My Son Had Appetite Loss on ADHD Medication and Here Is What Helped

If your child is dealing with appetite loss on ADHD medication, I want you to know that you are not alone. This is one of the most common side effects parents run into and it is something you really need to pay attention to while your child is on their medication. Here is our experience and journey about how we dealt with this side effect.

Our experience with this is a little different because our son also has tactile defensiveness. If you don’t know what that is then go to my article about it. In short he doesn’t like the way things feel on his skin, which also includes the inside of his mouth. Because he doesn’t like the way things feel in his mouth the food items that he would eat was very small. If it was gooey, slimy, too wet, or creamy he wouldn’t be able to eat it.

We were trying to overcome this way before he was diagnosed with inattentive ADHD. Since we were already struggling with our son not eating very much in the first place, once he got his ADHD diagnosis and we decided to put him on medication, which was its own whole journey, having little appetite just made the problem that much worse. So what did we do about it? We did so many things. I would love to tell you that this was an easy problem to solve but it wasn’t. Even though my son is 18 years old and is off his medication he still does not have a good relationship with food. He still doesn’t eat a lot and I try and help monitor this but with him being an adult it is difficult to help him with it anymore.

Please, I don’t want you to think that he is unhealthy skinny because he is not. He does eat and if it is something he really likes he will have a good portion size of it.

When We Knew It Was a Real Problem

We knew pretty quickly that he didn’t have his appetite once he started his medication. What confirmed it for us though was that he wasn’t gaining weight like he should have been for his age. He was only 7 years old when we started him on his medication so he still had regular appointments with his doctor and his weight wasn’t following the curve. Which means he wasn’t gaining weight.

What About the Doctor?

I want to be honest here because I think it will actually help someone. We did not have a doctor who sat us down and handed us a game plan for dealing with appetite loss on ADHD medication. His doctor monitored his weight at every appointment and flagged when things weren’t going in the right direction, and that accountability was really important. But the strategies we used? We figured those out ourselves through trial and error and just doing whatever we could to get our son to eat.

So if you are sitting in a doctor’s office feeling like you should have more answers than you do, I get it. Keep going to those appointments, keep tracking the weight, and do not be afraid to bring it up every single time if you need to. But also know that a lot of this is going to come down to you just figuring out what works for your kid.

We did four things to help with his appetite and to help him gain weight. I will go through each of these: make what he likes, didn’t take medication on weekends or long breaks from school or in the summer, switched his milk to whole milk, and tried to get him to try new foods.

Make Foods They Like

I felt that it was very important to make sure he was eating something. I would try and focus on the food he actually would eat. As much as I wanted him to have a variety of foods I felt at this point I just wanted to have him eat something. He had his basic foods like pasta, chicken nuggets, quesadillas, and if my memory serves me right I believe he would eat simple burritos. That was basically it. Those were his major food groups. Not healthy I know. I tried to have different side items but for the most part this is what he ate so we ate these A LOT.

Tried New Foods

When he started getting older it was easier to get him to try new foods that he could handle in his mouth. This was a long process to get him to try something new but we persevered and eventually we got him to try new things. As strange as it sounds the day that he had his first bite of pizza and liked it we celebrated. Over the years he has added to his major food groups which we are always so happy when he tries new things. At age 18 we are still having him try new foods so when I say it has been a long process we are still in the process.

Switch to Whole Milk

Our son LOVES milk. And he drinks a lot of milk. Our biggest thing that we did for him was to switch from 1% milk to whole milk. I honestly feel like this made the biggest difference for our son to gain his weight.

Breaks from Medication

We gave our son some ownership over when he took his medication, no weekends unless he needed to focus, and most of the summer off entirely. On the days he wasn’t on it, he had a much better appetite, and those were the days I made sure he really ate well. These were also the best days to have him try new foods. He was more willing to try something new when he had an appetite.

It Took Time But It Worked

Overtime using all these methods our son slowly gained the weight that he needed to gain. We were so excited when he finally got to the weight the doctor wanted him to get to. It took a while but using all of these methods was the best way for us to deal with appetite loss on ADHD medication.

I know that we are a unique situation because of our son’s Tactile Defensiveness. To this day our son still doesn’t have a great relationship with food. Even though he’s been off his medication for a while now, for reasons I’ve written about separately, he still doesn’t eat much. I still worry about him and try to make sure he’s getting the calories he needs. Now that he is an adult I don’t have much say in what he eats but I still nag him about eating.

If your child is struggling with appetite loss on ADHD medication just know it is a marathon and not a sprint. Be patient with your child and patient with yourself. You are paying attention and that already matters more than you know.

Hopefully some of these ideas help you with your child losing their appetite on medication. What other suggestions would you have to help if you are in the same situation as us? I would love to hear from anyone that is going through the same thing that we went through.