to give it a test run in school and won’t be able to really do that for some time... thanks COVID 🙄 Good luck and don’t give up!! You will get there.

[mgahagen]

We use Clonidine. He didn't have much aggression prior, our primary reason was to help control hyperactivity and impulsivity. We initially started with 1/2 in morning and 1/2 before bed. He had trouble sleeping at night and had night terrors. So we moved him to 1/2 in the morning and 1/4 at lunch time. It seems to work pretty well. We stopped giving him the 1/4 once online learning started.

Best wishes to you and your family. I know how difficult this process is.

[Eucharisma]

we use it at night for sleep, given about an hour before bedtime(.1 mg) that we want (7:30 dosing) and our 7 year ADHD daughter usually conks out hard by 8 or 8:15. occasionally restless til 10. she is on Vyvanse 40 MG in the morning, melatonin gummies (5 mg) and thats all.

up until this plan she's been completely off the walls! tons of yelling, sneaking, stealing, hiding weird things in her room, picking up bad things outdoors (needles, cigarette buts, glass, bottle caps, beach trash)...yeah, we live in Juneau alaska...a lot of drug waste and horrible stuff laying around everywhere! We were doing short acting ritalin BID up until this point, but she is tiny and it was starting to be a problem with weight.

The clonodine part took about 2 weeks for her to settle in and get used to not being spacey in the morning. She usually wakes around 5 (ugh) when she was spacey, very grumpy. and "don't touch me" kind of nasty...like me before coffee at 5 am! She tends toward being very obnoxious and f-ing defiant til 7:30, when I can give her morning med, which subdues her a little (psychosomatic at first, like an instant shut-up pill)...but then it really kicks in about 30 minutes later. By then the effects of clonodine are completely gone, no more nasties, and then just gets REALLY talkative. It's 10 am here, and she's super hyper-focused, and perfectly ready to take on the day...she's like a new kid compared to 3 months ago.

I slipped up one super tired morning for me and gave her the wrong meds - gave her nite time, at day time.. - one of those, i'm the worst mommy in the world moments!!! I considered making her throw it up, but then realized it really wasn't going to hurt her and called her doc. she said just to let it go and wait it out.

.(i mean it could be worse....giving her day time at night time right?)

she was super drowsy til about 2pm and was irritable as heck.

But here is the thing...it's because it was a ONE OFF TIME...it took her a few weeks to get in the groove for real. any disturbance to any sleep pattern or any brain chemistry isn't going to happen overnight. So try to be patient. even though its super hard, because it's effecting YOUR sleep and peace of mind too...just breathe more, love a little more. snuggle a bit if he lets you.

I just asked Charlotte while sitting here, writing this what her "night time medicine feels like" and she said it's like her brain gets clogged with so many thoughts it's like she can't fit one more in. She said it's kinda hard to delete them all out of her brain when she tries to fall asleep.

damn...i had no idea. thanks for your post...i just learned something.

don't know how old your guy is, but maybe try that?

wishing you the best of luck!