Management of Side Effects, a Perennial Problem with Bill Dodson, M.D.

Sticking with ADHD medications is notoriously poor. Fifty per cent of people who start ADHD medications do not fill the 3rd prescription. This happens for many reasons but the reasons that we can do something about are that the medications are not fine-tuned and side effects are not aggressively managed. Getting the medications fine-tuned requires that you let your clinician know what is going on (rather than just quitting) and working with your clinician to make the minor changes necessary to be side effect free.

For the vast majority of people the ADHD medications should produce life-changing levels of change and benefits with virtually no side effects. Side effects that do occur can usually be removed in less than a day. The main causes of problems with either stimulants’ or alpha agonists are the wrong molecule being given at a dose that is too high (The Starbucks Syndrome or the Zombie Syndrome) Other side effects such as loss of appetite, dry mouth, headaches, and shoulder muscle spasms can be removed with another medication for the month or so that it takes to become tolerant to the ADHD medications side effect.

Learning Objectives:

• The participant will learn how to work with their clinician to get optimal benefits from their ADHD medication without side effects.
• The participant will learn the basic chemistry of ADHD medications and how that can be used to remove side effects.
• The participant will learn why taking the medications consistently is so vital to getting the very best results and fewest side effects.