Suggestions for meds for focus

[trggirl]

Hi, I am so sad today. We go to a private school and my daughter's teacher told me she could not send her on to third grade unless something changed with her focus. It is not an academic problem, it is strictly focus. She cannot perform in class and she is holding the others back because she takes so much time to get her work done. I do understand because I have the same problems at home with homework. What should take 1 hour, takes us 4 hours.

 

Could y'all share with me if your children takes anything and if it works well and side effects you experience. My daughter has a tendency towards tics so I don't want to do anything to aggravate that aspect.

[faith]

trq,

I can only tell you that my experience is exactly the same as yours, only my son is now 10. but we dealt with the same concerns of focus, but it was apparent for us that his focus has to do with his tics/ocd. So while your daughter is in second grade now, I can tell you that this will only get harder and harder as she gets older and the work gets more involved. I never did do meds, but what has helped, and I think you hve to consider this, is getting a diagnoses and either a 504 plan or IEP, whichever is appropriate. With the 504 plan, they can't hold her inability to focus or the time she takes against her. my son is the same way, what should take 45 minutes goes on for hours, but with the accomodations, he is allowed the extra time to do the work and tests, otherwise he'd never get anything doen timely. I don't know how much the teacher or school knows of your daughters situation, but if they are not apprised of it, I do think you should have a meeting with the teacher or school psychologist and get things rolling for that. All you need is a letter of diagnoses from your doctor or neurologist, just spell it out, the symptoms, tics/anxiety/add. you will probably have to have her tested thru the school to make sure there are no learning disabilities. Everything is confidential and it does not have to be told to anyone but the faculty, my son is not even aware he has a 504 for the past three years, he just knows they give him extra time, altho now that he's in the fifth grade, so he is becoming aware that he has these problems and that they are interfering with his work.

 

Please feel free to ask me any other questions or if you need further guidance.

 

Faith

[GatsMom]

Hi, I am so sad today. We go to a private school and my daughter's teacher told me she could not send her on to third grade unless something changed with her focus. It is not an academic problem, it is strictly focus. She cannot perform in class and she is holding the others back because she takes so much time to get her work done. I do understand because I have the same problems at home with homework. What should take 1 hour, takes us 4 hours.

 

Could y'all share with me if your children takes anything and if it works well and side effects you experience. My daughter has a tendency towards tics so I don't want to do anything to aggravate that aspect.

 

I don't feel my son is a good candidate for stimulant therapy (adderall, etc) for attention and focus issues and neither did his DAN! doc. We use P5P (a form of B6) in conjunction with L-tyrosine (an amino acid). We also use pycnogenol (a type of pine bark extract). All are found at our local health food store. Not sure of the dosing schedule for P5P and L-tyrsonine (he takes 50mg & 1000mg) but I recall the dosing for pycnogenol to be one mg per pound of body weight.

 

Gat's mom.

[MomWithOCDSon]

Hi Trg Girl!

 

We've had real struggles off and on with focus in our house, too, much as Faith has described. It is so wearing on everyone, not the least of whom is your daughter, who no doubt doesn't mean to drag things out to the extent that she does or lose her focus so easily.

 

For what it is worth, what we've found is that during the waxing or exacerbation of his OCD behaviors, that's when his focus is the worst. There's a great article available on the OCD Foundation of Chicago web site called "What the Heck is Obsessive Slowness," and it pretty much speaks to all the things that pertain to lack of focus and the painfully slow progress we see in schoolwork and homework in our house. My son is now 12 and in 7th grade, and I can tell you we've been dealing with this every year. Again, when the OCD is under control, his focus seems to automatically improve, but when he's struggling more with the OCD, he's probably clinically diagnosable with ADHD, as well. If you download a copy of that article (go to the web site and look under the "Expert Perspectives" section), you could provide that to the teacher to give her some perspective, as well.

 

And I absolutely echo what Faith has suggested about a 504 or IEP; our son had a 504 which grew in terms of its provisions from 3rd grade through 6th, and just this year the severity of his OCD behaviors in this latest exacerbation caused us to convert the 504 to an IEP. Overall, the accommodations assist his learning at his own pace, which is still well within his grade level and then some, but it takes the heat off him having to perform within some of the stricter time parameters set for things like testing, etc.

