The Forums › Forums › Medication › Psychostimulants – General › To Medicate, Or Not To Medicate › Re: To Medicate, Or Not To Medicate
Anonymous
Okay. We went to the paediatrician today. He was lovely. Really involved and didn’t make us feel like we were being rushed through the appointment. He talked to my son as a person and explained things to him. He was just a comfortable doctor to be with. He did some general tests (blood pressure, weight etc) and asked about my son’s health in general, as well as a bit of his history. Then he discussed medication. He seemed to think it was worthwhile trying, as just a small dose can make a big difference. He discussed how to go about it all and explained about the restrictions on the medication – he is not allowed to prescribe a long acting drug without ensuring the short acting form works first. So he has prescribed Ritalin 10mg. My son is to take one tablet on the first day and we are to note when it wears off. Then he can take a second one the next day, at about the time the first is due to wear off. Then we can add a third if needed (which would be homework time normally). We are to ring him in two weeks and he will discuss things and send us a prescription for a long acting drug, based on how the Ritalin works. We have to keep a log of my son’s behaviour to help us when it comes time to discuss things in two weeks. The school kids here are on school holidays for two weeks after tomorrow, so it’s a good time to be playing around getting dosages right, without filling in forms for school every time we want to change a dosage time. We can get it right, and get on a long acting drug before he goes back to school. Then we only need to worry about medication forms when he has camps. Providing Ritalin is the right drug for him. I hope so. It would be so easy if we hit the nail on the head the first time round. We have a script for 100 tablets (roughly one month’s worth, at three doses a day) with 5 repeats, so I am happy we don’t have to yo-yo back to the doctor on a regular basis to get more prescriptions.
I have read that Adderall works better on inattentives, but my son is only just shy of the combined type diagnosis, so maybe Ritalin would help control his impulsive behaviour and constant chatter better than Adderall would. Who knows.
I wonder what the doc thought of us today. My son kept looking at me and making noises, which gave me the giggles. I had made a similar noise as I found a carpark in a busy street where carparks are hard to find. He payed me out about it all the way to the doc’s office, and just couldn’t restrain himself whenever the doc’s attention was elsewhere. The doc was probably wondering why the two of us would suddenly start giggling every time he turned his back!! I was so distracted by the time we finished that I couldn’t think straight about paying the bill and messed it all up. The poor secretary was so confused by the time I had talked around in circles trying to find out how I was supposed to claim the medicare rebate and pay for the appointment (I actually forgot that I had to pay for the appointment first, before I could claim medicare, and was lucky one of our accounts had some money in it…..of course, it wasn’t the first account I tried!!). Ugh!! Glad that’s over. And I am thrilled we found a good paediatrician….except we have to change to a psychiatrist once my son is older. Hopefully this paediatrician will keep seeing him for a long time – it seems to be a decision that is partly made by the doctor, though prescribing laws here might affect the upper age the child can be and still have a paediatrician prescribe stimulants, as adults have to be prescribed stimulants by a psychiatrist.
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