For Terry in Atlanta Re: Rubifen

My son was on Ritalin slow release and Rubifen, he was on 20mg Ritalin in the morning with10 mg Rubifen and then he took a 10mg Rubifen at 3pm. So his daily total was 40 mgs which for Chris is his cut off point as any higher and it affects the Tourettes. We had great success with this combination for 18 months the only downside with this was that when it wore off we had extreme highs and lows so he would be high as a kite till the Rubifen kicked in which only took about 30 minutes and then at night once the final Rubifen had worn out he would also be over the top. We found the Rubifen lasted about 2 hours in his system. We have changed now to 36 mg Concerta and though it takes a bit longer to kick in the morning we are not getting the real extreme highs and lows at the beginning and end of each day.

We had Chris's psyc. appointment last Friday not to much to report there, discussed the tourettes a bit and the increase in tics, we are getting a referral to the physio for his neck and back as the tics are making it very sore for him, we talked meds again and have decided not to try them just yet mainly for the fact that he is not at school, if he was at school we probably would have done it. Tomorrow we have the psychologist again.... then on Friday we have Steph's appointment with the same Psyc. I discussed Steph briefly with him last week and agreed with me that she is not clumsy and he also does not feel she has ADD or whatever but agrees that yes it sounds like Absence Seizures, so he will do a referral to the paediatric neurologist and to a paediatrician and order an EEG. I am not sure if I mentioned what happened at the GP when I asked for a referral for Steph, for a couple of years she has always dropped things sometimes up to 40 times a day she also lately has been having a lot of times when she zones out her school work has deteriorated in the last 12 months anyway went to the GP concerned as her teacher had also mentioned that she was "zoning" out at school at times. He told me in front of her that she was clumsy and needed psychological help so he referred us to CAMHS (Child Adolescent Mental Health) so hence why we are of to the psyc. when he should have really referred us to a paediatrician. Anyway the psyc. at CAMHS is awesome and he will do the referrals. I will tell them that we will go to Waikato for the appointment so that we can be hopefully seen quicker as they only come to Tauranga once a month I think that neurologist that is. Beginning to think CAMHS is our second home, but I just want to put a plug in for them from me, they have been fantastic and without them we would not be where we are today. They were our lifesaver when we hit an all time low.