 

As for medications, just about 3 months ago, our son began taking Intuniv, which is a non-stimulant ADHD medication in a similar vein as Straterra. I had mentioned it to our psych because I'd read that Sammy Maloney (of "Saving Sammy" fame) had been prescribed Straterra, and his mom, Beth, thinks that it assisted both his focus and his OCD. I will have to say that we all believe, including my son, that the Intuniv is helping him both in school and with homework. In the first few weeks, he tended to be a little sleepy and you do have to watch their blood pressure and make sure they eat regularly so that their blood sugar/energy doesn't take a dive, especially in the afternoon, but most of those side effects evened out within a few weeks, and now he's back to doing quite well in terms of focus in school, completion of his classwork within the alloted time, and even knocking out his homework with greater efficiency.

[momto2pandas]

So sorry that you had to hear this, but there is a good chance that something will indeed change before the next school year. That's one thing about this condition - it CAN change on a dime.

 

Have you tried Omegabrite supplements? www.omegabrite.com

 

We have tried other fish oil supplements and nothing seems to work as well. The only trick is that the dose on the bottle for kids is lower than the dose they used in clinical trials, and I don't think it's enough for PANDAS. We have had some struggles with my ds6's attention lately (not severe enough that the teacher has mentioned it, but enough for me to notice) and I had attributed it to residual effects of an exacerbation we had over Christmas with major dental work, but this morning my husband told me that he had halved ds's dose of omegabrite in the last few weeks because he had noticed that the dose he had been giving him (based on my research from the publications) was more than the dose on the bottle. I'm guessing that this is actually the problem because the biggest difference we ever see is on omegabrites vs. off. No side effects.

 

 

 

Hi, I am so sad today. We go to a private school and my daughter's teacher told me she could not send her on to third grade unless something changed with her focus. It is not an academic problem, it is strictly focus. She cannot perform in class and she is holding the others back because she takes so much time to get her work done. I do understand because I have the same problems at home with homework. What should take 1 hour, takes us 4 hours.

 

Could y'all share with me if your children takes anything and if it works well and side effects you experience. My daughter has a tendency towards tics so I don't want to do anything to aggravate that aspect.

[momto2pandas]

Pycnogenol! Isn't that the supplement that radically increases sperm counts and that is used as a male fertility drug? Interesting!

 

 

Hi, I am so sad today. We go to a private school and my daughter's teacher told me she could not send her on to third grade unless something changed with her focus. It is not an academic problem, it is strictly focus. She cannot perform in class and she is holding the others back because she takes so much time to get her work done. I do understand because I have the same problems at home with homework. What should take 1 hour, takes us 4 hours.

 

Could y'all share with me if your children takes anything and if it works well and side effects you experience. My daughter has a tendency towards tics so I don't want to do anything to aggravate that aspect.

 

I don't feel my son is a good candidate for stimulant therapy (adderall, etc) for attention and focus issues and neither did his DAN! doc. We use P5P (a form of B6) in conjunction with L-tyrosine (an amino acid). We also use pycnogenol (a type of pine bark extract). All are found at our local health food store. Not sure of the dosing schedule for P5P and L-tyrsonine (he takes 50mg & 1000mg) but I recall the dosing for pycnogenol to be one mg per pound of body weight.

 

Gat's mom.

[trggirl]

If we end up in public school, I will definitely get the IEP or 504.

 

The problem is we are in private and they don't have special accomodations. I am really, really scared to move from our school. At this school, she has a class from 9-14 students with 14 being max. I am heavily involved and know the teachers, parents, and students very well. They teach classically which is a lot of memory work so that plays to her strengths. While she does struggle socially (because her mind is going so fast and she can't stop to listen), there is a no tolerance policy for meanness. And the classes are so small that the teachers are on top of the kids and nothing goes unnoticed. We recently had some meaness and it was dealt with strongly and I have noticed some of the girls making extra efforts to be kind. I am so afraid if she goes to public, she will be lost in the big classes and ridiculed because she is different.

 

So a big part of my dilemma is : 1. move her to public school where she will get accomodations, but she might get ridiculed 2. give her meds (which even thinking about it makes me hurt) but know she will have the small class that she needs and will not get made fun of. 3. homeschooling, but depending on the day, my daughter battles me on doing the work and I don't think that would be a good situation.

