my sons doctor put him on this medication called clonidine generic for catapres to help him sleep at night, since hes been taking it he’s been having bad nightmares does anyone know if this medication is giving him the nightmares.or has anyone tryed it and have seen other side effects please help and please be very honest with your answers. thank you
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i couldn’t find anything about nightmares but maybe 1 of the other symptoms is causing him to have the nightmares. check the link hope it helps xxx
my daughter used it to help her sleep and it was effective. the biggest side effect is blood pressure trouble- never just stop the med or forget to mnay doses as it can mess with thier blood pressure – after all it is actually a blood pressure med with the side effect of sleep. if your son is now having nightmares id say take him to doc and report – it may have nothing to do with the med other than he is actually sleeping now. many kids with special needs like this have what they call night terors ( does your son recall the nightmares? does he at times seem wide awake though still dreaming? classic signs of night terrors – though not necessarily the grounds for it as there are many intensities. have your son reevaluated and let doc know what is going on.
If you notice anything ever that changes when you son starts to take a medication then get it reviewed. Just because it’s not listed as a side effect doesn’t mean that it’s not causing it.
A doctor diagnoses based mainly on the information that you give them, so any changes need to be taken up with your doctor. There are plenty of different sleeping tablets that you can try so don’t stress.
I work in the disability services field and the one thing that I can recommend is don’t ever just take someone’s word for things, many doctors just perscribe whatever pill is the flavour of the month for treating mental illness and will prefer not to have to mess around with it too much. Always get your sons medication reviewed as often as possible and if you can try and keep him off of medications as sometimes people are just dosed up to make them easier to deal with…
If you feel like your doctor isn’t listening to you, go and get a second opinion.
Good luck to you and your son.
My four-year-old son takes Clonidine for his bipolar disorder. It is supposed to help his sleep too. He takes it with Risperdal and he sleeps better than he used to. He still wakes up some though. Before taking the meds he used to have night terrors. On the medications they are actually gone now. The Clonidine makes him tired and he gets real thirsty. Those are the only side effects that I have seen in my son from the Clonidine. The Risperdal makes him gain weight.