My six year old son has been on the stimulant methylphenidate (Jornay PM) for 2.5 months now. Last week, I received a notification from his teacher that he has started washing his hands often in class, which began a few weeks prior to that. At times, he wants to wash his hands minutes after he last washed them and there does not appear to be a reason why (hands are dirty from a craft, blew nose, etc). He does not do this at home. When I asked my son about it, he said if he touches someone else in class or he touches something someone else touched, he feels like there are germs on his hands and he wants to wash them. When asked why he doesn’t feel this way at home, he said because we are family. When I got the notification from school, I realized he has been getting hand sanitizer from a dispenser a few times during his tennis lessons lately, which I thought was a little odd but didn’t give it much more thought until now. We talked about times when hand washing is needed and he said he is now washing his hands less at school but he said he still wants to be washing them more because of germs.
New onset OCD type symptoms are not listed as a potential side effect for methylphenidate but based on our limited experience with stimulant and non-stimulant ADHD medications, not all the potential side effects make it on the pamphlet that comes with the medication.
He has always liked lining things up a very certain way on his dresser and he struggles transitioning away from something before it is “done just right” in his head, that’s very upsetting. That could just be a type of perfectionism or a very mild OCD. But the hand washing is something entirely new.
We meet with his psychiatrist soon and we will discuss but there were other side effects my son experienced on a previous med that our doctor hadn’t heard before but was mentioned multiple times on this forum. I think because this user base is so big, more is reported and shared.
Anyone else experience something like this?
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Thanks for sharing with the group. I applauded you in taking him to a child Psycharist. They specialize in medication types, but they can also follow up and be a team member while you try to get things better for him.
What stands out in your description is the "energy" that your son has to use to think about the germs.
When our son was younger I only thought about stimulant and non stimulant. We moved our son away from stimulants and now he takes an Wellbutrin ( NDRI-Norodopeamine/dopeamine inhibitor) and Guanfacine. Wellbutrin helps with impulsive behavior and anxiety. For our son this has been a game changer. Our Child Psychartist recommended it becuase there was a shortage in stimulant medications.
We of course can not say if it is a side effect or a stage he is going through.
The only side effect we saw with stimulants was loss of appetite, which has gone away now his medication was changed.
Big hug for the struggles and hope the Psycharist can help him.
Know we are always here for you and hope you let us know what you guys decide to do.
Thanks for your response. Prior to his current stimulant, my son was on Guanfacine alone for 6 months. It was helping but not quite enough, even after increasing to the max dose allowed for his weight. The stimulant is helping his ADHD symptoms much more but this new germ phobia is concerning. I’m glad you mentioned the Wellbutrin, I haven’t researched anything outside of typical ADHD medications yet…so that’s something to explore more. Thanks!
One more thing..Now is the time to get medication right so he can be successful.
Wellbutrin is not right for everyone, but to changed my mind about the types of medication that works for our son, which I had not thought of when he was younger.
We are thankful that medication has helped our son to be successful!
Hi, we have noticed OCD type behaviour with methylphenidate type medication with my teenage son but not soon enough .His doctor didnt notice first and thought his medication wasnt helping enough and increased his dosage and things kept getting worse.My son got obssesed with his body image, his posture, he couldnt function in life and at school. I took him to his dr and chiro about it and nothing came out of it..We finally stopped the meds at summer time and i got my son back. He is on non-stimulant medication now, he is doing much better in term of mental health..Apparently there were few cases like this with methylpendite type medications. He had this OCD type of side effect with only one med though, he was on another stimulant one and we didnt notice that much.He was more agitated and angry while he was on other med. Hope you figure it out, best wishes.
My child was Dx with OCD after being on stimulants but her compulsions are subtle so I can't definitively say if one followed the other or that is when I noticed them. In my experience with my daughter and hearing from people with OCD, it can present in many different ways and not usually the way that it's portrayed in the media. Meaning it's possible your son's excessive hand washing is actually anxiety based (or some other reason) and not an OCD symptom. My daughter did have a huge increase in anxiety after being on methylphenidate so much so that we discontinued stimulants for about a year before we were willing to try another one.
my daughter got tics a couple years from her first stimulant med so we took her off it back then. She started having ocd symptoms a few months ago. I’m Learning that a lot of the neurodivergent conditions can happen at the same time (comorbidity). Many of the symptoms overlap. I’m thinking the ocd symptoms my daughter is having is choosing to hyperfixate on different things.
I would ask the teacher if this started around the time they may have had a lesson about germs or think about if you may have raised a concern. I would also talk to him about other ways to keep safe (not touching face with hand, etc), and tell him there are good bacteria too. The good bacteria also keep us safe from bad bacteria/germs. Just research it together and look into the best times to wash and sanitize, or if you can sanitize items instead of hands so often.
I did notice it a few weeks into taking Concerta. I googled it and it stated that stimulant medication activates the frontal lobe and people with OCD when brain scans have been done, have found a lot more activity in the frontal lobe in comparison to non OCD brain scans ( this I know from dealing with OCD myself and what I learned). If there is a genetic predisposition like for example with my child, it can be a higher likelihood that ocd can show up, but also in other cases. I took my son off, but later put him back on, since it caused a lot of problems at school. He told me he hated school every day and that he wished he didn’t exist, so, I put him back on it, but will be talking to his doctor and also a psychiatrist, for a few options. I hate that I have to give him any medication, but he’s feeling worse without it, which is scaring me also.
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