My daughter is 11 and has tried every stimulant out there, Ritalin, Adderall,Concerta,Vyvanse,Daystrana, and Focalin. She was diagnosed with ADHD/ODD when she was 4. She has been on so many because they either gave too many side effects or we would start at a low dose, work our way up to the max dose and still not get our desired results. Some gave her vocal tics, which were affecting her at school terribly. She is also on Intuniv, she takes 4 mg which is the max dose suggested. Her impulsivity still gets the best of her. Her psychiatrist suggested an enzyme test (blood draw) to see if she was deficient in certain enzymes that help break down certain medicines. She was deficient in one of them, suggesting that no matter how high we kept going on her stimulant, her body can only absorb so much. It certainly answered the question of why so many didn't work as we went up on the doses. I'm certainly not saying this is the case with your son, just an interesting approach to narrow down what works for her. She now takes Concerta, Celexa (Anxiety), Intuniv and Seroquel (mood stabilizer). We are trying the mood stabilizer, which uses different enzymes. However, she definitely still needs that stimulant to calm her down so she can "function" through the day. I would talk to the doctor to see if raising the dose on the current medicine a little might be worth trying. My daughter also was on Strattera, but took it while also taking her stimulants. She has had no side effects with the Intuniv, she was prescribed that to help with her impulsiveness and irritability. Good Luck with your search for answers.

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My son was diagnosed at age 3, he is now almost 9. He has severe ADHD and ODD. He has been to all the top doctors in Pittsburgh and they are not sure what to do now. He has been on EVERY single medication used for this but his body seems to metabolize the meds too fast. He is on such a high dose of meds that the pharmacy gives me a really hard time if there is a new or fill in pharmacist. They always call the dr. to confirm the dose. We were referred to a dr. who is an ADHD research doctor at psych hospital (who since moved away) he came up with a great idea, and this may work for you. We alternate the meds every 2 weeks. So he is on folcalin long acting 30 mg and a short acting pill in the morning, then a short acting focalin at 3 pm. Alternating 2 weeks he is on vyvanse long acting 70 mg and short acting in the morning and short acting dose at 3 pm. Along with that he has been on risperdol for years and also takes melatonin 3 mg. to help sleep. The vyvanse does not work much so we are going to dr. tomorrow to try changing it. Unfortunately we did not realize we would have this problem with so many meds not working that I did not keep a journal of each med and how he responded to them. Kicking myself now! So I called the pharmacy and got a print out of every prescription we had filled for him, so I will look and see what med I had refilled several times (since it obviously worked for a while) and maybe try that during the 2 weeks he is currently on vyvanse. His currently doctor had us try intuitive, we were to give it to him in ADDITION to the vyvanse. It seems to make a huge difference esp. in the morning. But only worked for a week. He woke up so calm, it was truly amazing! So we stopped using it. There is a child in our area on it and seems to work very well for him... fyi.... good luck!!!!

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my experience with students with ADHD is that meds can't do it by themselves and that an ADHD students also needs active tools not only passive medication. These may include short seated yoga exercises , accelerated learning tools, time management , relaxed concentration exercises, study strategies. Some of these may be foung in the book or video Being In Control: Natural Solutions for ADHD Dyslexia and Test Anxiety. https://sites.google.com/site/jasonalster/

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