Any parents of kids on Atomoxetine, please share when your child’s doctor is concerned about child’s too high pulse.

Hi, so my son has been on a reduced dose of Atomoxetine for some weeks now but his pulse is still mostly over 100 and even when I go to his bed in the evening when he’s falling asleep it’s 91.

I am tempted to ask his doctor to stop it all together for the summer holidays and then see if his heart rate would stabilise.

I know that kids normally have higher resting heart rate than adults however he’s 10 years old and I know by 10 it should not be so high.

Have anyone else been told to monitor child’s pulse on Atomoxetine ?

For me the frustration is that it’s our 3rd doctor now and none of the doctors told me that increase in heart rate is a risk both with stimulants and with Atomoxetine too.

[kdali]

No one has mentioned heart rate to us either. I check occasionally because it's a side effect and would take issue with it if it stayed out of range and she had issues from that. How's he doing on the lower dose?

[Hidden in reply to kdali]

Surprisingly behaviour wise he’s been fine on lower dose. It’s almost like he needed that 40mg daily for a few months to fix his behaviour and motivation, mood etc and once it’s reduced after several months it still all stays under control- his ADHD is still well managed even though he’s on lower dose now. It’s strange because when we commenced him on Atomoxetine and doc was very reluctant to go up and kept him on 18mg for many months- I felt it wasn’t doing much. So then he upped him to 25mg and same- I felt it wasn’t managing his ADHD well enough. Then only when he got to 40mg I felt that he was where he should be- not perfect but ‘the best version of himself that we have known’😉

So I was worried that when we go down now that he will deteriorate with behaviour etc but he hasn’t!

Let’s hope that his heart is okay and that his heart rate will stay low enough on lower dose. I mean, I am still planning to touch base about his heart being properly checked after holidays… We have one heart and it has to last us a lifetime. It would be terrible to develop arrhythmia etc because of ADHD medication…

[kdali in reply to Hidden]

That's wonderful! 🎉 How long was he on 40? I wonder if he grew some in that time 🤔 I saw your first post about this and was worried for him, so I'm very glad to hear things are setting down heart wise 🙏 I hope he can continue without any issues.