Psychiatric Medications

Our experience with mood-related medications is limited. My thoughts are that, if no one can really nail down what the problem might be, I am loath to medicate him. No judgment on anyone who chooses medication or doesn’t. In some instances, like ours, you may have tried everything else you can think of and still have some behaviors that are not controllable by natural sources. We did eventually give him a medication for his depression.

This December (2010), we did try Seroquel, but it was short-lived. Because it caused his seizures to increase and he had muscle spasms, they made him take that for 3 days before they stopped, and it didn’t seem to make any difference to his behavior, although his depression lifted eventually, which was the goal; it wasn’t Seroquel. We were in the hospital inpatient on suicide watch at the time. It was a horrible experience, absolutely terrible. They did note “prolific seizure activity” on a sleep-deprived EEG, but later withdrew their concern and dismissed it as nothing after no results on a 24-hour EEG. Still can’t reconcile that one.

Lamictal: He took it for 8 weeks in two forms. We decided to stop the medication when he was through that rough patch and, as yet, see no need to try something new. We didn’t see any other positive results, only negative ones, from this medication. First he got a rash, and then he got an upper respiratory infection. He started on 25 mg went up to 50 mg (got the rash) stopped it for a while then went back on at 12.5 mg and we took him off 2 weeks later after a visit to the emergency room for a rash on his legs and an upper respiratory problem.

I am interested in other people’s thoughts and trials with medication, as it may be helpful in some cases to use pharma to treat some of the symptoms these children experience. I would happily take each comment and catogorize into a grouping that would be easy to read for other people who are considering medication.

To me, what is important when considering medications is the following: What results can I expect? What should I watch out for? What dosage was right for your child? Did you add more than one medication? But that’s just me, please add anything via the comments section that you think might be assistance to someone else looking at medication.

Interesting to note he does take Dallergy quite regularly; we have noticed that sometimes when he is having hyperactivity problems and the pollen, mold, or grass is high, if we give him Dallergy, he will calm down. His doctor and I discussed this, and his doc thinks that as his histamine goes down, it helps regulate behavior. It doesn’t have the best side effects in the world either, so we try not to overuse it, but it certainly seems to help in more ways than just what it is prescribed for.

Nystatin (available on prescription, not a supplement, but the tablet form is used for yeast/candida overgrowth; the liquid form used to have lots of sugar in it, so we decided that was counterproductive for us in regards to trying to remove excess yeast.)