I don’t particularly like giving my ds 4 medications a day (including an adhd medication) but I do. Because he needs it. He’s been on all since age 7.
He is 9 now, has severe adhd, (also autism and learning disability) CAMHS and ds specialist school hadn’t seen adhd like it. Ds specialist teacher said in the 20 years he’d worked at ds school he’d not come across another child like ds. After 3 months of him being there they said they couldn’t control him and was on the verge of kicking him out. This is a residential school that specialises in challenging behaviour, it’s exactly what happened at his mainstream school which I can understand but not a school that specialises in it, he was on 2-1 in specialist school doing 3 hours a day. The behaviour he did there when he started was shocking, biting electrical cables apart, pulling toilet plumbing off the wall flooding the classroom, smashing windows, tables, chairs, they had a skip at one point full of items ds had broken. He couldn’t be around the other children (same at mainstream) He utterly terrorised his teachers. I had daily phone calls and emails. I didn’t understand the point of a special school as he was treat how his mainstream had treated him. I thought we had absolutely no hope of a future.
Ds was still waiting to be medicated at this point, he’d been diagnosed but was waiting on his appointment for medication, his specialist headteacher asked if she could ring CAMHS to speed it up as they couldn’t keep him any longer. (He’d waited 2 years for a specialist place) nothing else available and I wouldn’t have had a school for him.
He started on methylphenidate ( which he stayed on for 7 months) and it made him worse, still on part time hours, he tried a different one and similar and it made him really anxious too, couldn’t get him to leave the house on top of everything else.
At this point I was honestly wanting to give him up. I posted on the special needs board on here, honestly could not cope. I couldn’t see a way to manage him, made me really depressed too, I’d had ivf for him and I was thinking of asking social services to take him away!
The psychiatrist started him on atomoxetine and sertraline and 1 year later, he’s full time at school, out of the house for 7 hours a day. Has friends, is full time in the classroom, his teacher told me last week he’s a role model to the class 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
He’s not perfect (he smashed a window at school last week) and I still get at least one email a week with something else he’s done.
But consider everything I told you to begin with…. He’s a lot better overall.
Medication doesn’t cure it all, it enables them to LEARN. Ds is genuinely only just learning about behaviour, what’s acceptable / what is not. His brain can process things now where as before straight in one ear out the other. We’ve got a long way to go. But I can cope much better these days and social services isn’t on speed dial I’m pleased to say.