How to calm a 14 year old down if he has run out of ADD medicine?!
Question:
How to calm a 14 year old down if he has run out of ADD medicine?
whats are some ways to calm a 14 year old boy down if he either hasnt has his ADD medicine or may its wore off late in the evening. My girlfriend son has it and is fine as long as he takes his medicine in the morning, but if he forgets, runs out, or even sometimes at the end of the day the meds are wearing off, he gets really hyper, i heard stuff like tylenol pm or benedryl may have opposite effect
Answers:
If it is day time get him to run around outside, ride a bicycle, anything that will make him burn calories, swim. Priro to this give him some coffee, caffienated. Getting him to burn calories will help him to calm down eventually.
Benadryl is a medicine that is comonly used to counteract againts stimulants at the end of the day. It should help a little but the kid has to be calm prior to taking benadryl or it will be harder for it to work.
If you know or suspect the kid has missed a dose of medicine give him some caffiene, coffee, and tell him to go ride a bicycle or something when he come in saying he is tired, wait untill he is sitting down and looks calmer before you give him benadryl. The Benadryl will work best on an empty stomach.
By the way, based on what you are describing, you are actually witnessing is actually a side effect of the stimulant, not the meds wearing off. Stimulants in ADHD people do not work as they do in other people true enough. The desired effect is to improve the blood circulation in the brain. Doing this makes their brain communicate and send signals more efficiently. After a while of taking the same meds over a period of time the body gets used to the effects and once the body senses the meds wearing off it tries to mimic the effects but it does not do it very well. It gives the "patient" more energy by increasing blood flow throughout the whole body, by increasing their metablolism. This is not "withdrawl". This is why doctors tend to give Benadryl or other "sleepy" pills to counteract this effect in the evening, otherwise insomnia occurs.
My advice is if you see this restlessness more often than not, split the doses more effectively, but first talk to the prescrbing physician.
If the kid were in withdrawl he would be puking his guts out and giving him anything orally would be impossible, because he could not hold anything down. he would definitley not have enough energy to drive anyone crazy. I know because I have experienced withdrawl from stimulants many times.
Stimulants are very tricky medicine but it is my belief that the answer, or more to the point, the solution, to modern obesity lies in stimulants, but it is because they can be very easily missused and or abused, that doctors are afraid to use them to treat this new epidemic, of moder life.