going up ...

As some of you know , my son has ADHD combined type , severe case . We found this out in early April of this year after I had a meeting with his teacher . With our insurance you have to take more steps in the evalution part than normal . We were sent to a man that specializes in evaluating and helping children with ADD/ADHD. Normally when children are evaluated for ADD/ADHD their teacher, or someone of the like , will alert the parents of the signs . From there they go to the pediatrician and are evaluated through paperwork because as of yet there are no physical tests that can be performed to diagnose this problem .

In normal circumstances the child's parents and teacher will have alot of paperwork to fill out on the child's behavior and such . This process is usually done in a week and the child is put on medication if it is needed . In my son's case the evaluation process took three weeks which involved his teacher and I filling out bunches of paperwork, I had to go online and fill out a questionaire , I had two visits with the specialist and my son had two visits with the specialist. We chose to have his pediatrician to administor his medicine . Our pediatrician started our son out on 10 mg per day of Adderall XR . The specialist wanted to wait until our son had been on the medicine for about two months before coming back to him so I called and made the appointment for June 27th.


When Mr. Specialist asked me how my son was doing on the meds , I told him that I was seeing alot of sensitivity that I didn't expect, like if you say something to try to compliment my son or something positive , sometimes he will burst in to tears and talk about how he is stupid because he didn't do as good as he should . This is just one of the small things that I have to deal with from him . Mr. Specialist informed me that the reason we are seeing this sensitivity is because he is undermedicated . He said that we should bump him up 5 more mg a day and see how he is with that . The pediatrician and I had already talked about the sensitivity but she wanted Mr. Specialists thoughts on bumping my son up a bit on the meds before we done it . So my son goes back to the pediatrician tomorrow morning and he will be starting 15mg per day . Those of you who read my old blog knows how I stressed over my son being put on medicine but now that I have saw what it does to him I have a different attitude about it . Don't get me wrong , I don't think children should be put on meds unless they really need it but in the same sense , I have a first hand look at all of the good things the right medicine can do for a child .

Yeah , we still deal with alot of the emotional side from him BUT the episodes are never as intense as they were before the medication started . Before my son was diagnosed with ADHD I didn't know alot about it other than alot of parents have their children put on the medicine for ADD/ADHD because they are lazy parents and don't want to deal with their child/children . Since that meeting with my son's teacher I have made it a personal mission to find out as much about ADD/ADHD as I can . I have learned so much . Did you know that if your child is really hyper you can feed them peanut butter and within thirty minutes they will calm down a bit? The reason being is because the level of seratonin in the brain is dropping causing the child's brain to send out mixed signals which causes the hyperness , the peanut butter will increase the level of seratonin and the child will calm down somewhat . More or less it is like a system overload when the seratonin level drops .

When you have a child with ADD/ADHD , you have to deal with them differently than other children because if you start telling them things they need to do and you are firing off three or four things at them they can't remember these things . You have to tell them one thing at a time . You also have to find a routine for your child . Even though we are very busy , we have a routine that is the same day after day , week after week . This helps your child function with everyday life a little better .

We are very lucky because our son is more of the hyper type than anything which affects everything he does because he can't concentrate . The Adderall XR helps him to calm down a bit so he can concentrate and pay attention . Children with ADD have more depression and negative attitude and outlook such as being homicidal and/or suicidial . Also most children who have ADD/ADHD have learning disorders or they are bipolar etc. In my son's case he has been tested for learning disorders and he doesn't have one . When he is older they will have to check him for signs of bipolar because of the severity of his problem .

When ADD/ADHD is found early in children , sometimes they can learn to control it when they are older and therefore stop taking the medication but sometimes they have to take medication all their life. When I first found out about my son having this I thought my world was falling apart but then I started thinking about parents who have to deal with leukemia and other horrible diseases in their children and that is when I became thankful that my son has this small , however big it seems to us , problem because there are worse situations that we could be in with him . I am sorry that this post is so long but I needed to get this stuff out of my head . Y'all have a goodnight and I will gab at you later ....