Mother’s intuition is powerful

A mother’s intuition is a powerful force of nature. Moms are arguably more in tune with their children than anyone else on earth. Is momma intuition always right, though? No, mine certainly failed me a few times; but it’s on target the majority of the time. When that little voice whispers to you, [more…] take heed!

As you read in my ADHD Meltdowns post, I’ve struggled with my son Ricochet’s ADHD treatment as of late. He was doing well on Quillivant and Amantadine (Amantadine kept the Quillivant effective, and gave a boost of calm during hours his stimulant had worn off.). It took a year of fear episodes and waves of intense separation anxiety for me to finally realize the Amantadine was causing it. That realization was a crushing blow, as he had done really well with this combination for nearly a year before that.

Throwing Pharmaceuticals at the Problem

Before I figured out that the Amantadine had to be the culprit, his doctor put him on Prozac as well to try to address the raging anxiety. I was afraid of Prozac, Ricochet had tried two other SSRIs and had serious side effects. But, he couldn’t keep melting down and missing school because he was afraid to be away from me, and I knew every medication is different, so I agreed to try the Prozac. Long story short, that one backfired bigger than any other and left us battling rage episodes we’d never seen before. Then, another medication was added to address the rages when stopping Prozac didn’t help.

Suppressing my inner voice for the voices of others

I knew Prozac was the culprit for these rages, despite all physicians saying he was on too low a dose and only a month and couldn’t possibly have withdrawal from Prozac (there’s that Momma intuition). Unfortunately, I was the only one who knew this. My husband, Mr. T, felt Ricochet had learned this behavior to manipulate us out of forcing him to go to school. His doctor and therapist once again jumped on the mood disorder bandwagon. We added a mood drug to try to quiet the rages at the insistence of his doctor. We stood firm on going to school no matter what, even if he had to be dragged in kicking and screaming by administration (yep, it happened). And yet, none of these changes resolved the problem — the rages that were so out of character for my sweet boy that I cried mercilessly every time they happened. That little voice still nagged, telling me my child didn’t change overnight. Telling me it had to be the medications.

Taking charge

Finally, after I’d let everyone else test their theories when they were sure I was grasping at straws, I called the doctor and asked that Ricochet only take his stimulant. I wanted to get back to a baseline and work from there — throwing pharmaceuticals at the problem wasn’t helping.  He agreed.

The first week Ricochet was on Quillivant alone, he only had 2-3 rages the entire week, where he was having them multiple times a day prior. But he was still having them, and he was still telling me how upset he was that he couldn’t control when the anger welled up inside of him. Again, on a total hunch and nothing more, I decided to switch back to Concerta, the stimulant he had taken before. I had almost a full bottle. My theory was that the Quillivant came in when he began struggling with Concerta and Amantadine and some thoughts getting “stuck” in his head. What if it was the Amantadine and not the Concerta? What if the Quillivant was increasing his anger? The only way to know was to try the switch.

My intuition lead me to get my boy’s sweet temperament back

And, by golly, my sweet boy has returned. He’s been on Concerta alone for 10 days and hasn’t had one aggressive episode. What a relief for this momma! At least for now. Concerta has a history of losing effectiveness after 4-6 weeks for Ricochet.

Trust your intuition too mommas! That little voice is there for a reason.

When have you flown in the face of conventional wisdom and trusted your intuition regarding your child’s ADHD treatment, or school accommodations, or the like?