Minimum Age For ADHD medication.

Hi Chris, the reason to delay ADHD meds as long as possible are two fold

1) they are appetite suppressant and the younger the child the greater the risk of low appetite affecting growth. It's the commonest reason for ceasing meds 

2) Even older kids struggle to give useful feedback on how they feel on medication. Observing calmer behaviour could be a good drug response or it could be a child feeling unwell on the meds.

Having said this if there's discussion about not starting meds then you need to ask for assistance on a behavioural program... totally get how exhausting a wired kid is and I'm dealing with teens! We attended a course (we are in NZ) on behaviour strategies and we are already getting benefits...and this is with teens.

With behavioural programs you need to be a bit of a detective. There will be some things that hold his attention. What are they? Use them and visual prompts in learning e.g. a poo chart with a reward for sitting after a meal on the potty with a something that interests him (e.g. a spinning toy) for a few minutes and a reward for a poo.

If he's non-verbal consider using BSL so he can connect the visual sign for a poo and the action. Likely you will have to use the sign several dozen times but with luck he will eventually use it to tell you he needs one!

Thanks everyone, I appreciate all your views. With my son, his diet is so limited that I can't resort to food elimination too much, I even give him Pediasure shakes to help him get the protein and vitamins he needs, although I think they have a fair bit of sugar. His diet is very limited as it is... Sausage Rolls, Cocktail Sausages, Munch bunch yogurt, Rice Cakes, Peanut butter on bread, bananas... White, Beige, Yellow and Brown coloured foods basically.

He eats sweets, but its not good for his gut...I give him them because his little face lights up when he sees them. But I've cut them out to infrequent amounts now as obviously the sugar makes him worse than usual. But still the symptoms persist. He refuses to drink water on it's own, and will often wait until he is "very" thirsty before taking it... he takes diluting juice, which might actually be exacerbating his ADHD. So I'll try to cut it out more too.

Those Vitamins that Jo mentioned are coming tomorrow, I'll need to try those, and if he doesn't take them, then the liquid form of them as I can usually get him to take liquid vitamins with a syringe... I'll build it up in his system to see if it helps.

He's getting harder to handle out in public now... I can handle him, but my wife struggles... the thing with kids with ASD/ADHD is they often look normal, my son is quite a cute little boy with strawberry blonde hair, you wouldn't know he's autistic looking at him, until you observe his behavior and lack of speech... so I'm often conscious that other people will be assuming he's just badly behaved. Although I've not had anyone say anything to us, despite some scowling looks... maybe it's because I'm an 18 stone lump... I'm not an easy target haha

NAS24356 said:

his diet is so limited that I can't resort to food elimination too much, I even give him Pediasure shakes to help him get the protein and vitamins he needs, although I think they have a fair bit of sugar. His diet is very limited as it is... Sausage Rolls, Cocktail Sausages, Munch bunch yogurt, Rice Cakes, Peanut butter on bread, bananas... White, Beige, Yellow and Brown coloured foods

I think you should keep a food diary for a week and then consult a dietitian that understands autistic kids. 

QuirkyFriend said:

If he's on paediasure he's seeing a dietitian already.

Hopefully so but it is available without prescription in Boots.

If he's on paediasure he's seeing a dietitian already.

My quick eyeball look suggested that I'd cook the hell out of some carrot rounds, cool them and serve them alongside banana rounds...

I'd also try sneaking in some high quality meat sausage (get a butcher to make them if needed, so they were very plain)

Chris, don't worry about the sugar in paediasure, it's not that high, it's sweet because they use an enzyme to reduce the lactose and the two sugars from the breakdown process are roughly 1.8 X the sweetness profile of regular sugar.

If he's on paediasure he's seeing a dietitian already.

My quick eyeball look suggested that I'd cook the hell out of some carrot rounds, cool them and serve them alongside banana rounds...

I'd also try sneaking in some high quality meat sausage (get a butcher to make them if needed, so they were very plain)

Chris, don't worry about the sugar in paediasure, it's not that high, it's sweet because they use an enzyme to reduce the lactose and the two sugars from the breakdown process are roughly 1.8 X the sweetness profile of regular sugar.

QuirkyFriend said:

If he's on paediasure he's seeing a dietitian already.

Hopefully so but it is available without prescription in Boots.