My child has gone completely LOOPO and it's been going on for five hours...

[ShinyHappyStarOfBethlehem]

Putting this here instead of on SN so that others see it and I might get more input re Ritalin..

DS age 6 has various special (complex) needs and a main cerebral palsy-type condition and a global type of developmental delay. At his last appointment/check up with his paediatritian a month ago, she watched him charging about on his hands and knees (he can't walk unaided) trashing her room and having to be 'handled'/contained by either DH or I while the other one of us attempted to have a conversation with her!.. and suggested that a diagnosis of ADHD might be something we could add to the 'list'.. (well she didn't put it quite like that.. !)

She said the benefits of this (upon completion of questionnaires by us and school) would give us the option of allowing him to try Ritalin which has been proven to have beneficial effects on some children with complex needs (as long as they also 'tick all the ADHD boxes') which is quite a new approach apparently. Children 'like DS' (well I've never met one exactly like him obviously! Doubt there is one!) never used to be diagnosed with ADHD as there didn't seem to be any point; they were never treated with drugs) but new studies have uncovered the benefits to some.

So upon completion of the questionnaires (which proved his level of hyperactivity both at home and at school atho more so at home) we agreed to let DS try Ritalin. I did have misgivings esp. when I read that it is an amphetamine .. but I do trust his paediatrician and he is so able in so many ways (you wouldn't think so to look at him but his understanding is far more than most people realise.. only we, DH and I.. and school really have any idea) that I felt that if something is going to give him a better attention span, which he sorely needs, and the ability to better fulfil his potential then we owed it to him to give it a go. (Not to give us an easier life as the paediatrican seemed to be hinting at as she watched us struggle with him.)

Well we started it today, as the prescription only arrived in post yesterday. The start dose is half a tablet after breaskfast and another half after lunch working up to a whole tablet after breakfast/lunch within 3 weeks. (I had read some of the bad press about Ritalin but DS, due to his lack of proper diagnosis - has been on other 'brain drugs' before .. eg El Dopa used for Parkinson's and shown to help some children with developmental delay (it had no effect)..so I wasn't too concerned (altho a bit..)

Anyway, he had a dose after breakfast and at about 9 with no obvious effects but soon after the lunch dose, it became obvious that he was going a bit hyper! (More so than normal.) (The ONLY side effects we had been told to expect where suppressed appetite (that didn't happen.. He eats anything.. food or not.. and still has today..) and difficulty getting to sleep tonight.

DS doesn't talk like an normal 6 year old, he only says 3-4 word sentences.. but by 3 oclock he was rattling on about everything and everything.. still in his own indistint way.. but on and on and on and on.. In the end I put Monsters Inc on the pc for him to watch as this is guarateed to calm him (one of the only things that does usually when he is in his usual state of 'hyperness') by he just sat there giving a running commentary of everything that was happening and repeating everything he said about 12 times!! It would have been funny (in fact we did! laugh a bit!) if it hadn't been so alarming!! And it just carried on and on and on.. for over five hours! I was getting worried.. I thought this manic behaviour might trigger a fit or something.. (he does have (controlled) epilepsy). He has finally gone to sleep, after his BIBIC exercises which he was way too hyper (even when knackered!) to do but instead, rattled off what he knew was coming next in a really odd manner!!

I have never seen anything like it.. and I'm not giving him any more Ritalin! He was completely loopo.. he didn't stop for breath in five hours and this is a child of very few words!

I have since scared myself silly reading all the negative stuff on the net about Ritalin (and I wasn't deliberately doing so.. I googled 'hyperactivity CAUSED by Ritalin'.

I will ring the paediatrician tomorrow and tell her. I hope he's his normal self by morning.. he's going RDA (Riding for the Disabled) and then school obviously.. and there is no way he could do any of it if he was still in such a manic state!

I am sort of thinking that this seems like the effect that an amphetamine would have on a child who does NOT have ADHD (it is supposed to have the opposite effect of being a 'upper' on a child WITH ADHD because if certain brain deficiencies.) I feel awful. I drugged my child and he went completely mental.. I wish I'd never given it to him. He acted completely 'high' and off his face! And he is just 6!

Does anyone have any experience.. or know of.. either a child with complex needs being giving Ritalin or any child responding to it in that way? Perhaps we should be peservering.. but every instinct I have tells me not to.. so I won't!!

I know that's true Edam.. it's just that I have now got issues about doing anything that messes with his brain, rather late in the day I know. But it's all so hit and miss isn't it? Brains are so little understood, the medical world is first to admit.. and I am loath to sit back and watch as we see what happens if we give him this dose or that dose.. or this or that drug..

