Today was our second visit with the new psychiatrist to try to sort out meds. Kiddo is on several things - risperdal for the inflexible thinking/obsessive component of aspergers & ativan for clinical anxiety. We parted ways with the previous psychiatrist when she refused to address the depression that plagues him. She kept trying to put him on strange meds for seizures that shut his brain down. And by shut it down, I mean he couldn't form sentences, couldn't concentrate to program (his favorite thing), couldn't process anything but the simplest of instructions, couldn't eat, sleep or show emotion. She felt that was a good trade off to control the depression. We did not agree.
Now, I feel I need to inject here that I firmly believe that medication should be the last resort. But someone needs a med for heart issues, you would give it to them. If someone was deaf, you would give them hearing aids. And if someone needs a med to control brain function, you give it to them. And medication is a route that has been necessary for kiddo, who would have likely killed himself at 10 years old.
Kiddo was taking Abilify, which is a nifty little drug that is similar to risperdal, except it does help with some aspects of depression. This would have been the miracle drug we were looking for except that kiddo experienced one major side effect. When he reached the proper dose, he couldn't eat. Everything he ate, he threw up. He dropped 20 lbs. in less than 3 wks. (3 wks. of constant vomiting) so we backed off the medication until he was taking a dosage that shouldn't have been doing anything according to the old pschiatrist. And still, some days even with that low dose and a prescription stomach med, he can't eat anything without praying to the porcelain god.
Well, the new psych pulled him off the Abilify and put him on a depression med (finally) Celexa. Only either the loss of the abilify or the introduction of the Celexa has caused him to swing into a bout of severe depression (the glass is not only half empty, you might as well just dump the rest & throw out the glass - and what's the point anyway). Yeah. Not good.
So now we've dropped the Celexa & we're adding back the Abilify for a week, then weaning him off it slowly to see if he improves/goes back on a downward spiral. If not, then we know it was caused the Celexa and we try something else. Meds for brain issues, you see, are a crap shoot. What works for one person may not work for another - and kiddo is wired very differently.
I don't know how long it will take to find the right balance of meds. I hope it won't be too long for his sake. (And for mine.)
In the meantime, I'm going to be the drill sargent of happy thoughts and fun. Oh yeah, you don't want to be around me when I'm Suzy Sunshine. I play happy 60's-80's music on the radio like the Monkees, Abba & the Bangles. I sing instead of talk. I break into spontaneous dance. I make a spectacle out of myself for a laugh. I am downright fucking scary.
(It is totally against my emo nature...but I've become very good at it. Now what should I sing first??....)
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