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Is low-dose Dexedrine safe for a 4- or 5-year-old?

TheTwighlight

TheTwighlight

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My little brother's daughter is 4 years old, and her doctor wants to try her on low-dose Dexedrine. Honest to God, she has one of the worst cases of ADHD that I have ever seen - and I've seen it a lot.

Thing is, genetically, she's predisposed to addiction. That concerns me. But what concerns me even more is the neurotoxicity of amphetamine. But what about 5mg/day, XR? What kind of risks does that hold over time? Is that relatively safe? I just want to know that she'll be okay, mentally. Dextroamphetamine worked wonders for me, but I was much older when I started taking it, and I was prescribed 12 5mg DextroStat tablets per day, which most definitely got me hooked hardcore, but that's a little different - 60mg IR/day vs. 5mg XR/day...plus I was 15 years older.

Any opinions from the badasses on here are appreciated; and please, be as technical as possible. Thank you in advance.
 
If her ADHD is bad to the point where she really needs medication, she should imo use ritalin. Methylphenidate is much less neurotoxic than amphetamines.
I'm not a doctor though so discuss my suggestion with her doc before giving it to her.
And to answer your question, 5mg may not cause any significant neurotoxicity in adults, but for a 5 year old it's risky.
 
NO,
I got put on dexx when I was `12, now I'm 18 shooting it with Heroin,
General PSYCHIATRIC (try Therapy!) industries and complaints are crooked-Money...all it is.
I recently heard my suboxone doctor talking to a pharmacutical repersentative and he said "we need to get the abilify sales up" I then talked to him privately,
for our session and he told me he thought i needed it,
I laughed and said no anti psychotics,
no mood stabilizers,
and no anti deppressants,


But don't get your daughter into that , make her thinks shes normal, she needs support-idk I know that's what I needed.
Spent WAAY to much of my life in institutions and REALLY good at one thing and thats combining anti-social kids,
To completely begin to hate authority and want to rebel-I always told them, if you treat me like an animal how am I gonna act,
and thats how i felt..forgotton,
so please don't start that pattern, if anything (ADHD I believe Is bullshit, and most "ADHD" and "CONDUCT DISORDER" really end up being Borderline Personality Disorder,
Wait...i just realized she's four,
DO NOT DO IT PLEASE.
Wtf kinda doctor.......that pisses me off that's sick.
How about you try your hardest to show genuine love because that's what she needs 2-12 are such fragile stages, Trauma , drug abuse in the family, growing up with one parent, being abused-all those are common with BPD so if you notice it in yourself make her different. She's soo young //:
 
Intuitively my heart tells me no this isn't safe for a four year old, but as much as I've looked I've never found any evidence to back up that opinion. If low dose amphetamine has long term toxic effects on adolescents we just haven't found it yet.
 
Okay, first off I will say that this doctor fucked my head up bad and put me on 200mg sertraline at age 8. Totally unacceptable. Go figure when I stopped taking it around my 16th birthday (against the advice of this doc), I became homicidal and as I was building up an arsenal to shoot up the school on the anniversary of Columbine, police got involved. Long story short, I'm scared for this girl. She's a sweetheart but as "ADHD" as it gets. I just want her to make it alright in school - and life in general. But I have serious resentment against the doc and his "practicing methods".
 
Why not find another doctor? This doctor is seriously harming people. I would find another one and make a complaint to the AMA or something about this doc.
 
I read from Concerta's summary of product characteristics, that psychostimulants (like methylphenidate) can have an effect on growing up (gaining weight/height) - so I don't think they're necessarily good for someone who's growing up for this reason. But of course it's not uncommon at all, that these medications are being used to treat ADHD on young people. Like with all medication you should compare the risks to the benefits and decide from that.
 
I don't think so, as experiments with animal models suggest permanent changes to juvenile brains with dosing in the range of what's prescribed. It's unclear what the cognitive and psychological consequences of these changes are, but I'd err on the side of caution.

ebola
 
Amphetamine isn't a neurotoxin (i.e., not a "direct neurotoxin") to humans. - statement/references in that link

Methamphetamine, on the other hand, is:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methamphetamine#Neurotoxicity
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methamphetamine#Pharmacodynamics
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methamphetamine#Comparison_to_amphetamine_pharmacodynamics

Neurotoxicity is one of the most loosely defined words in the English language... literally every substance is (indirectly) neurotoxic.
 
Awesome guys. Thank you so much. I personally hate methylphenidate; it makes me feel cracked the fuck out - Dextroamphetamine on the other hand makes me feel cleanly focused and on point in low doses. But I know that everyone is different, so I'm open to whatever...how about Focalin? Is it any better than Ritalin? I never had the opportunity to try it. Is there an XR form of it?
 
Focalin comes in a transdermal patch, I thought.

From what I gather, the inactive L- isomer of racemic threo-methylphenidate is metabolised very rapidly, meaning that functionally Focalin is basically just double potency Ritalin with slightly less opportunity for side effects.

Generic methylphenidate is cheap enough... just be aware it might not be a panacea. It's probably a good idea to run the gamut of "other" ADD/ADHD therapies (Intuniv, Strattera) before moving to controlled substances. And keep in mind that everyone responds to drugs differently - and asking the patient is the best way to find out which are improving quality of life :)
 
I would almost guarantee that the child's diet is in need of remediation and if you augment that, than the child will benefit greatly. Holy crap do not give a 4 year old fucking amphetamines. A young mind is still developing such important synaptic connections and this will have life long implications. CHANGE THE DIET DON'T GIVE THEM STIMULANTS
 
Oh god don't trust a 4 year old's health to a community of drug abusers we don't know a lot of the deets
maybe ask the PRESCRIBER that question lol
 
That's the one. It sticks out in my mind because apparently due to the short half life of MPH, you take the patch off and can sleep an hour or two later... an XR med you can switch on and off.

Focalin does come as XR though.
 
Seppi said:
Amphetamine isn't a neurotoxin (i.e., not a "direct neurotoxin") to humans. - statement/references in that link
Click to expand...

Amphetamine is, at comparatively large doses. From the information you link, the downstream neurotoxicity is quite behaviorally relevant, as amphetamine's usual mechanisms will induce formation of the toxic metabolites in question. The study I noted earlier showed structural abnormalities (proliferation of dendric branching localized to the frontal cortices) in rats' brains at doses of methylphenidate equivalent to what is typically prescribed to children. Who knows whether that's bad, good, or inconsequential, but I wouldn't risk it with my kid

ebola
 
Toxicity that arises as a result of interactions of a compound with another factor (aka indirect toxicity as opposed to direct toxicity) is really just an overdose. That's more or less the difference between a compound being a toxin and producing a toxic reaction in excess.
 
See:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2670101/

There is at least one good reason to start early:

Both groups also reported more use of alcohol, marijuana, cocaine, and all illicit drugs than students never prescribed stimulant medication. Although these results can be explained by an increased risk for substance abuse associated with ADHD, college students who initiated prescribed use of stimulants for ADHD in elementary school did not report more illicit use of prescription stimulants, or more use of any other abused substances, as compared to students never prescribed stimulant medication 80. This finding supports the idea that stimulant treatment for ADHD can protect against the illicit drug use otherwise associated with an ADHD diagnosis, but suggests that such protection is maximal when stimulant treatment is initiated prior to secondary school.
Click to expand...
 
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