Things are looking up. J. has been on Intuniv 2mg after being on 1mg for a week. The 1mg towards the end of the 7 days was showing signs of effectiveness. When we started the Intuniv, J. had come down with a cold. So watching his behavior and telling wether or not the Intuniv had any effect was difficult to say the least. After giving J. the 1mg Intuniv one night (being that Intuniv can cause drowsiness), and the .05mg Clonidine, he had fallen asleep before 6:30 p.m. This was, in a way, a nice thing. He had not been getting much sleep with the other medicines. However, I went into his room to check on him and I tried to move him to position him more towards the middle of the bed as J. has a tendency to fall out of bed. It was a bit scary at how J. was like dead weight. I could hardly wake him. The two medicines had completely knocked him out.
I checked his heart rate since the two medicines work to lower the blood pressure. I would have checked his BP, but I did not have ability. Too bad the one in the toy doctor's kit wouldn't work. J.'s heart rate was 78bpm. That is on the low side, but not a risk. In any case, I was not comfortable with the effect of both the 1mg Intuniv and the .05mg Clonidine. So J.'s mom and I decided that we would no longer give him the Clonidine. We also decided that if we were to give J. any Clonidine at all, it would be .025mg. Which is just enough to settle him down and help him get some sleep when he needs it. This helps with his crankiness.
We sent J. back to school last Wednesday after being sick. Since we have been sending a small notebook to school so his teacher's can write a note about how he behaved in school, J.'s teacher said he was perfect and they had a great day. Thursday, he again had a great day until the last 30 minutes or so. On Friday, he again had another great day. J.'s teacher has been employing some of the techniques we and his previous teachers often used. J. has a hard time with transitions. So when J. is given a warning that in five minutes and then in two minutes he needs to stop what he is doing and get ready to do the next task, he transitions without problem.
We took J. and the rest of the family to Toy Story 3 on Ice. No problems at all. J. even stood still in front of the ridiculously expensive light up toys, etc stand. I simply said "let's stand her and wait for everyone else" and I did not even have to hold his hand or anything. J. and his sister R. stood there staring, likely wishing and hoping I would say they could have one (but come on $22 for a cheap light up/spinning Buzz Lightyear) at everything and every kid who was getting one. I could not have been more pleased with his behavior.
We are currently on 2mg Intuniv and .025mg Clonidine (as needed). Curious to see if or what effect the 2mg Intuniv will have on his behavior. There has been room for improvement. However, all in all, it has been pretty good. R. keeps annoying J., who gets very irritated and despite the Intuniv, etc, J. still has a hard time dealing with R. After all, she is 3 and is always interested in what J. is doing or playing with.
She loves her big brother. It is obvious J. loves her too. J. even held R.'s hand in line at Busch Gardens at the Roller Coaster in the Sesame Street area. J. loves R. so much, I think, that it is the reason J. is always so concerned with what R. is doing wrong. Almost as if J. doesn't want her to get in trouble. But at the same time, they compete for getting to do anything that the other wants to do. Like who gets to open the door when we are getting ready to leave. It has become such a competition that R. has learned to ask immediately upon learning that we are going to go somewhere in 5 hours from now. LOL. R. is too funny.
All in all, we have been experience positive results with Intuniv. Let's see what the next week or so brings. Moving into our new house will be an exciting time for everyone. Hopefully it will not be a negative effect on J. with his ADHD. Emotions can run high in children with ADHD. In fact everything is attached to emotions. Hence, why they have what appears to us, as incredible memories. The attach memories to emotion. We all do that, but they do it to the extreme. Not a bad thing, but don't try to trick them by promising something hoping they will forget in a few days or so, because they DON'T. Then you have to do it. :-(
-Dad2ADHD
No comments:
Post a Comment