But I know there is chance that something might help calm him enough to release all that potential he quite clearly has.

And of course I have now seen all the bad press about Ritalin. I know you can do that with almost any drug.. but it's hard to just block out of my mind now I've read it..

I can't help at all but read this with interest, i think all you can do is take the paediatricians advice...I've had similar expereinces myself with antidperessants/mood disorder medication but it is worth persevering I think if there is a chance of a positive help

Hi Shiny, no comment / advice on the ritalin, I don't know anything about it, but just wanted to say we use a respiration monitor rather than a baby monitor and it would alert you to breath cessation, if that is one of your concerns, your baby monitor might give you more insight into breathing rhythm because you can hear it IYSWIM, but just thought I'd let you know incase you hadn't heard of it.

Oh hugs Shiny.....

Don't beat yourself up, nobody would know if ritalin could help until it was tried.
If you had refused to try it, you might be on here now beating yourself up because you wern't brave enough.

Anyway, I understand that life is Very hard for you and dh (and ds) and you are bound to want to try to find solutions to some of the problems when they are suggested.

So, put this one down to experience, make sure no-one ever gives him ritalin again and move on.

Love to you all

Thanks all Thanks Hub for info re monitors

The paediatrician just rang. I described DS's behaviour to her in detail and she told me she has seen one other reaction like this in five years.. it is so rare that she obviously didn't mention the possibility as she thought it so unlikely to happen.

She recommends we leave it with the drugs which DH and I agree with. She said we will just have to 'manage' his hyperactivity, which we were doing anyway; it had never occured to me to hanker after a diagnosis of ADHD or similar anyway. And he is better at school which shows he is not incapable of some control of his 'hyperactive urges'.

I asked if this means that he is clearly not suffering from the same brain deficiency as people with ADHD and she agreed and said whatever it is his brain is deficient in, it's not going to be rectified by Ritalin or similar.

So another thing down to exerience, and, as some nice person said below, if we hadn't tried it, we'd have always wondered. And at least he's fine now.

DS remains more of a mystery than before then, lol.

Glad you've managed to speak to her, it must have been a very stressful 24 hours for you, at least now you have her agreement to leave the drugs and you know ds will be back to 'normal' (whatever that is ) soon. Hope you manage to get some sleep tonight!

Must be a relief that you don't have to persist with Ritalin, although obv. disappointing that something that held out some promise didn't work.

He was back to normal this morning EarlyBird, thank God!

Now it's all over and he's ok I am starting to remember some of the funnier aspects of his manic behaviour . It was as if he was rattling off everything he knew, all jumbled into one!

DD reminded me of what he was doing when he was in his TripTrap seat eating his dinner yesterday afternoon.. between mouthfuls he was going..

"one-two-three-four-five-six-seven-eight-nine-ten-eleven-twelve-thirteen-fourteen-fifteen-BUGGER!!!-Bob the Builder, can he fix it? Bob the Builder - yes he can!!"

(few more mouthfuls of food..)

All the above repeated!!

Also, DS has recently learned to climb the stairs standing up (as oppsedto crawling up them/being carried), by holding onto the both hand rails (which are actually there for DH!). He usually climbs in very wobbly, dangerous fashion with us bent over behind him to catch him as he falters. Last night, as I opended the bottom stair gate to let him onto the stairs and bend to pick up a pile of clean washing, suddenly, whooooosh.. there he was gone!! He strode up the stairs, using the hand rails with alarming efficiency and was up there in a about five seconds while I stood at the bottom gaping at him.. came to my senses and raced up behind him to catch him as he wobbled at the top!

Have you see There's Something About Mary? He was actually just like Cameron Diaz's neighbour, (Magda?) when she drinks something with a speed tablet in.. lol!!

There was actually an awful lot of the word BUGGER being repeated in a high, excited voice!! (Oh dear! )

I didn't get too excited about it luckily Edam. I made that mistake once with the El Dopa when he was 2. We were told there was about a 20% chance of it 'righting everything' (although the neurologist was quick to point out that it wasn't understood why this happens sometimes; it is, after all, a Parkinson's Disease drug!) and DH and I, without meaning to, set our hearts on it working. But nothing happened at all.

I suppose that was why I thought that the Ritalin would either work, or not, and probably not.. not for one moment thinking he would become Lee Evans, or the like, for 10 hours or so lol!

Thank you for yours (and others') support last night. You helped to calm me down.. I wasn't feeling very rational and was thinking (from what I had been rading, belatedly, about Ritalin) that I had done some sort of permenant damage to his (already challenged!) brain! And DH was worried too, which is a definite alarm-bell-ringer!!

How's he doing now?

He is fine thanks EB