My son has adhd. He is full of energy, extremely smart, and consequently full of tantrums. His tantrums are not normal (what is?) – they last up to 30 minutes, include throwing himself on the floor and screaming. He is 6. He’s always been “spirited” but recently this has gotten worse. He has been able to read since he was 2-3 years old but has a hard time reading a book if its the least bit harder than what he can do.

So, fast forward, we have taken him to a child psychiatrist, apparently the best in the state according to some magazine where other dr’s rank each other. He was very nice, spent a lot of time with us, asked a lot of questions about his behavior. We finally settled on trying him on Intuniv. Its a newer drug that is a remake of an old drug but with a time release component. It will lower blood pressure slightly and cause drowsiness. We’ve seen this first hand, our son took a nap yesterday afternoon. After doing some research this should subside in a few weeks at the most.

So far the behavior has improved.

**Update**
The behavior did improve as did the sleepiness. Unfortunately we had some other side effects that were quite bad. We have since taken him off the drug and will re-evaluate with the dr. He was pretty happy the last two days but the meltdowns are definitely coming back.