Anyone know a good MOOD STABILIZER??

[xlagirl]

Many of you already know that my son is in the psychiatric hospital right now.
They are thinking of sending him home in the next day or two but they have still not put him on a mood stabilizer...which was one of the main reasons why I decided to put him in the psychiatric hospital in the first place.

They raised his Abilify by only 5mg (making it a total of 25mg a day), and they added Concerta (which my son had already tried for a year prior to switching to Focalin).

I have requested twice to the nurse to make a note for the doctor to add a mood stabilizer so that his daily rages would be more managible.

What have some of you tried and which one's have worked for the aggression/rage?

My son's diagnosis is Asperger's, possibly Bi-polar too, ADHD, and sensory processing disorder (SPD).

 

[Wiped Out]

Xlagirl,
My difficult child has been on many mood stabilizers. The combo that worked the best for him for a long time was Topamax and Lamictal but that was my difficult child and it isn't working any more. I would be concerned if they think he is bipolar that they are keeping a stimulant in the mix. My difficult child is bipolar and ADHD as well but he absolutely cannot tolerate any stimulants-it makes him rage more. For some they can add in a stimulant once the child is stabilized on other medications; we were never able to add back a stimulant with-o it sending him into rages.
Hugs.

 

[BusynMember]

A mood stabilizer is for bipolar. I'm not sure his diagnosis would warrant one or help him.

Mood stabilizers take up to eight weeks to work and have some bad side effects. I would actually first and foremost want the Concerta discontinued. Any child on the autism spectrum can be very sensitive to medication. My son took stimulants and all of them made him mean and angry. Discontinuing it may alone cause great improvement. He also took Lithium, Trileptal and Depakote because they mistakenly said he had bipolar. The Lithium and Depakote doped him up and he gained close to 80 lbs. in three years. He is still quite heavy and he has been off the medications now for five years, but he was constantly hungry on the Depakote and Lithium. The Tripletal made him uber-hyper...it made me question his diagnosis.

Hospitalization is effective during a medication wash or if your child is a danger to himself or others and needs to be stabilized, but, sadly, they rarely keep a child in the hospital long enough for a diagnostic evaluation plus medication testing. A long time ago, I was in the hospital for ten weeks and my insurance covered it, and I was able to be diagnosed, treated, AND to wait to see if the medications were working. Unfortunately, these days insurance covers maybe five days. The only real long term care is an Residential Treatment Center (RTC) and, although it's up to you what you do, Aspergers would be hard to treat in a psychiatric hospital because it is behaviorally based and Aspergers causes behaviors that LOOK like psychiatric problems but are actually neurological in root cause. I hope he gets some Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) help.

Good luck to you and your little guy. Been there/done that/have the shirt!

 

[crazymama30]

That is a heck of a lot of abilify, WOW.

Mood stabilizers vary with what works for what person, there can be a link if there is a first degree relative on a mood stabilizer that should work better for the child, however this is not always true. They do take a while to build up in the system, but I would continue to ask for one and untill he is on a mood stabilizer? I would ditch the stimulant. Is he now on two stimulants?? Wow. That would set off many BiPolar (BP) kiddos.

 

[JJJ]

For young ones, our doctor said he likes to start with Depakote because it is the most extensively researched in children. But every child is different. Depakote worked great for Tigger but not at all for Kanga. (But we know think Tigger may have been having partial seizures and not modd swings...so...)

That is a really high dose of Abilify and the stimulant could just be making things worse. Does the psychiatric hospital have a psychopharmacologist on staff?

 

[SJB]

I'm more concerned about how you get them to take them once prescribed. My difficult child saw a psychiatrist a month ago and got a stabilizer (I'm sure there's a post on that somewhere here). She took it for about a week then stopped abruptly. She claims there is a side effect. She won't tell me what that side effect is, she says "it's personal", claims someone else in her class who also has a diagnosis bipolar has the same side effect (although I doubt they're on the same medications) and she will talk to her psychiatrist about it.
Well guess what? Yesterday pm was her appointment for follow up with psychiatrist. I left work early to pick her up to take her there. She wasn't home. Her appointment was for 4:45, she showed up at home at 6.

The psychiatrist told her to call him if she had any questions or problems, she won't.

 

[xlagirl]

Hi,

Thank you for all your input. The doctor just called from the psychiatric hospital and said they will be starting him on 150 mg of Depkote.
This is in addition to his 25 mg of Ability, and 18 mg of Concerta.

