My DD18 is home from college and she informed me that she quit taking her meds a month ago because they stopped working. In short, my question is: is this normal? Do some ADHD meds just stop being effective or does this indicate that maybe ADHD wasn't the underlying issue after all?
As background, I sought an eval last year due to her serious difficulties producing written work in a timely fashion. DD was diagnosed with ADHD inattentive and PDD-NOS last spring and she went on a trial of Methylphenidate over the summer - eventually settling on 30mg XR in the am and 20mg XR in the pm - the max dose according to her doc. DD said it seemed to be working (the other dosages worked for a couple days then stopped, but at this dose she felt it was still working after a couple weeks). This was the first and only med she tried, and it had no negative side effects so we were ecstatic thinking we got the right one without the merry-go-round ordeal. Long story short she survived her first semester but produced only about 1 page of written work for every 5 assigned for a whopping total of 4.5 pages for the semester, 3 of which were written without the meds according to her.
I am tempted to just be thrilled that she is able to squeak by without meds but it really was an 11th hour decision by the school to let her return for the spring given she turned the overdue and overly brief papers in on last day. I am wondering if there is any point in asking her Dr to try a different ADHD med or if we should just let it be and hope she can cut it med-free. (Or maybe just get some anxiety meds for me???)
Help!
