It's been a really strange few months. The Coronavirus pretty much took over the US and we've been in quarantine in one form or another since mid-March. Overall, it's been pretty wonderful for our family (though, this takes NOTHING away from those suffering or having a hard time). But it means that the kids have been out of school since March 13th, and they won't be going back this year. The kids are loving it, but I know going back is going to be hard, especially on Gerry. They've been doing distance learning, which means that their teachers email lessons every morning and the kids have to complete them from home. Which makes me the teacher.
Gerry is incredibly smart. He's in first grade right now and reading at an almost third grade level. He picks up on new material very quickly and the only issue he has these days is with writing. He hates to do it, so he fights me tooth and nail on it. Intelligence aside, I don't think Gerry is thriving with distance learning the way he did in the classroom. He gets distracted and frustrated easily, and his tics have been more prevalent during our home school lessons. His teacher continues to tell me that she's not seeing any ticking or behavior issues at school, but you can't miss it when he's at home. I reached out to his neurologist and she agrees that he's showing signs of ADHD. She suggested we start medication since we can really watch and see how it affects him since we're all home together. Scott and I talked about it and gave the go ahead to start him on Clonidine.
Here's the thing. Clonidine is the same thing as Catapres, which is what I took for my TS as a teen. Mine was a patch and I hated it. It helped my tics some, but I was a zombie. I slept so hard and so much on that medication that the few years I was on it are still a blur to me. I would pass out in the middle of the day, at my desk in school...there was literally no stopping it. I didn't want Gerry to have to deal with that.
His sleep was kind of crappy, too. He'd take melatonin every night, fall asleep for a few hours, and then be up watching tv at 2-3 in the morning and wouldn't go back to sleep. Didn't matter how much melatonin we gave him. It was like his body just didn't require the sleep that the rest of us do. So his neurologist said that the Clonidine would help with that as well. We started him on 0.1mg of Clonidine to be taken before bed at night. After more than a week, we weren't seeing a difference at all in sleep or behavior and his tics were still the same. Over the course of a month, at the neurologist's recommendation, we switched dosage, time of day taken, and considered switching meds altogether. Ultimately, his neuro bumped him up to 2 pills (0.2mg) to be taken in the morning. We tried that for a week before switching back to nighttime. He was falling asleep for hours at a time during the day. After he fell asleep at the table in the middle of a school lesson, I emailed the neurologist and told her we were switching back to taking the meds at bedtime. It's not helping with sleep, really, but he's slightly less distracted and hyperactive during the day, and I'll consider that a win.
He had a rough few days in the beginning because it was the very first time he's ever had to swallow a pill. But once he got the hang of it there was no stopping him, and he's a total pro now. I'm not sure how long we'll continue on this path, but it's working for us for now.
No comments:
Post a Comment