A couple of you mentioned that he is on a high dose of Abilify? That is strange because then the doctor from the psychiatric hospital called me last Sat. she had mentioned that he was still on a starting dose with Abilify. So, she increased it by adding 5 more mg.
So he now takes 10mg in the morning, 5 mg in the afternoon, and 10 m in the evening of the Abilify.
The Abilify has been helping his with his suicidal thoughts, and his self injury. It's not perfect, but so much better than prior to when he started Abilify.

As for the stimulant - At age 7 he started taking 18mg of Concerta, then at age 8 they switched him to 10mg Focalin. The Focalin did not work at all, so while in the psychiatric hospital they stopped the stimulant all together for a few days and now they just put him back on the Concerta yesterday.
I know many of you say to stop the stimulant all together because it can have a negative effect on him, especially with him having Asperger's.
I will bring that up to his doctor. I will also be monitoring his moods when he gets home. If he still rages after adding the Depakote then I will try removing the stimulant all together to see if that helps. Thanks for the heads up on that!

Gosh, it's so hard trying to get just the right mix of medications for these little guys, isn't it?
And to add to that, Midwestmom mentioned that it will make him more hungry and most likely gain more weight. He has already gained so much weight from the Abilify. And, he eats soooo much already. Maybe I should take him to a nutritionalist? I wonder if they can help get the eating under control?


SJb - Sorry to hear about your difficult child not following the doctors oders and staying on her medications. That is really not good. I hope you can get her to go to the doctor appointment. and discuss it with the doctor. It sounds like she is embarrased by the "personal" side effects and she may feel better talking to one of the nurses than the doctor is it's a male doctor.
Bets of luck. I hope it all works out.

 

[DammitJanet]

xlagirl...please remember that we are only parents and do not start or stop any medications based on what you read here on this message board. You need to rely on what you and your doctor decide. Please discuss any medication decisions with the doctor.

We can give you our suggestions, our opinions, our experiences but we cannot diagnose or dispense medical advice. None of our kids is exactly the same which is why medicine is more of an art than a science. If there was one magic pill we would all be out by the pool with perfectly well behaved kids.

 

[xlagirl]

Hey Janet,

Thanks for the advice. Yes, of course I would never start or stop medication without a doctor's order.
I was only looking for advise and experiences from others in a similar situation.


To everyone,

I received a call from the psychiatric hospital just a little while ago and my son had started a fight with another kid in the ward and when the nurses/techs tried to break it up my difficult child went in to a full blown rage. They removed him from the area and put him in an observation room with staff, and they gave him medicine (benedryl) for sedation which they said didn't work at all. He began attacking the staff and so they had to put him in an isolation room by himself until he calmed down.

This was the first time he had raged out of control since he entered the psychiatric hospital 5 days ago. Even though I am sorry that he went through that and sorry for the staff, I am glad that the psychiatric hospital got to see him in his true colors. This is how he is at home with us and until today, they hadn't seen much aggression.
I feel that this should help the doctors and staff a better idea of what we are dealing with.
I know it's horrible to say that, but I truley feel that now they will help him better.

I sure hope that the stimulant or the newly added Depakote didn't have anything to do with triggering the rage.
I think the stimulant may have been a problem all along.

 

[TerryJ2]

Yes, that rage will help them a lot. Sigh. Too bad it has to be like that, but really, that's about all that works, since the doctors usually have to go on the parents' word.
I hope he's feeling better now!
Did they figure out what triggered it? I'd be curious to have heard the conversation between him and the other kid just prior to the rage.

 

[xlagirl]

Hi Terry,

Your right, too bad it has to be like that but I am glad that they got to see the other side of him.
I went to see him tonight and he was still a little aggetated with the staff. He was happy to see me, and we played a card game together.
The nurses told him that he will be staying a little longer now because he is still not stable. He is not happy about that. Today was the first day that he told me "I want to go home" and then he cried. I was able to comfort him and let him know that I am just a phone call away and I will keep coming to visit him.

Boy this is really tough! It's wearing heaving on my mind everyday. Today was my birthday but I just couldn't celebrate without my little boy.

 

[crazymama30]

I know that my difficult child got violent on Depakote, but everyone reacts differently. I hope they can do something to help the poor guy, sounds like he is really struggling.