Weight gain and compulsive eating are a horrible side effect of most psychiatric medications. Our difficult child 1 ate compulsively the entire time he was on medications when younger and became
morbidly obese (for a child). When he quit taking medications at 14, (we couldn't require him to accept treatment at that age in Ontario), he lost his weight completely over about fifteen months. In college
he became positively skinny. Now that he's been with his current girlfriend and is back on medications he's once again morbidly obese. It breaks my heart.
I've been on SSRIs once or twice in the past and most recently when I started a tricyclic for migraine prevention, I gained ten pounds in two weeks. Bang, just like that. I
stopped the medication. Unfortunately our kids don't have that option and I don't know what we can do, other than keep low-fat food and no fatty or junk food around. Even then
they will eat cereal (difficult child 1 used to eat at least three bowls at a time, and if I interfered he would have a meltdown. It wasn't worth the rages and disruption to the other kids,
at the time). I would be careful about adding too much protein ... it can put on a lot of weight and when the eating is compulsive, the normal satiety feedback loop doesn't
work. Extra protein usually = extra fat and may not have the hoped-for effect.
