Stopping medications and starting over??

L

luvmyottb

Guest
difficult child had a therapy session yesterday and another one today. She told counselor she wanted to kill him. She hates coming to the appointments because he tell us to continue to be consistent and tough with her. She screamed at me in the car the whole way there yesterday and I basically ignored her tantrum which really made her mad.

husband and I have considered weaning her off all medications and see what we have on our hands. It's been more than 2 years with all these medications and I don't feel we are any closer to stabilizing her behavior and academically everything seems worse.

I am curious about your experiences. Good, bad and ugly. I am calling the psychiatrist today or tomorrow to discuss and how to wean off. Really unsure of what to do and need more information. I am afraid we may have waited too long, school starts 8/25/08.
 

gcvmom

Here we go again!
Well we did it last summer with difficult child 2 because I felt like we were just throwing drugs at his symptoms hoping they'd stick, and they only seemed to add their own new symptoms and making things worse.

So psychiatrist agreed and we did a 2 week wash (which probably wasn't long enough, but because the mood stabilizer's we were adding needed so much time to ramp up, and he was so hyperactive and out of control, we couldn't wait much longer if we wanted him to be able to start school in September) -- took him off everything.

Now's probably the best time if she's still got a month before school starts. I don't recommend doing it during the school year, though. Unless she's so bad she needs to be hospitalized anyway...

Good luck to you -- it's hard decision, but I think it's something to consider if you just don't seem to be getting anywhere with the current medications.
 

jal

Member
We are going through that now as you can see in my signature...Currently, no problems. He is off Tenex and Straterra and I am working on the Depakote. Last will be the Abilify. It will be about 4 weeks total to take care of it all.

Good Luck!
 
I was planning to do that over the summer break. easy child's would go elsewhere to stay for the duration because I didn't know what would happen, but felt we needed to get a baseline because medications were helping some, but not enough.

What happened though was I had turned my application in for a residential correctional facility (adults transitioning from jail or prison to general population) and they called June 2 for an interview. The interview was June 10, but I didn't get the results until July 8 ~ apparently I didn't get the job. So I called the dr's office to schedule an appointment but they couldn't get us in until the 22nd of July. That meant we didn't even have a full month to wean and start over. So I opted not to .... then we had all these other things happen.

At this point, I can't give any reviews, but I wish you luck in whatever decision you choose!
 

BusynMember

Well-Known Member
Never ever wean any child off medications by yourself. Some medications are very hard to wean from and you need at least a pediatrician to oversee the weaning. That's who we used.
My son was so much better off medications, and we were able to get him a fresh evaluation which actually uncovered the problems. Your little one is on a lot of medications, more than I"d have allowed my son to be on. I say go for it and then take him for a new evaluation. It could take a while before he is back to normal. Often people (not just kids) become worse when they withdraw from medications. It takes time for the body chemistry to straighten out. It can be MUCH worse before it gets better.
 

klmno

Active Member
I'm going to just throw this out as a question- not really a suggestion- have you tried a different therapuetic approach- or has it all been the same type of therapy but changing medications? I ask because I have found that no matter what I read as being recommended therapy for BiPolar (BP), and no matter what the tdocs tell me, most of them haven't really tried anything but the traditional behavior modification with difficult child. I didn't know if that was just our experience or if others were finding this too. Myself, I decided not to go that route because when we tried it before, it made things worse and I can easily see how difficult child (and me,too) could have ended up on a ton of medications as a result of it.

I'm sure many have had great results with it, but it didn't work for us.
 

susiestar

Roll With It
Every time we do a medication wash with Wizard we end up with MAJOR suicide problems and depression. It is just not worth it. his medications have been the same pretty much for quite a while. But they are WORKING, so a medication wash isn't really in the cards. He really needs the antidepressant. Of course, he was suicidal at 7 years old, which is one reason we started the medications.

I hope it works for you. Sometimes you really do have to start over.
 

Sara PA

New Member
Based on what I saw when my son discontinued Celexa (antidepressant), Klonopin (benzodiazepine tranquilizer) and Lamictal (anticonvulsant mood stabilizer) I believe medication washes should include at least six months drug free. He said it was at least a year before he felt like himself again. But then, in his case "himself" was a good thing.

Don't assume that your doctor will be good guide to discontinuing medications. Too many seem to believe that any problems are solved in two weeks. If he agrees then proposes taking a couple of months to stop all those drugs, you got yourself a keeper.
 

jal

Member
I must add that my difficult child is on some of the same medications that your difficult child is on. The psychiatrist wrote out how to take down medications, doses amount of day on each dose before lowering and also which order they were to be discontinued. He said it would be a 4 week process. I am currently in week 2. So far it has been OK. I do not see any radical change in behavior - just the same as before, so far.

Again, good luck!
 
Top