This was a doozy

This weekend we decided to modify J's medication. He'd been on adderall for a while, but it's completely killed what little appetite he had before. He's gained almost no weight for the past 2 years. We had heard good things about strattera and decided to try him on that. For the past 6 week's he's been on both, and doing really well. The only hard parts of the day were the 15 minutes right after we gave it to him, and the 30 minutes, 11 hours later, when the adderall wears off. After those 30 minutes he's perfect. Our thinking was that the strattera (which is a 24 hour effectiveness) was working and the adderall was messing with his system. So we decided it was time to get rid of the adderall.

Saturday went OK, he was certainly less focused, couldn't sit still, but was very manageable. We thought out plan was working. We again didn't give him the adderall on Sunday, and that's when the fun started. He woke up OK, even slept in a bit longer than usual. The first 30-45 minutes after waking up were fine, then the fun began. 

I don't even remember what set it off, but he went completely out of control for 3 hours straight - despite our best efforts to calm him down. He destroyed his room. Tried to throw everything from his room over the banister down to the basement (successfully getting a lot down). Broke his door (more broke then it was before, from previous meltdowns). Tore everything off his walls. Stripped his bed. Emptied his closet. 

It wasn't even near lunch time yet.

He's back on adderall now. We'll try again in a few months*.

*Strattera build up in your system, meaning the longer you're on it, the better it works - often it takes up to 6 months to reach optimal effectiveness.