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Child On Weaning Process Of Vyvanse, Seems To Have Developed Aggression, Defiance, Hostility, Anti-social Behavior. Help?

Posted on Tue, 11 Jun 2013

Question: My granddaughter was DX with ADHD/ODD when she was 5. She is now 11. She takes Vyvanse and Respiradal and has been for about 2years. In the last month she has developed aggression, defiance, hostility, rudeness to elders, anti social behavior. Very poor judgement and gravitates toward the bad kids. She totally controls the family and refuses to do anything unless she wants to do it. If asked to do something, she will go from being calm and cooperative to a rage. She will scream and yell and this will go on for hours. It has become more and more frequent. We would like to wean her off her meds. The psychiatrist did not offer any advice other than stop the Vyvanse cold XXXXXXX and in 2weeks stop the resperidal. He said he expects she will get worse but did not offer an opinion on alternatives. We are desperate and just want to see if this is a side effect of the Vyvanse. I wonder if we are doing the right thing and worry about what to expect.

Answered by Dr. Payman Hajiazim (1 hour later)

Hi there, thanks for asking. It is very useful for the ADHD kids to take their medication for the attention. It helps for better learning at school time. They can have drug holidays in the weekends and in the summer time. This causes the long term side effects to become less and less. These kind of medications can cause weight gain and decrease in the optimal height in the long term. These could also be controlled with optimizing the dose of the medication. It means that they need the medication with higher dose just in the exam time. Risperdal also has just little side effect especially if it is given in the low dose. If it does not cause obesity, it would be safe. All the best.

Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Chakravarthy Mazumdar

Follow up: Dr. Payman Hajiazim (38 minutes later)

Thank you for your reply. Anything we can learn is great. School is out here on Wed and we want to take her off the Vyvanse to see if that has actually been causing some of this behavior. You mentioned the med holiday. Should the Vyvanse be weaned off or is it ok to just stop it. She is on 40mg once a day. Thank you.

Answered by Dr. Payman Hajiazim (5 hours later)

hi there, thanks for asking. 40 mg of vyvance is not high but it is still better to be weaned off of it.

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Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Chakravarthy Mazumdar