Anyone's Child taken Clonodine?

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-20-2003
Anyone's Child taken Clonodine?
3
Tue, 10-17-2006 - 1:55pm


Gavin is still having a bit of a tough time this year so far at school. He goes to a special school which is great. He has the same teacher as last year and a few of his friends are still in his class. He still seems to be having a hard time adjusting and is getting very aggitated and frustrated easily, I don't know exactly what the issue is but he says that it is very loud in his class. The teacher did confirm that the kids she has this year are kind of on the loud side. His neurologist has suggested putting him on a low dose of clonodine to take the edge off. Anyone have any insight or suggestions as I am not too familiar with this med????

Thanks so much,
Julienne

iVillage Member
Registered: 06-25-2003
Tue, 10-17-2006 - 3:02pm

Julienne,


I looked it up and found clonidine, which is generaly used for high blood pressure, but I guess there may be off-label uses for it

-Paula

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iVillage Member
Registered: 06-30-2003
Tue, 10-17-2006 - 4:10pm

Oh no!! I would stay away from Clonodine. My fiance had a bad reaction to Clonodine and spent 4 days in the hospital this past summer. He was prescribed the medication for high blood pressure. It would lower his blood pressure for a short period of time and then spike it up really high. The ER doctor said he never would have been prescribed Clonodine to someone like my fiance.

I had heard that Clonodine is sometimes prescribed to kids, and I looked into for my son...but, seeing what happened to my fiance (a grown man, otherwise healthy except for hypertension) I say no way to Clonodine. There is a potential for reducing a kid's BP too low with this drug.

Besides the weird blood pressure spiking, my fiance got DEPRESSED on Clonodine and overly anxious. It was a personality change for him.

Avatar for bright_star
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-25-2003
Tue, 10-17-2006 - 6:13pm

My DS took Clonidine for a few months in 1st grade (he's in 3rd now). Mostly what we noticed is that he was extremely tired, particularly when he first started it. In fact, he fell asleep at school at least once. I suppose it took some edge off, but we discontinued it because we ultimately decided that it wasn't making that great a difference for him. He has not been on meds since that time. Other than the sleepiness, he did not experience any noticable side effects.

Misty