Callog - we have to make his Ensure with water as making it with milk got him so constipated he was crying in pain and wound up with a really nasty anal fissure, constantly wiping blood when he tried to go etc.
He's only just managing to stay regular on 30mls of lactulose anyway and I'm sure that's in part because of his crappy diet.

He's getting a total of 1.5 litres of Ensure a day and that's largely only holding his weight static. At the moment he hasn't eaten any solid food since breakfast on Sat when he ate 8 weetbix bites in a little milk.

He's lost 39 days this year simply in bed with blinding headaches and retching/vomiting due to his lack of eating - headaches always improve on drinking some Ensure so we know it's not a migraine etc.

Before his latest plunge into not eating he was having around 10 weetbix bites for breakfast, a good day was 1/4 bit of bread for lunch and averaging a mouthful or two of dinner - one night was 25 g of corn chips (we were having nachos) and a little lettuce.
So I'd say Logan's doing a heap better than Nicholas

Paed surgeon was talking NG tube trial for N but seems to have gone cold on it, paed today was asking how we felt about hospital for him for a good while but N's already had a year of weekly psych appts and they gave up.

N's Ensure volumes and lack of eating are actually stopping him from attending school now and we're seriously looking at needing to put him into Correspondence via Health School if things don't improve - and this has been going for 4 years and counting.

Yup - it sucks when they won't eat!

Hmmm, makes it tricky that you can't make it with milk, constipation creates a whole different set of issues for them. I really don't know what else you could do, if he doesn't have the internal motivation to eat what else is there to motivate them?

Have you done a trial off stimulants or is that too hideous to contemplate? I guess it becomes a decision around what is more important - appetite and food or behaviour and ability to self regulate behaviour. Would you give N a few days off his meds to see if his appetite comes back?

We're about to transition to Strattera which is non-stimulant and apparently doesn't affect appetite to help rule out that factor.

Without meds he's so chaotic that he doesn't focus long enough to eat, forgets he has food in his mouth etc.

We've also tried cutting the Ensure vols - last trial was in August where we restricted it to outside school hours and halved the vols. He lost 1.5kg in the 3 week trial and his behaviour and learning went completely down the toilet. It has to have been our hardest few weeks in a VERY long time and we were lucky he didn't seriously hurt himself or anyone else.

Appetite just seems to not be there and it's not just a med issue - we had issues post fundo of food sticking and hurting because he forgot to chew carefully regularly so kicked off all the old reflux-affected eating behaviour so now we have a food aversion - something like what they call 'post trumatic feeding disorder'.

It's a totally crap situation and the way he is at the moment even swimming lessons aren't sustainable because of lack of stamina but no one knows what to do for him - apart from looking at tubing overnight but surgeon doesn't want to, keeps saying he will but telling others he won't etc.
It's been going for 4 years and counting, they keep saying puberty will work some kind of magic with appetite but at nearly 11 he's showing absolutely no signs of that so we expect him to follow our steps and be around 14 when that happens - 7 years of non-eating magically resolving on it's own??? Don't think so!

.

How have you been going purple dragon?

3boys we have been referred there and are hoping to get an appointment soon. They have a whole field of specialists so can deal with the whole range of stuff from meds to therapy, councelling, support for the kids, classes and sessions for the kids too. A one stop shop. They also deal with mental health in children too ie depression.

We are yet to see all of this for ourselves though.

everyone
How has everyone been managing with the school holidays apon us?

Sorry I can't help with the Greenlane thing 3boys.

How are things with the meds Elenor?

Thanks for asking after me Missmarch.
How are you doing? How has your son been?

I got a referral, but wanted to go private as I know the waiting list can be long from public. But financially we just can afford it at the moment. Be are struggling just to do christmas presents this year.
But it is something we still want to do for her in the new year.
I have also been looking in to other schools like Montessori and Rudolf Steiner schools. I really like the look of the Montessori ones.
I have an information pack being sent to me, so I am looking forward to reading about that one.

