Once you and your child’s doctor choose the right treatment schedule, it’s important to stick to it. Once treatment has begun, your child needs regular injections of LUPRON DEPOT-PED in his or her body at all times or the puberty process could begin again.
Plan in advance.
With LUPRON DEPOT-PED 3-month dosing, appointments are just 4 times a year. By scheduling them in advance, you and your child can plan events around them with plenty of notice.
Talk to your pediatric endocrinologist about scheduling options.
Making sure that your child stays on schedule with LUPRON DEPOT-PED is important to your doctor, so if getting to appointments during regular weekday office hours is difficult, let him or her know. Some practices may be able to arrange late night or weekend appointments, or offer another option that may work for your schedule.
Make your visits a “special time” with your child.
Adding a little something “extra” to the day of a doctor’s visit like going on an “adventure” together or having a treat after the appointment, can help make your child less anxious about the visit, and look forward to your time together.
Download the CPP Tracker at no charge to you.
Once you enter the appointments, they go right into your smartphone calendar. And you can program alerts so you never miss an appointment.
Download the CPP Tracker app to help stay on track for appointments and monitor your child’s progress.
Any appointment at the doctor may cause your child to be a little anxious, especially one where he or she will get an injection. You can start to relax your child on the way to the doctor by playing a game or making up a song. In the waiting room, having cards or a book, something that can help distract your child, can help ease some of that anxiety.
Just remember, with every visit you’re helping your child delay puberty until the time is right.
Getting the shot1
Once in the exam room, the nurse or medical assistant will prep your child for the injection. Since LUPRON DEPOT-PED is injected into the muscle every 4 or 12 weeks, your pediatric endocrinologist may switch the injection site between the upper arm, buttocks, or thigh to make the experience easier for your child.
After the injection, some pain and irritation at the site is expected. However, if more severe symptoms occur or if any new, unusual, or worsened symptoms develop, contact your child's doctor right away.
It is a common initial effect of the drug to see an increase in the signs or symptoms of puberty, such as vaginal bleeding, during the first weeks of treatment. These symptoms should go away. If they continue beyond the second month, notify your child's doctor.
It is important that you keep your child's doctor appointments and follow the prescribed injection schedule. Your child's pubertal development could begin again if injections are missed. The doctor will do regular exams and blood tests to check for signs of puberty.
Monitoring your child’s treatment1
Every child is unique, so how your child’s symptoms progress and how he or she responds to treatment may be different than for other children. Your pediatric endocrinologist will check on your child’s progress by performing some tests and taking different measurements during therapy. These include:
Since LUPRON DEPOT-PED offers different dosage choices, the doctor
will be able to adjust the dosage based on your child’s response to
these tests and to treatment.1
Response is assessed 1–2 months after the initial injection.
Response is assessed 2–3 months after the initial injection and at month 6.
should be checked generally every 6‑12 months during treatment with LUPRON DEPOT-PED.
After starting therapy, your child may first show increased signs and symptoms of CPP. Don’t be worried: this increase is normal and is due to the way the medicine works. After the first few weeks, your child will stop making some hormones and you may see puberty process stop or slow down.
While on LUPRON DEPOT-PED, your child’s growth rate should stop or slow down. For girls, breast development will stop and may regress. For boys, the penis and testicles may shrink back to a size that is normal for their age.
Signs to watch out for1
Sometimes the initial dosage needs to be adjusted—one way to know this is by looking out for certain unwanted signs. If your child has menstrual bleeding that continues beyond the second month of treatment, has irritation at the injection site, has a seizure, develops new or worsened mental (psychiatric) symptoms or problems, or has any other unusual signs or symptoms, it is important to notify your pediatric endocrinologist immediately. See additional Important Safety Information about LUPRON DEPOT-PED.
If you have any concerns about the effectiveness of your child’s dosage level, be sure to bring them up with the doctor.
Some people taking gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) agonists like LUPRON DEPOT-PED have had new or worsened mental (psychiatric) problems. Mental (psychiatric) problems may include emotional symptoms such as crying, irritability, restlessness (impatience), anger, and acting aggressive.
Some people taking GnRH agonists like LUPRON DEPOT-PED have had seizures. The risk of seizures may be higher in people who have a history of seizures, epilepsy, brain or brain vessel (cerebrovascular) problems or tumors, or in people who are taking a medicine that has been connected to seizures, such as bupropion or selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs). Seizures have also happened in people who have not had any of these problems.
Call your child’s doctor right away if your child experiences any new or worsened mental (psychiatric) symptoms or problems or if your child has a seizure while taking LUPRON DEPOT-PED.
LUPRON DEPOT-PED offers the support of an app to help you keep track of your child's appointments and progress right on your iPhone® at no charge to you.
Input your pediatrician and pediatric endocrinologist appointments directly into your calendar. Plus get alerts so you never miss an appointment.
Record your at-home observations as well as all the measurements taken at doctor appointments.
Facts and tips to help prepare you and your child throughout your treatment journey.
Appointment-specific questions to ask your child’s doctor.
Connect to our registered nurses to get the support you need when you need it.
Most children want to fit in with their friends and don’t want to feel different from others. Children who begin puberty early may be anxious or embarrassed around other kids their age, which can affect how they feel and cope. As a parent, you also may have difficult feelings about your child's early development. Learning how to talk to your child and answer his or her questions in an age-appropriate manner can go a long way toward helping to make you and your child feel more comfortable with CPP and its treatment.
Treat your child age appropriately
CPP can cause your child to be taller than other children who are the same age. It is important that your son or daughter is treated according to actual age rather than size, and not asked to handle activities and situations more appropriate for an older child. Children tend to behave according to how they are treated, and it can be easy to forget your child’s emotional and mental maturity are still developing at milestones appropriate for his or her chronological age. Be sure to remind teachers, relatives, and friends to do the same.
How you can reassure your child
Your child may feel embarrassed by the physical effects of CPP. It is helpful to let your child know that all girls and boys experience puberty, so the changes are normal, but in his or her case it’s just happening sooner than it should. Also, you may want to remind your child that LUPRON DEPOT-PED therapy is working to change that and help them be more like other children their age.
Just as you may have wondered if you did something wrong (remember, CPP is not your fault) your child may wonder why this is happening. Help your child understand that everyone feels different sometimes—you might even share some of your own childhood experiences—so that your child learns that it’s okay to be different. Encourage your child to share any worries that he or she may be having.
If you, your child, or other members of your family are having
difficulty coping, it’s nothing to be ashamed of. There are support
groups where you can find help. Don’t be embarrassed to seek
psychological counseling: it can help your family better understand
and handle the emotions, issues, and challenges that accompany
precocious puberty. If you have questions or would like guidance on
how to find a qualified counselor, talk with your child’s physician.
Some ways to simplify the talk about CPP with your child:1-3
You know your child’s reactions better than anyone else. By gently probing you can see if he or she is ready to learn about CPP.
Make CPP easy to understand—don’t use medical terms. You can simply say something like: “Your brain is sending messages to your body that are making you grow up too fast.”
Explain that there’s a medicine that can stop them from growing too fast so that they’re more like their friends.
Give your child space to share their feelings and fears—and let them know these feelings are normal.
Talking with others
How much friends, family and others, like teachers, coaches and school nurses know about your child is up to you. Whomever you do decide to tell, be sure that they understand that your child is just like any other his or her age, but just with this one condition that you’re treating. For people who spend a lot of time with your child, you may want to go a little more in-depth so they can fully understand the condition. This site can help educate them and answer some questions they may have.
