Adderall - Old Page
ADDerall for ADHD
adderall
See our New Page for Adderall for Attention Deficit Disorder
Adderall is a stimulant medication used in the treatment of attention deficit disorder in both children and adults.
Made from a combination of four amphetamine compounds, Adderall is useful because it covers a broad range of attention deficit disorder symptoms, and because it is a "one a day" dosing. A child with attention deficit disorder usually has to take only one dose of adderall per day to get through school and get his homework done.
ADDerall
This is a fairly new drug in the treatment of Attention Deficit Disorder - ADD ADHD. The doctors that we know who have tried it really have come to like it.
It is a "cocktail" drug, or a mixture of four drugs, all from the amphetamine family. As a result it has a broad spectrum of symptom coverage. It also tends to last for about six hours per dose, so it can cover the entire school day. It can be less "harsh" than Ritalin. ADDerall might be worth talking to your doctor about as either the first or second medication to try.
ADDerall tablets come in 5, 10, 20, and 30 mg doses offering great flexibility to a physician in targeting the optimum dose for any patient. Even greater flexibility is offered because the tablets are double-scored so they can be accurately split into halves or quarters. This means that ADDerall can be administered in increments as low as 1.25 mg, or adjusted in 1.25 mg increments.
ADDerall begins to work more gradually than Ritalin, or Dexedrine, and the "drop-off" slope is also much more gradual, meaning that there is less of a "trough" time at the end of the dose.
Expectations and Drawbacks
ADDerall can be expected to work very well for the "space cadet" ADHD kids. Stimulants (including caffeine) are great for "inattention" or "brain fog" symptoms. We would estimate that 70% of Attention Deficit Disorder - ADHD Inattentive Type kids would respond to Adderall very nicely. For them, Adderall is a very easy treatment intervention.
Hyperactive-Impulsive kids respond less well to the stimulants. Maybe 60-65% will benefit.
Kids with impulsivity or temper outbursts either do very well, or they do very poorly. These kids may also need something like Extress for temper, or Clonadine for extreme outbursts.
We recommend the Extress nutraceutical medicine first. We have seen Extress work very well in reducing temper outbursts. You can buy it at from VAXA International. The Clonadine is like a "sledgehammer," but use it if you need to.
For the best results using a natural homeopathic medicine see our Specific Treatment Strategies, and use "Attend".
The main drawbacks of Adderall that we have observed are loss of appetite (feed a protein shake twice a day to help keep weight up), some irritability or anger (as when you have had too much caffeine), possible short term growth inhibition (though long-term this may not be a problem). Remember, every medication has possible bad side effects, so always closely monitor your child when taking medications!


