more on the Residential Treatment Center (RTC) saga

crazymama30

Active Member
I am doing better with difficult child being at Residential Treatment Center (RTC), and the psychiatrist and I had a heart to heart and I feel better about things now. I still think his therapist up there is a ninny, but better a therapist being a ninny than a psychiatrist.

Monday his tenex was upped to 1mg 3x's a day. If he is doing well next week, I am hoping she will lower the seroquel. He is still having frequent tics, but they are quieter. I think he realized that it bothered people and he has figured out how to make it quieter but cannot stop it. He is still very emotionally fragile, but he is trying. He has definately learned from being in the environment there. They retested his thyroid and the TSH was still high while the T4 was low normal, and psychiatrist called a pediatrician to see what they should do. The recommendation was to give him a low dose of levothyroxine, which I am all for. The thyroid plays a huge role in mood stabilization, so I am wondering if this might help him.

I met with easy child's therapist yesterday. easy child has been doing well, and did not want to go and did not mind if I took the appointment. easy child and I have been talking about having her therapist do family therapy when difficult child comes home, and easy child is all for it. It was actually sweet when I mentioned to therapist that we wanted her to do family therapy with us, she jumped right at it. Made me smile. We talked about how easy child "mother hens" difficult child and it really causes problems. How she tries to jump in and help me deal with him when he is acting up and how it makes it 10x harder to deal with him when she gets in the middle. I have never had the chance to talk to therapist alone, and after doing so? I think the woman is brilliant. She is the first person I have spoken with about difficult child who gets him, and she has never met him! She also said (not directly, like any good therapist she let me come to the conclusion, though I knew what she was doing. lol) that she thought that family therapy for all of us could benefit difficult child more than individual therapy as he lacks self awareness. He wants things to go well, but doing family therapy at the Residential Treatment Center (RTC)? Does not work too well as difficult child is so mired in the here and now that he cannot reflect back.

She asked about difficult child's current therapist at home, and would she want to do family therapy? Gotta love political correctness. I had a long talk with his therapist a week or so ago, and she questioned if it would be better for difficult child to try a different therapist as they had been working together for so long and not accomplishing much. I had been thinking this for awhile, but was trying to figure out how to broach the subject. I think that when he comes home, we will do weekly family therapy, he may do speech therapy for communication (if anyone knows of any other good interventions for Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD) let me know, he had done Occupational Therapist (OT) but it was not targeted at Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD) so that may be a choice too), but as for individual therapy? That is going to wait for a while. We need to learn how to be a family, how to enjoy each other again. To repair the damage of the last few years. And difficult child does not need to be overbooked with therapy appts. I don't see what good that will do.

I think his stay will be for at least another month. could be more. They are doing so many medication changes, and we have no day treatment in our area, so that is fine. It will be hard, but hopefully it will pay off.

I am going up on Saturday for christmas and staying the night. I will go pick up difficult child about noon, and then we will hang out at the hotel. I will take him back about 8pm. Sunday I will pick him up about 9am, my mom, sister and easy child will come up christmas day arriving about 10am. We will do christmas together, take difficult child back about nooon so s2bx can eat the holiday meal with difficult child, if he really shows up. You never know. I am looking forward to spending some relaxing time with difficult child that does not require me to drive all over the city to find things to do. I hope it all goes well.
 
T

TeDo

Guest
I am glad things are working out. I am especially glad his "old" therapist saw that it wasn't helping and admitted it might be better to find someone else. With the Tenex that high, watch his blood pressure. Tenex lowers blood pressure and they had to stop increasing difficult child 1's because his BiPolar (BP) started getting "too low" for healthy. Glad it seems to be working for him though.

Enjoy your Christmas with him. You will feel better once you see he is okay. I know it's hard to have him there and I can only imagine how hard it is. But, it is what is best for him right now and that is all that matters, right?
 

crazymama30

Active Member
They are monitoring his blood pressure, so if it gets too low they should know and be able to stop it. Right now? He needs to finish his stay there, needs to get his medications better and learn more "skills".
 

DammitJanet

Well-Known Member
I think you should see some good results with the synthroid. I take it and when Cory was on lithium it caused his thyroid to be a tad low, he went on synthroid too. Cory actually noticed he was a bit moodier and thats when we got it tested. He was in Residential Treatment Center (RTC) too.
 

susiestar

Roll With It
Thyroid medications can be a big help. My thyroid isn't working at all so I take it (if you are going to have your immune system attack something in your body, that is the BEST thing for it to attack because it is so easy and effective to replace the thyroid hormones) and I have noticed that it is a lot easier to be calm and positive about things if I take it than if I forget it.

What difficult child's old therapist said about seeing someone new is EXACTLY how a professional should handle the situation - compared to how daisyface's difficult child's BT handled things which is at the total other end of what not to do for a therapist of any type.

I think easy child's therapist sounds wonderful. When you find the right therapist the results are amazing. I have long wanted to bottle the amazing therapist we have here so that all of you could have her. She acts liek your easy child's therapist does- truly understand the kids.

I am glad you will enjoy some time with difficult child at the hotel. it is hard when they are in Residential Treatment Center (RTC) that is not near home.
 
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