If you saw my post a couple of weeks ago about how difficult this spring has been, you’ll know that we had been considering a medication trial for my son, who is nine years old.
I have always been quite wary of psychiatric medications, especially for children, because I know first-hand that they do not magically solve all of your problems and there are always potential risks and side effects.
Seeing Michael go from feeling relatively in control of his behavior to regularly exhibiting behaviors such as swearing and threatening people, throwing things such as shoes and chairs at others, and hitting, kicking and attempting to bite people had brought us to the place where we needed to give it a try and see what happened.
One especially alarming incident to me was when he hit two classmates while he was angry simply because they were closest to him. In the past, aggression always had a reason that was related to the target, even if the reason was simply perceived by him and not accurate in reality.
Knowing I was still quite nervous about the whole idea, the psychiatrist (she’s actually a CRNP) recommended a book to me, Straight Talk about Psychiatric Medications for Kids
After all of this, I agreed to start him on a low dose of Risperdal and then consult back about how things were going. It was recommended that we only tell the school nurse and not inform the rest of the team, so that we could get some objective feedback on how he was doing.
After two weeks, we have not seen any negative reaction to the meds, and we have seen some positive things that cause us to be cautiously optimistic about it. He has been more communicative with us, sharing stories about what happened in school and expressing concern for his dad’s feelings. He also came up with a plan to do chores to earn money for a video game that he wants!
At school, Michael has had a significant reduction in timeouts, most noticeably when returning to school after the weekend. On the first three Mondays in May, he had 2-3 timeouts (these are for verbal or physical aggression only) plus additional breaks when he was being disruptive or escalating towards a meltdown. The last two weeks, he has had only 1 timeout with fewer breaks needed as well, and today his TSS reported him being happy all day.
We haven’t had a report like that in quite a while, so I am taking it as a good sign!
I'm a mom with Asperger's raising an amazing son with autism, which means I'm basically the case manager/advocate/cheerleader/chauffeur. The rest of the time, you can usually find me with my nose in a book!
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Since I have a sister with a child with aspergers, I can somewhat relate to what you are going through. Just want to encourage you to keep advocating!
Jake has been taking Prozac since his Asperger’s and general anxiety diagnosis, and it’s one of the best things we could have done for him. What a relief to have your nine-year-old NOT talk about wanting to fatally harm himself! He was also diagnosed with Oppositional Defiant Disorder, so now we’re addressing that with therapy, behavioral plans, and (possibly) additional medication. Constant worries, eh? But it’s nice when troublesome behaviors begin to improve a bit.
Here’s to hoping things keep looking up for Michael.
Trish, we are seeing similar good things with Abilify, since he was upped to the right dose. Zero tantrums, lots of “I love yous”, and going to therapy without much complaint. Miracles can happen.
Glad to hear that things are going well. My youngest was on Risperdal for a while and he seemed to be getting better for the first few months (but we had to use a large dosage to get any results). At the same time, our discomfort with the documented side-effects was growing – though we never saw any other than a little weight gain.
In the end, we dropped his medication down but soon all the benefits disappeared.
Unable to find a balance between our own comfort level and the dosage requirements, we stopped giving it to him.
That is fantastic
Truly I understand the angst – I have wondered what to do about R’s anxiety
Even starting Melatonin was such a struggle and now I wonder why I waited so long
I’m so happy to hear that it is going so well! The funny thing about autism and meds is that no one ever really talks about it, but if you start to mention that you are thinking about medication, everyone admits to you that their own kid takes them. (I mean, obviously not everyone, but a substantial number of people.) It’s kind of interesting and it’s too bad that there is a stigma on giving meds to kids when they can be a really effective tool. Of course, they don’t work for everyone, but when they do? Awesomesauce. Here’s hoping things continue to go well for you! Congratulations!
I just wanted to chime in quickly. I know this was a really difficult decision and I am really sorry that I couldn’t be helpful. This is a scary area for me and I had a really hard time handling it. Please know that I KNOW that decisions involving Michael are always well thought out and carefully and thoughtfully determined. I have complete confidence that you always do what is best for Michael given the best knowledge available. So no matter what, I will always support your decisions and be here for you. I am so glad that this is having a positive impact for him.