If your doctor does choose to use clonidine, talk to him about using the patch form. Some children don't tolerate the patch because of skin irritation. In addition to reducing tics, clonidine helped with the hyperactivity, negative persistance, and emotional lability. The oral form requires fairly frequent dosing and children tend to experience more sleepiness with it followed by rebound hyperactivity as it wears off. The downside of the clonidine patch for our son was extreme constipation.

A word about tics. Tics are extremely common at your son's age and the vast majority disappear on their own. It is true that stimulants like ritalin can "unmask" a tendency toward tics and can worsen existing tics. It's for this reason that your ped wants you to keep a close eye on him. Interestingly, some recent research has found that in *some* children stimulants decrease, rather than increase, tics. So, contrary to popular opinion, the fact that he has a tic does NOT necessarily mean that the ritalin must be stopped immediately.

I hope your doc reassured you about combining these 2 medications before you start reading horror stories about it on the internet. For those of you who don't know, four deaths were reported in 1995 in children on this combination. Since then, it has been established that each of these children had underlying pathologies. The 2 drugs are now increasingly being prescribed together.

Hope this is useful to you.

My 10 yo daughter has been on clonidine and stimulants for about two years now. The lowest dose of clonidine has been very effective for her. She has Tourette's Syndrome and had tics before she was ever medicated for ADHD. Our doctor believes clonidine to be one of the safest drugs for tics and has the added advantage of helping the ADHD and sleeping problems as well. Clonidine does need to be taken regularly, but at a low dose it's no problem to restart if something interferes with the regularity.

I would like more info (personal) I hope you know what I mean, on the Clonidine patch. My son has been going thru meds for 2 years and we are have not got him on something good yet. Long story short, he is 9 with anxiety, ADHD, oppositional defiant disorder. Its been heck! We just got back into counseling, we quit last year cause its so expensive. But his grades drastically dropped this year so the pediatrician put him on Concerta back in Sept. ever since then we have beem lucky to get him to go to sleep before 1AM! then get up at 6:45AM and I just found out last Monday from the counselor that the Conserta was probably keeping him up, so I called the Dr. he says could be so I didnt give it to him and that night he went to sleep within 5 min. of his light going off. He also has night terrors and takes 1/2 0.1 mg Clonodine at bedtime the Dr. may increase and give the other half in the AM but it makes him so drowsy when he takes it. How much does your child take, how long does a patch last,may I ask what he takes it for Ive never really fiqured out what the medication does. Any info would be a God send right now. Thank You.

Sometimes the clonidine is for tics and sometimes for sleeping problems. Also tics do tend to increase under stress. Anecdotally, my daughter's increase every spring, most likely due to allergies. we at least know to expect this and are prepared. My daughter is also Obsessive Compulsive and anxiety and the clonidine tends to cut the OC behavior a bit also. by the way, we've been doing the med carousel for over 6 years. As for sleeping, that wears off usually. My daughter used to take 1/2 pill at am and pm but now takes full 0.1 mg at am with no sleepiness. She and her also 10 yo stepsister with ADD share a room so sleep is rare-- they bounce off each other.

My son is on Concerta and also Clonidine. He is on the clonidine for sleep. Without it he only sleeps for a couple of hours and that is it. At first the doctor tried it to se if that would slow him down, but as soon as it wore off he was bouncing off the walls. We did try the Clonidine patch, which was wonderful, but he had an allergic reaction to the adhesive on it. He broke out in blisters where the patch was, almost like a burn. We know it was the adhesive, because with certian band-aids and tapes his skin gets irritated. I have no complants about clonidine, except for when we run out ,like last night and he won't sleep. Good Luck.

Watch your grandson very close at this age. For boys this is about the time Tourette's starts showing it's ugly head. Do you have any family members or relatives that have tics? Most people don't really even notice people with small tics but to a trained eye they are easy to pick up. It can be as simple as a eye twich to a cough and even sucking air in your nose.

My daughter had her first tic's at age 7. It was a chronic cough. I mean the kind that you think there lungs were going to burst. We done everything and carried to all kind of Doctors. I did not know what a tic was. I never even thought about it. She soon developed some snorting sounds that she would try to stop by pinching her nose. We finally said lets sneak up where she don't see us and video tape her. Because she would go to doctors and quit doing it when we walked in the door. They all concured it was Tourette's after watching the video. I just could not believe it because I knew of no one in our family that happens to have a tic.

They started her on Paxil and clonidine. It seemed to help but as Tourette's goes it waxes and wanes. Any time she got a upper respitory infection the tic's would worsen .

She is almost 14 now and does not take the clonidine anymore still just the Paxel. With girls it can go anyway at puberty. A lot of them go into a remission and some come out worse. Boy's tend to worsen at puberty.

My daughter still has an occasional tic, mostly in real stress situation and also colds. But to the normal person they don't even notice it because it is so faint.

Well just wanted to share my strory in hopes that it might help.

I really believe any stimulant will make the tics worse. i would be real careful with the Ritalin.

hopes this helps,
fisherman