Parents of Children with ADHD Support Group

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medication and growth

lowen22
lowen22
so does medication stunt your growth? my son is on vyvanse 40mg. he does not take it over the summer or on weekends. i am recently hearing how medication can stunt your growth. i am freaking out because he is very very small to begin with . everyone in our house is, but when he does hit puberty, i know he will grow and i dont want to inhibit that. however. what can i do, he needs it for school. any information on this would be so appreciated.....
deleted_user
deleted_user
From what doctors have told me, the stunt if any is small. My son is and has been on some sort of medication on and off (more on) for almost 10 years now. I am 5 ft 3. His father 5 ft 10. My son will be 14 soon. He is 5ft 5 and some change and in the middle of a growth spurt now. He wears a 12.5 shoe. His father wears a 10. So, it is my experience there isnt too much to be worried about.
hotmom1
hotmom1
I have read some different studies and there are a variety of factors you have to consider. The med and dose, the age of your child when they start. It appears that there is a slight stunting of growth, but I can't find anything that says if you start on the med at a later age, say when already in puberty vs 5 or 6. I imagine that there is less effect at the older age, but I'm not sure about that. some studies show that this lower growth seems to resolve as they enter adulthood. I take the studies with a grain of salt, because I think that a lot of times it is the drug companies that do the study. REmember that not taking meds can have a more detrimental effect on the kids that simply being an inch shorter and a few pounds lighter. It has to be an individual decision. My 13 year old started on concerta 1 year ago and he is 5'8" tall but very slim at about 115 pounds. That's what he weighed a year ago when he was 2 inches shorter. YOu hear all this stuff about child hood obesity, and then we can't get our kids to gain any weight!
SpiderMom
SpiderMom
Doctors have also told me not to worry too much about it.. He recommended I give him a little break from the meds in the summer and on weekends, but if I felt he really needed it at those times to go ahead with it. My son is 13 and has been on meds since he was about 9, and he's average height and weight (a little on the slim side but he always has been). So far he hasn't been inhibited at all - in fact, he grew 2 shoe sizes over the summer and grew out of all his last year's clothes. I've been told also that the stunt is very small, if at all. I wouldn't worry :)
lowen22
lowen22
thank you all for your responses. it helped,, i feel a little better. i agree with you that it is way worse if i take him off of it. he even says he wont go off of it for school because he has been through so much before he was on it, and now his life is really great,
again, thanks guys,, so nice to have people to talk to