 

I do think OCD is involved with this because she has told me with tears in her eyes that she won't sit down and do the work because she might get something wrong. This is not the typical scenario though. Usually she just gets distracted by whatever is around her and I have to tell her over and over to do her work. And if I turn my back, she is up and gone to follow through on whatever thought came into her brain.

 

I have tried fish oil and it caused horrific tics. I think Pycnogenol works in a similar matter, but I will look into that. I will also look up the Omegabrites and Intuniv. Did any of these cause tics for your children? Did your child tic before or did they have OCD. Please keep the suggestions coming.

[faith]

trq,

that's a tough one about the private school vs. public. being that she is comfortable right now, I totally understand about not wanting to move her. Part of my son's ease in social situations is probably because he's known the same kids since kindergarten, so even tho some of his tic issues may be noticed, its his familiarity and longterm friendships that kind of save him. altho there will always be kids who might have something to say either in front of or behind someone's back, but I think the fact that my son has always had friends and is quite sociable himself from the start pretty much causes him to just blend in. I am inclined to agree that you may not want to rock that boat and put her in a situation where she will be 'new' and thus stand out, altho I also tend to think that at a young age that kids are not that focuused on other's issues, most go under the radar, and you'd be surprised how kids learn to adapt and tolerate other's differences.

 

But, I do think that even if a 504 is not an option at this time, then you should at least keep the teachers apprised to her situation with tics, ocd thoughts, and focus problems. Perhaps even without a formal accomodation plan, they may be able to set their own accomodations in place in order to compensate for her problems or issues--communication between you and the teachers/school is key here. just focus on her symptoms, don't get into PANDAS or anything complicated for them to understand. she has tics, and that causes her to try and hold them in and not be able to focus, she has thoughts of perfectionism/ocd, so that causes her to second guess and slow down, anxiety causes her to get distracted, etc. I don't know what the policies are for private schools, but I do think they need to be apprised of her issues in order to work around them. perhaps they will be able to loosely follow what you would get with a 504 plan, i.e. extra time for work/tests. the only thing is this will not be a legal binding for them. hopefully you will be able to work this out before she finishes grammar school and moves on to the higher grades.

 

Faith

[MomWithOCDSon]

I do think OCD is involved with this because she has told me with tears in her eyes that she won't sit down and do the work because she might get something wrong. This is not the typical scenario though. Usually she just gets distracted by whatever is around her and I have to tell her over and over to do her work. And if I turn my back, she is up and gone to follow through on whatever thought came into her brain.

 

I have tried fish oil and it caused horrific tics. I think Pycnogenol works in a similar matter, but I will look into that. I will also look up the Omegabrites and Intuniv. Did any of these cause tics for your children? Did your child tic before or did they have OCD. Please keep the suggestions coming.

 

Our son has OCD. Now that I'm getting more educated about all the various behaviors, I also would say he has some subtle, though not especially obvious, vocal tics. The Intuniv has not, in our case anyway, escalated any behaviors/tics or added any. I think that is likely because it is non-stimulant.

[melanie]

Hi, I am so sad today. We go to a private school and my daughter's teacher told me she could not send her on to third grade unless something changed with her focus. It is not an academic problem, it is strictly focus. She cannot perform in class and she is holding the others back because she takes so much time to get her work done. I do understand because I have the same problems at home with homework. What should take 1 hour, takes us 4 hours.

 

Could y'all share with me if your children takes anything and if it works well and side effects you experience. My daughter has a tendency towards tics so I don't want to do anything to aggravate that aspect.

 

 

Hi

 

Even though you are in aprivate school you are still eligable for Special Services through the County and State you live.Ask the school for the county IEP services they have to accomadate you child with a 504 .

[trggirl]

I didn't know that Melanie. Thanks for that information. I will check into it immediately.

[Suzan]

For my dd's adhd behavior, we have used a product called Attend by Vaxa with success. It seemed to help her stay in control at school and focus better. We also have a 504 plan for her which is new so I don't think I'm using it as I should be but it is good to know it's there if she has an episode or anything else goes out of whack.

 

Susan

[trggirl]

Suzan, did your daughter have tics?

[Suzan]

Suzan, did your daughter have tics?

 

No, she does not tic, she has had moments where I thought one was developing but it never continued.