My at risk son (under 10 years old) has ADHD. His pediatrician is thinking we should consider a stimulant if this newest med. change doesn't seem effective. I feel worried since there is one case report where a child had JHD and was thought to have ADHD and was placed on Ritalin and it caused irreversible symptoms. I think the likelyhood that my son has JHD is probably low (his father's CAG is low), but I still wonder if there is much information about stimulant use in pHD. Is it contraindicated? I certainly don't want to do any harm to my son, but I want to also help him if this drug might be a more effective option. If anyone has any info please share with me.

My son Tim was diagnosed with ADHD and put on several different meds from a very early age. One of those was Ritalin. Then, after we discovered it had been HD all along and I had heard that Ritalin could cause symptoms to be worse, I had terrible guilt. I don't know if it is true about Ritalin, for us it does not matter because it is already done. I would check into the connection before I allowed Ritalin if I had known.
Maybe Marsha could help with this one.

Take care,

Carla

Thanks Carla. I hope you've gotten over any "guilt" because like you said "what is done is done". You did it to help Tim. Plus it may have made no difference and who knows, it actually may have helped him...I wish there was more info about it. When I read through these posts, one thing that strikes me is that different meds seem to sometimes work differently on different pHD's (what I mean is that one med might work well for one person, but not another). So maybe there's not one right answer. I just feel very nervous and don't want to cause any harm to my son.