My 9 year old son had been diagnosed with ADHD when he was 4. Over the years we have tried stimulant after stimulant and all have a side effect of severe anxiety.. Anxiety runs in our family, but ADHD is new. He has both.. He does not perform well in a classroom setting but at home can reproduce what he has learned to me. Without meds the hyperactivity is too troublesome. Strattera did not work on him.. He is currently taking zoloft 25mg and Tenex 1m BID. This combination has been the best so far but he still cannot test or participate in class to show he understands the work.
When he comes home he can reproduce it to me.
He just repeated 3rd grade because his anxiety was so severe on stimulents he missed have the year by being in the nurses office. Crying, fear of switching periods, and "freaking out" were described. Over the summer we had him evaluated by a neurologist and a child neurodevelopmental specialist (pediatrician and Psychiatrist) Both ruled out PDD-NOS (Autism). Both reported is very high on the ADHD scale.
Tenex has been amazing, everything has improved except the attentional aspect and the odd symptom of not being able to perform in school but when he gets home we see that it has sunk in somehow and can reproduce his lesson.
This leads me to view this as classroom anxiety which may be our next step it the Daytrona patch does not work.
Yesterday he had his patch on for 3 hours during which he refused to do weekend home work. Then the (unremovable patch) mysteriously "fell off".
5 hours later we did all his homework without a fight or a problem.
Help!
Jay
Boca Raton, FL