DD has mellowed out a bit with the school holidays but still has her flipping out moments too.
I find just getting the balance of a bit of exercise, but not too much seems to do her good too.
But over here, especially with summer kicking in, it is either 30 degrees, which makes you not want to do anything outside or it is raining. DH has the car for work, so if we go any where we have to walk. But oh well.

How do you all cope with the christmas day thing?
With all the excitement, and family around?

Interesting link, this might be helpful when explaining ADD/ADHD to others

adhd_children_pictures_slideshow

Just thought I would update while I had the chance and cos I am very proud

DS#2 has now turned 11 and even with all the upheavals in the past year he has come out on top

At his new school he has just won the Champion Year 6 Athlete last week and he has been started on an extended Maths and English programme(at high school level)

He said to me the other night - the cool thing here in Australia mum is no one knows about me having ADHD!! and they like me

Must admit I have found it appallingly easy to obtain his medications - went to GP TOLD him T was ADHD and what drug I wanted - I got a 4 month script fark me

that is so cool, 3MB!!! you both must be super stoked

A 4mth script god I wish.....

Certainly am



I know

Just went back as 4 months was up and man alive just got a five month script unreal and scary really

Wow 3MB a 5 mth script. They don't by the sound of it have tight controls over there. As much as it a costly exercise with time I can understand why they are so contolling of this drug. I'm finding that staying to just one pharmacy is a good idea as got questioned extensively at the last one i felt like a right crim on the way out. Our medical centre pulled a stunt on me last month I rang to make an appt with the dr to get another script and reception said that if it was just for a script i could just pick one up so thinking to myself that gosh that could save me a bit of time i went with that option. Only to find out that picking up a script costs $20 even for a 5 year old and the pharmacy beside them charge a fee of $5 So $25 for convenience so this month we'll be seeing the dr and taking up her time cause he's free till he's 6 and going back to the pharmacy close to home as its free cause he has a subsidy number.

An update on us.. This school year has been a breeze his new teacher is lovely and oh so much more organised compared to last years one. And L is really responding well to the class environment that they have set up and the routine structure of the day is kept to Only one small slip up with his meds he thought he would be sneaky and not take it one morning he pretended to swallow but actually he didn't even put it in his mouth and about 10am(on a school day) my mum found it (she looks after my youngest while i'm at work)school rang me at work and asked if he had had his Ritalin that morning to which I responded "yes"so it was presumed he was having a sidewards day. But when I rang mum she said she had just then found the pill on the bench (so glad C didn't see it firstlucky) so he was topped up at school and the day went on as usual. But other than that its been good.

I hope everyone else is going well

Ah yes, the fun of getting new scripts! A 4-5 month one would be lovely at times!

It's cool if your kid is under 6 and actually free but I've found the best option for us is to take up the doc's time with an appt too. Our health insurance pays for appts but not for script fees - stupid but that's what works for us.

LCM - the script should be free at any pharmacy if you have a subsidy number for the med. The doc is supposed to write the number on the script so any pharmacy can use it. You don't HAVE to go to the same one every time - but it helps because often you can clock up enough scripts over a year to get a special High Script card which means you don't pay the $3 dispensing fee each time.
I think it's 12 scripts per person or 25 per family before you get the card - it's issued by the Health Ministry but given to you by your chemist and it's easier to keep those records if you go to the same place.

We managed to clock up the required number of scripts for the family by about May last year as almost everyone in the family takes regular medication. We did get earlier than that way back in the mists of time when Thomas was on about 6 diff script meds/formula!

I find it disgusting how flippant they are over here with dispensing these four or five month scripts crazy as we are used to and happy with the stricter controls we are used to coming from nz - we can only pick up a month at a time from the pharmacy which is cool with me but it still amazes how easy (too easy) it was to get these prescribed and yet other things trivial things you have to jump through hoops for

Oh this is a good thread to find.

P has ODD, and ive just had her IQ tested and was going on to test other things, but have been told to go thought with a referral for ADD/ADHD.
She has been seeing a counsellor for the last year and the funding has fun out.
So we went private to get this IQ test done, as i needed a starting point, and the more paperwork backing me the better.

