My eldest child was officially diagnosed with adhd a few months ago and after lots of consideration we decided to try out medication. I believe there are other medications available but we were prescribed Elvanse in the first instance. Our experience hasn’t been plain sailing but I thought I would share our Elvanse review so far. I know when we were looking into trying medication, I did a lot of googling and researching and posts like this were really helpful.

Here’s our Elvanse review…

ADHD diagnosis – ADHD treatment UK

For a little background, My son is 14 and three months ago was diagnosed with adhd. He was diagnosed with autism at age four and for a long time we had just put his difficulties down to the autism. When he started at secondary school he really started to struggle with concentration and this is when it became quite clear to us that he had adhd.

We were aware of the very long wait times on the NHS, so after some research we decided to go down the Right to Choose route. I am so glad we did this as from first referral with the GP to diagnosis it only took four months. I may do a separate post on our experience with Right to Choose and ADHD360 if this would be helpful to anyone. Leave me a comment and let me know.

Elvanse

Elvanse is a very common medication used to help with the symptoms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. It is also known as Vyvanse or Lisdexamfetamine in other countries. It is a stimulant medication that can help improve attention and concentration as well as making you less impulsive.

Dosage

My son was first instructed to take one 20mg Elvanse capsule per day, for seven days and then one 30mg capsule for 21 days. After this we would have a review with his clinician to figure out the next steps.

Our experience

In hindsight the timing of starting the medication wasn’t great as it was the summer holidays and he really didn’t need to concentrate on much as he wasn’t in school. So because of this we didn’t really notice any positive effects. The only noticeable side effect was a lack of appetite which he didn’t like and after a few days this was enough to put him off taking the medication. So we took a break and decided to try again when he was back at school. For us as parents we haven’t noticed much of a difference, but my son has told us that the Elvanse is helping him to concentrate in lessons and get more work done, which is exactly what we wanted. It is still effecting his appetite however, which he doesn’t like. He also didn’t notice much of a change between the 20mg and 30mg.

We were told to expect the Elvanse to effect his sleep but to be honest we haven’t really noticed any issue with this. He has always struggled to fall asleep, but once he is asleep there is no waking him up. There hasn’t been much change in this.

So on the whole we have seen some small improvements in concentration while taking Elvanse 30mg, but to be honest it hasn’t been as life changing as we had hoped it might be. Right now we are considering whether the pros outweigh the cons. For my son the lack of appetite is a big downside and we may decide it is best not to continue with the medication.

I hope that this Elvanse review has been helpful for you if you are considering trying medication for adhd. Please feel free to leave any questions in the comments below. 

Thank you for reading.