Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional Neurofeedback success?

DS definitely has appetite suppression, but he is still following all of his growth curves. He was small to begin with, so we do watch him closely. We give 2 doses a day of the short acting stimulant and it only lasts about 3.5 hours per dose for him, so he is only medicated 7 hours a day, which is exactly the length of a school day. We give the am dose 30 mins before school starts and it kicks in right as we are arriving. He gets his second dose at lunch. He does not eat until he gets home a bit after 3. Overall he eats the same amount as he did before, just with a long period of fasting from breakfast till after school lunch. Our hardest times each day are morning routine and bedtime routine, they are challenging times to begin with and we have to manage them unmedicated. But school success is the main goal. I love the weekends because I get to be with DS when he can control himself. Looking forward to summer break so I get those 7 hours all to myself

Sanne, that's is what we currently do. Different doses depending on if it is a school day or not. We give him the long acting in the morning right before breakfast. It takes about 45mins - 1hr to start seeing some affects of the medication. I wish the onset time would be shorter because ds is very difficult to handle in the mornings when not medicated. Example, he has a hard time getting dressed, using the lavatory, feeding himself, and even getting into the car. Morning routines are especially hard. His teachers also notice the first hour or so in the morning he is still hyper/inattentive. At lunch he basically eats nothing at all, and he is pretty resistant to any food until evening when his medication has worn off. Night time he starts getting rowdy again but we start winding down for the night so it's not as bad as morning. The weekends we usually give him a short acting pill because he has music lessons etc. and then by lunch he has a bigger appetite. However, ds is very hard to handle when not medicated at all, so sometimes we do struggle with the "give him medication and have him not eat but keep our sanity or don't give him medication and he does eat, but our frustration levels grow."

I hear you about difficulty waiting for medication to work! We tried Daytrana (patch) for DS and it took 2 - 4 hours to start working. Mornings were awful! I managed a week before giving up on it.

When I was on ADHD meds, food was not going to happen, but I could get liquid calories. Will he drink something calorie-dense like a high-fat chocolate milk?

I'm sorry you're dealing with this. Parenting an ADHDer is difficult. I wish I could enjoy being a parent more.

DS will not drink anything but water, and he especially hates anything thick like dairy ( and he also doesn't like chocolate, lol) but we can get him to eat stuff he really loves while medicated at his weekend/at home dose. At school I'm lucky if he takes a few bites of granola bar, which is a favorite food. Because his ADHD is so bad it is hard to feed him when he is unmedicated too as he has a hard time staying on task and sitting. I usually end up turning on the TV for his lunch time and he eats over the course of 2 hours! I have to constantly remind him to continue eating. The more engaging the show, the less he eats :p At dinner we read to him while he eats and that usually helps a lot. Without entertainment he just runs around the room, usually screaming, knocking things down, and then stepping on them each time he makes a lap around the room. I usually insist he be outside any time it is not awful weather. I also take him for lots of walks. I try really hard not to get angry with him as I know it is not his fault.

OTOH, when medicated, DS is like a whole new kid. He is friendly and outgoing, able to control his emotions and actions. We play board games and do art projects together, we read and tell jokes, we have a great time together. I know this is the person DS is because when he can control himself it is who he chooses to be (on good days we see this side of him unmedicated as well). It's like living with 2 different people though. I'm hopeful that as DS gets older he will be able to take a third dose of meds in the evening. Or better yet, gain enough impulse control that he can function somewhat without medication. It is hard, but what can you do but fight through it and hope for the best? I think DS has definitely taken a few years off of my life, but he's also made me happier than I have ever been before. Plus he's so darn cute

I have a child with ASD that swim was like a switch in his brain. Something about the total body involvement with swim and the water itself was like magic. He has since enjoyed training for 5k run too.

Though I have no direct experience, I too have seen such a child do very well with Swim Team (at the advanced levels, he had to train twice a day) and advanced violin lessons. It was a good combination for that child which allowed for a structured release of extra energy and then a disciplined focus in his violin study.

SaturnFan, I feel like you are describing my ds! DS can not eat while unmedicated because he falls off the chair, gets up and walks around, starts yelling, throws things, etc. I feel the same as you as if he has an evil twin that comes out while unmedicated. When he is on medication and it is working well, DS acts like a whole new person with brilliant ideas, thoughtful, easy to get along with, etc.
DS also will not eat or drink any shakes while medicated. We use to try Ensure but only with mild success. I know this sounds embarrassing but we still sometimes resort to spoon feeding him ourselves. Otherwise it would take 2 hours like SaturnFun said. And we also allow him to read or watch IPad during mealtimes. When he is absorbed in a book or show, we can get a lot of food in him to compensate for the lack of lunch.

Thanks for being so supportive Portia. Many other parents give us weird looks like we are bad parents for having a child this wild. But unless one actually has a child with severe ADHD they don't know what it's really like. For a long time we actually blamed ourselves for his behaviors and blamed DS. But over time we have come to grips with it and have come to understand how debilitating ADHD can be. Our dd7 is perfectly well behaved and gets perfect teacher comments so we know it is not our parenting style.

We spoon feed too sometimes, especially in the morning. I find that oatmeal is great for this as I can follow him around with it and it is thick enough not to spill if he has a wild movement! We also dress him on school mornings because otherwise we would have no chance of getting him there on time. We brush his teeth most of the time and he needs someone to talk him through showers to keep things moving along and to make sure he doesn't forget any important steps. When he is medicated he is super responsible, even reminding us of things we need to do when we get ready to go out. I know he has all of the skills in him, he is just limited by whatever is wrong in his brain. I hope that someday we can do more for these kids, but for now we will happily use the stimulant.

I think I've mentioned before that there is fMRI evidence that children with ADHD have brain development in the frontal lobes that resembles that of much younger children (often about 3 years younger), which lags for many years, until it appears to "catch up" around late adolescence. If you think of their executive functions as being typical of a child about 3 years younger, then the level of scaffolding that you may have to do for daily living skills is not particularly strange, especially since their age-appropriate tasks require a much higher degree of organization and self-monitoring than would those for a younger child. (The later brain development, btw, is also postulated to contribute to the higher degree of creative and entrepeneurial thinking found in persons identified as ADHD, as it's like having age-appropriate (i.e., older) cognition, but with the fertile creativity of a young child.)