pepperidge
New Member
Yikes! What's a normal 14 year old boy, anyway? Can't tell what's puberty and what's the mood disorder. And I have no experience with normal boy development, if there is such a thing. I need a few arm-chair psychiatrists here so I'm calling up you guys whose collective wisdom is always appreciated.
My soon to be 14 year old has had a great year or more of stability. He's on Lamictal for depression, low dose of Risperdal (helps anxiety, irritability) and a low dose of Adderall (seems to kick in frontal lobe and help him behave more age appropriately.
But in the last few weeks, he has gotten much more depressed/irritable, and in the past two weeks or so, anything you say negtive or no results in door slamming, my life stinks, I might as well be dead, etc. While I don't think he is an immediate suicidal risk, these constant statements have me worried and I am constantly checking on him. He hasn't raged in a few years, but just the other night he threw a vase at his brother who was getting on his nerves and managed to shatter the glass on the oven door. Feel most of the time like I am living with a young adolescent girl. He started off the school year great, then got a cold, and it seemed to go downhill from end of Sept.
Right now he is complaining of an intermittent bad stomach ache--thought it was a flu bug, but he doesn't have any nausea, diarrhea, etc. It is more in his stomach area than abdomen. It has gone on for a few days so I guess a doctor visit is in order. I wonder if the physical symptoms are increasing his irritability, or whether the upswing in depression etc is somehow contributing to stomach stress. Never had this before. Going to be hard to a regular doctor to sort it out, I would think.
WE are between psychiatrists right now, which stinks. The one we had moved away a few weeks ago (2 day drive away). We made an appointment with a new one, but the appointment isn't til right before Thanksgiving. Don't have an appointment for two weeks.
We successfully weaned him off of Topamax this summer because we were concerned about possible cognitive impacts and slightly upped the Lamictal. We didn't know if the Topamax was doing anything, so we went through about 4 months of going down from 100 mg to nothing. Didn't notice very much of anything, though we did up his Lamictal by 25 mg at some point. We just upped it again by 25 mg a few weeks ago as he seemed to be more depressed, stopped trying in school etc. I can't believe that that would contribute to stomach problems. I am thinking that we may need to up it again. Or maybe it should be lowered--could the return of the irritability etc be a signal that we are up too high? Somehow, I don't think so.
I've heard of medicines stopping working, but this seems like a pretty sudden deterioration. psychiatrist we are going to see doesn't get glowing recommendations, but thinking that we were mostly talking about renewing prescriptions I wasn't overly concerned. But this has me worried, and next closest psychiatrists are at 3 hours away, and if not there, probably in Seattle or San Francisco.
Appreciate, as always, any insights into boys, medicines, depression or whatever.
Thanks.
Pepperidge
My soon to be 14 year old has had a great year or more of stability. He's on Lamictal for depression, low dose of Risperdal (helps anxiety, irritability) and a low dose of Adderall (seems to kick in frontal lobe and help him behave more age appropriately.
But in the last few weeks, he has gotten much more depressed/irritable, and in the past two weeks or so, anything you say negtive or no results in door slamming, my life stinks, I might as well be dead, etc. While I don't think he is an immediate suicidal risk, these constant statements have me worried and I am constantly checking on him. He hasn't raged in a few years, but just the other night he threw a vase at his brother who was getting on his nerves and managed to shatter the glass on the oven door. Feel most of the time like I am living with a young adolescent girl. He started off the school year great, then got a cold, and it seemed to go downhill from end of Sept.
Right now he is complaining of an intermittent bad stomach ache--thought it was a flu bug, but he doesn't have any nausea, diarrhea, etc. It is more in his stomach area than abdomen. It has gone on for a few days so I guess a doctor visit is in order. I wonder if the physical symptoms are increasing his irritability, or whether the upswing in depression etc is somehow contributing to stomach stress. Never had this before. Going to be hard to a regular doctor to sort it out, I would think.
WE are between psychiatrists right now, which stinks. The one we had moved away a few weeks ago (2 day drive away). We made an appointment with a new one, but the appointment isn't til right before Thanksgiving. Don't have an appointment for two weeks.
We successfully weaned him off of Topamax this summer because we were concerned about possible cognitive impacts and slightly upped the Lamictal. We didn't know if the Topamax was doing anything, so we went through about 4 months of going down from 100 mg to nothing. Didn't notice very much of anything, though we did up his Lamictal by 25 mg at some point. We just upped it again by 25 mg a few weeks ago as he seemed to be more depressed, stopped trying in school etc. I can't believe that that would contribute to stomach problems. I am thinking that we may need to up it again. Or maybe it should be lowered--could the return of the irritability etc be a signal that we are up too high? Somehow, I don't think so.
I've heard of medicines stopping working, but this seems like a pretty sudden deterioration. psychiatrist we are going to see doesn't get glowing recommendations, but thinking that we were mostly talking about renewing prescriptions I wasn't overly concerned. But this has me worried, and next closest psychiatrists are at 3 hours away, and if not there, probably in Seattle or San Francisco.
Appreciate, as always, any insights into boys, medicines, depression or whatever.
Thanks.
Pepperidge
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