For those of you who have kids on ADHD medications, how do you handle the dosing and storage of them? Does anyone have experience with their school storing the medications? Students going to the health center for their pills? Or, do most students just keep them in their rooms and self dose? What about other medications? Curious
They are adults. They handle their own medication storage and dosing.
Many kids get a lockbox for their meds to keep them safe. As roycroftmom said, they are adults, they manage their own meds. The Health Center is not involved in day-to-day dosing. Also–keep in mind ADHD meds cannot be renewed without seeing a physician every 3 months. If your child is going far away, you will likely need to find a doctor local to the school to treat/prescribe. I’m not sure if the school health center will do this. They might, but ask before you assume.
Student kept meds in the room. Took a while to get a working system in place for filling prescriptions. The doctor would write 3 months, to be filled sequentially and which could only be filled during that one month period and then expired. If kid forgot to get one filled, then he was short a month. Some national pharmacy chains (CVS, in our experience), will fill out of state prescriptions in the new location if it has been previously filled in another, different state. For instance, Wisconsin CVS would fill Indiana prescription because we had used our home state Indiana CVS to fill it before. You can check both with your home pharmacy and a location near the new school to see if that can happen.
An alternative would have been for my kid to meet with a new doc in his school town to get a new prescription, but he was not interested in that.
For kids on ADHD meds, it is worth a conversation or two about how to respond to peer requests to sell them some meds as study aids.
Or recreational use, since their effects can be similar to those of methamphetamine.
https://www.college.columbia.edu/cct/archive/winter12/features6
http://drcarlhart.com/this-is-your-brain-on-drug-education/
Obviously, precautions to reduce the risk of theft should be taken for prescription drugs that could tempt recreational users.
Lock box. Even though they are adults, ADHD does create problems with distraction and executive functioning. So we are “quasi” involved. Basically, it means every once and awhile, her mother or I ask how she is doing on her medication supply.
It was difficult finding a local prescriber for her medications. The school health center wanted proof of ADHD with psychological testing. This is not standard of care in our area as there are not enough psychologists who do this kind of work in our area, insurance rarely covers it and it is expensive. She had a letter from her psychiatrist and therapist indicating she had the diagnosis and the treatment. This was not enough. Over her first break, we had to get psychological testing for her in order to satisfy their requirement. In my mind, this was a total waste of money. We spent about $1500 to confirm what we already knew. And we got a discount on the fee because I work in mental health. But now she can get her refills from the college health center.
So, make sure and contact the health center to see what the need in order to help your kid get their medications.
Bear House that is strange- we were told there IS no neuropsychological test for ADHD and the questionnaire was used by every psychiatrist we saw. The neuropsych. did test attention and focus but told us it was in a context that was controlled, and one on one, not like real life.
Ask your doc about Vyvanse instead of Adderall. Vyvanse must go through digestive process to become effective so they are more constant and slow release (even compare to Adderall XR) over 8-12 hours, and can not be snorted for recreational use.
Another key to prevent abuse is them not sharing the info with fellow students who will be strongly tempted to illegally buy some extra pill from them, especially during exam period. Most of patients know what kind of life changing benefit they may loose for some quick bucks and won’t do anything stupid to loose the privilege, however small is the chance to get caught.
Generally, the strength as a recreational drug for None-Meth Amphetamine : Cocaine : Meth is 1 : 2 : 3. Meaning it’s not nearly as dangerous as Meth even if it is abused.
And that is a good thing. You don’t want them to be not monitored by a physician at least every 3 months regardless of your out of pocket price.
Once they realize the potential effect of the life-altering effect, give a warning that they may loose the privilege for their life. And tell them that unless they want situation where they either have to sell a pill or loose a desperate friend, keep their medication secret from even the closest friends.
My son has a small safe that weighs 40 pounds in his room for his ADD meds and other valuables. The safe is cable locked to his bed frame. Unfortunately other students often ask him to sell his meds. (Apparently the safe is a give away) I’ve told him time and again that selling drugs will ruin his life if he’s caught, and he promises he never would.
My S kept his prescription bottle in a lockbox which was secured in a locked trunk. He also had a weekly pill dispenser that he would fill on the weekend and keep with his toothbrush. This avoided the out of sight out of mind forgetting to take the meds scenario while never exposing more than one week’s worth of pills. He told no one that he had meds. This system was suggested to us by the school’s health center.
My kids didn’t have ADHD meds, but they both take some other psych meds. my daughter kept a lockbox that she hid in her closet. My son has a single, so he just keeps his in a drawer.
Keep them in a lockbox or safe. Don’t give anyone else access. Don’t share or sell. Don’t run out of meds and keep your appointments. In transferring your care with controlled substances, expect to jump through some hoops.
I would get established at the student health center as early as possible with their psychiatrist. Out of state prescriptions generally don’t fly in the new state. So the safe thing is to get what supply you can from your existing provider and then start right away with the student health center. Many doctors chose to prescribe just one month prescriptions to increase monitoring, increase screening for abuse, and reap some reward for the tedium of dealing with controlled substance regulations and manipulative patients. I would certainly do that with freshmen.
You should set up a release of information with your current provider before you go. Get the name of any psychiatrist at the student health center because your current provider needs a name, not a clinic, for release of information. That way you can easily transmit records once you get an appointment.
If the new provider is insisting on psych testing from an outside clinic before taking over the prescribing then what he is telling is that he does want to see you. Go elsewhere, preferably to a psychiatrist who sees a lot of students. But generally the student health centers are the best for this work because the work is easy, routine, standardized, free and they do it in volume. It would be most convenient for the student as well in order to avoid missed appointments and potentially being cut off.
my kid’s student health center will not prescribe or manage adhd meds, so ymmv.
My DD has anxiety meds which also require a 3 month visit:
- She chose a school not too far from home (hour away) and she comes home for Dr visits
- We made sure there was some way for her to get Rx…the local Quikcheck pharmacy will deliver to campus. Also you can do 3 month mail order to campus.
- Make them come up with a method to make sure they don’t run out
- Mail order is good, but if you are a couple of pills short you can’t run down to CVS to ask for a couple
- There are apps to remind you to take yoru meds
another suggestion is to have your student start taking responsibility for her meds right now, so she gets in the practice of remembering to take them and store them, etc. She can get almost 8 months of practice in, with you as a reminder if you have to. It is also good for her to start scheduling her own appointments with doctors, dentists, etc, and check in/out on her own-it gets easier with practice, so if she hasn’t done it before, now is the time to start.
I agree with roycroftmom. In fact, many psychiatrists will use the senior year of high school to slowly shift the onus of appointments, medication management, etc, from the parents to the child. If your doctor has not done this yet, you should address this with him or her.
@compmom I tried to argue with them that there wasn’t any specialized testing. There are neurocognitive tests of attention, memory and such but they are not diagnostic for ADHD. So what testing did they want? They couldn’t answer. They just kept saying “we need psychological testing.”
Maybe to rule out other things. Or maybe they are not knowledgeable, hard to believe! Since a psychiatrist can best diagnose, you’d think an MD note would suffice.
So sorry you had to go through that trouble and expense, and your child did too. Glad you have a discount at least.
My D’s doctor did require a good bit of specialized testing before she would prescribe anything for ADD. It was a pretty intensive process done with a psychologist. I wonder if it’s governed by any state rules?
Actually even our neuropsych. just used the questionnaire used by MD’s!!