We now get CDA which is great, and also get career support days where she can go away for a night or weekend and they career is paid.

So we have just done the first lot of paper work for the assessment, oh the joys, as we already did this nearly 3 years ago

Have also just started her on fish oil, so will see how that goes, its just the kid one at the moment, as i don't know much info on giving her the full strength one.

hows everyone doing??

we just had a horrid weekend - sometimes we have great periods and sometimes they are awful; this one we had leaping on furniture and lots of backchat and 'having the last say' - sticking 2c in when he really shouldn't, winding his brothers up, etc etc. on the plus side he learned to ride a bike (finally!!) but that's overshadowed by all the crappy stuff. i HATE rudeness and disrespect so seeing it come out in one of my kids is like waving a red flag at a bull and i have no idea what to do about it - what to do about his behaviour in general OR what to do about my reaction.

we did fish oil for a while but i never really found it to make much difference, i have thought about going back to it though at a better strength for weekends etc to see if it will take the edge off on these bad ones - we were just using the kids one as well.

Hugs TC - if it's any consolation N's not doing that quite so often - :crossfingers: he's just maturing a little. He's got worse recently too but there's a huge amount going on for him atm - and finally getting a few extra calories into him he's got energy to create havoc like he hasn't had for a while!

Fish oil never helped N either.

I think actually the last bout of jumping off furniture was in Nov last year and that was when he was in hosp and hadn't been medicated for over 24 hours - he was climbing shelving and jumping off it, ran around, jumped onto a seat, overshot and burnt his fingers on a heater, speaking so fast others couldn't understand him etc...

Hang in there!

Hi,

We're in the process of getting our son diagnosed. I am still uncertain if he has ADHD or not. The testing consisted of a computer activity which I wasn't present for and some flip cards where DS had to choose the correct answer from four pictures. There were three other tests as well which he hadn't got to before the hour and a half was up. They test for issues with reading, maths and something else and I told them not to bother as we already know there are issues there and we'd follow that up with an educational psychologist. Does this sound like your other kids' tests?

Anyway the tester was a bit relaxed with DS and Ds gave him a good run for his money showing all his avoidance tactics and general lack of cooperation with anything to do with hard work. I sort of feel that if the psychologist had been a bit stricter with DS he would have completed more of the testing. It's a bit annoying.

I'm really not certain if medication will help DS or not. I'd love a magic bullet that helped with getting into trouble less at school and helped him maintain his friendships. But I'm realistic too. They (the psychologists) seem to think a lot of his academic issues will clear up once he's on meds. I think he might have auditory processing disorder and dyslexic stuff as well. Not sure meds will help those issues iykwim.

I will admit that DS shows a lot of hyperactivity issues. He jiggles a lot, gets up and down a lot (goes to the loo during class time a fair bit), exits the couch by jumping from the arm of the couch, has to be told 1000 times and counting to get off the back of the couch, forgets he's eating and wanders away from the table, irritates his brothers for no good reason (actually that might just be a brother thing), climbs stuff, runs away from us when we're out, explores inappropriately and without thought of consequences, and is extremely impulsive. I guess because he's a reasonably bright kid (although that doesn't translate academically) he tends to fly under the radar a bit. I'm pretty sure the current teacher doesn't think it's ADHD at all but more that he's lazy, doesn't listen properly, won't apply himself, is self centred, competitive and attention seeking (she'd be right in the last two things).

Apparently before anything else happens we have to see the paed and there is a six week wait I'm hacked off about the wait. It's already the second term and we'll be nearly at the third before they do anything so it's a bit of a waste of a year for DS. In the meantime I'm going to follow up the other stuff.

Anyway if you've got to the end of my novel well done. I'm sure I'm going to have lots of other questions along the way. I'm a regular on here but just going for a little anonymity in case of IRL lurkers. It's amazing how negative RL people are towards this sort of diagnosis and the recommended treatment