Afternoon dose

We have finally added an afternoon dose of Focalin. We're doing 2.5MG and it seems to be working for now. The difference in behavior seems to be becoming more pronounced so this really is a big help. It leaves us with about an hour of chaos at the end of the day. Of course the mornings are still very hard. At this point I'm thinking if I had something to take in the morning it might help. He just wakes up and is going on all 8 cylinders straight out of the gate. The rest of us simply don't function like that so it causes tension.
But like I said the behavior seems to be getting even worse when the meds have warn off so we really need to figure out where we can be getting some extra help there soon too. I really feel like we're pretty darn consistent and the issue isn't really anything horrible, its just a constant not listening and having fits when he doesn't get his way. He so obviously has a truly amazing heart but it is just very frustrating to feel like a 6 year old really wants to control our household and sometimes really can!

Spelling Check Up

Apparently they don't call spelling tests, spelling tests anymore but instead call them spelling checkups. Maybe they're less intimidating that way, I don't know. But Timmy had his first one this week. He did really well, I think. He got three wrong but 2 were words that weren't on their list for the week. Not sure if they were from weks prior that he hasn't been in this class for or if they were just bonus, can you figure it out thing. Ang then one he got wrong because despite him being able to tell you how it's spelled, he wrote a letter ('p') backwards so it was a ('q') so it was wrong.
He's still really struggling with a few letters in that way. So now I need to do some searching and see if this is still to be expected or if we should be looking into it further.

Not an academic death sentence

Ok so Timmy's only in Kindergarten, but still I am beyond thrilled with how well he's doing in school.  And I just want it to be encouragement to others that the DX of ADHD does not have to mean an academic death sentence.  I know that ADHD doesn't have anything to do with intelligence and I don't think most would argue with that but I DO think many assume that ADHD will equal poor school performance.  Again, I know we have many many years ahead of us and that the demands will get greater each year.  But today Timmy took his very first test during his time in the first grade class.  It was 34 questions where they had to listen to instructions and then fill in a bubble.  He got 7 wrong which did not sound overly impressive to me when he told me, despite how pleased he was with himself saying he did do well.  But I just got an email from the teacher and she said she does think he did "pretty amazing under the circumstances." And that only 6 other FIRST graders got less than 10 wrong with many getting as many as 20 wrong.

To me this sounds like the worst possible situation for a child with ADHD,  but he did great!

Parent Teacher Conference

I had my Timmy's parent/teachers conference last night and it couldn't have been better. His Kindergarten teacher basically said he's a joy and is doing so well, she's got nothing more she can teach him. He has been going to 1st grade for 2 hours a day since Christmas break and I got to meet that teacher. She too says he's doing great. He listens really well, and works independently. He is meeting or exceeding all the 1st grade "benchmarks" and is falling around the middle of her current class for everything. She said she isn't making any guesses at this point but will see how the rest of the year shakes out but she 'may' recommend that he be promoted up to 2nd for next year. But we may have a battle on our hands if that is her recommendations because no one even knows how they'd do it and the administration seems very leery of it. But she said if he doesn't skip to 2nd she will make sure he's in her 1st grade class so that we can be confident knowing he will be challenged at the level he needs. I have to say, for as much as I hate our district for so many reasons, I LOVE these two teachers and the ways they've really gone above and beyond to meet the needs of my child.

Makes a momma proud!!!

Same ole'

So we're back to our normal routine of 10mg of Focalin XR. It only last until about 3pm which makes homework and dinner interesting but at least all is well at school. Hopefully after the new year we can get to one of the Dr's our Ped referred us to to find something for the afternoon. But for now, I'll just enjoy not getting calls from school.

Daytrona a no go

Well, tomorrow we're going back on Focalin Xr 10mg.

The Daytrona not only didn't work for the ADHD symptoms but gave him a wicked evil mood. So after 7 days we're done with that. We've been referred to see a child psychologist(trist? I always forget) to see if they can figure out a way to get a longer coverage without adding issues. But for now I'll just be appreciating the 8 hours he can do so well for at school. Took a bit to get there though. I kept him home yesterday not wanting to send him with the patch again after knowing how badly things were going at school and then experiencing first hand over the weekend. But then he was better (mood wise) with just no meds so I sent him today since I still didn't have a new Rx but teacher said while he was in fact better today than last week it was still a rough day that included a few timeouts, which he hadn't had before switching off the Focalin.

Daytrona Day 2

Ok so we tried the 15mg of Focalin XR for a month. It seemed to do to him what everyone who opposes medicating claims happens. While he was still able to function etc he was very sluggish. It didn't give us any longer effects just made him look pathetically tired or sad all the time.

After much discussion, it was decided that there really wasn't a great option available for an afternoon short acting dose because Timmy can't yet swallow a pill. So as much as I was happy with the Focalin XR (at 10MG) and how well it worked with seemingly no side effects, we decided to go ahead and try something different. He is now using the Daytrona patch. It went on at 7:30am yesterday and we took it off at about 5:15pm and it seemed to wear off just a few minutes shy of the normal two hours. And he seemed to be no different going to sleep. So this may just be the answer. Now to just figure out two things: 1, how to get the stupid backing off the patch the right way and 2, how to get the patch off him at the end of the day without ripping off too many layers of skin.