Don't even know where to start

Ltlredhen

New Member
It's been a many weeks since I've updated my difficult child's status.

We just finished up our prek year at school. The last few weeks were tough but teachers say all kids were "bad" towards end of the year. First week in May he had a really bad ear infection which resulted in yet another course of antibiotic, cough/cold medication and this time prednisone. Yep. You guessed it. It's been down hill ever since. Finally insisted and got a referral to an ENT and at our first visit he put difficult child on Singulair and Flonase nasal spray with a recheck in 3 weeks to see if the fluid was out of his left ear.

The Singulair lasted 4 days and difficult child's behavior was so out of control that I took him off myself. ENT changed it to Claratin. One week after taking difficult child off Singulair, we had a regularly scheduled appointment with psychiatrist and therapist. difficult child did everything in his power to get out of the room, kicked at the therapist, picked up a toy and held it up as if to throw it at my head if therapist had not interveniened. As bad as it was, it was such a relief for someone else to be on the receiving end for a change. When psychiatrist came in he immediately said he needed some help in the "mood medication" department. He is uncomfortable increasing his lithium since the level can be such a fine line between good and toxic. His approach is to add Depakote 125 mg in the morning to take with his lithium carbonate 300 mg and then at night take the Abilify 15mg, lithium carbonate 300mg and Depakote 250mg.

So we started all of this and one week later went for ear recheck. Now both ears are infected with fluid. ENT took him off Claratin and put him on Augmentin and Dehistine syrup with recheck in 3 weeks. Said if we get the chest congestion cleared up he would schedule tubes and take adnoids out. Of course he threw the Augmentin up and ENT changed to Ceclor. So far it is day 3 of absolute H E L LLLLLLL here. I am about to go out of my mind. He is so very bad and awful to be around.

I have no experience with Depakote, does anyone have any words of wisdom about this medication? As far as the other stuff, I think we should just shoot for clearing congestion and do the surgery. I'm not so sure there is any antihistimine medication he will be able to take. Will update my profile in a bit, gotta go tend to difficult child for now.

Donna
 

branbran

New Member
I'm so sorry you are going through of this at once. I'm exhausted just imagining how hectic life is for you. Don't really have any advice, just wanted to lend you some support. Hang in there, I'm sure it will get better when your difficult child is feeling better. Until then, try to take some time for yourself, run a hot bath and let Calgon take you away!!

My prayer's are with you. :smile:
 

DammitJanet

Well-Known Member
Lordy lordy. Im not sure there is anything you can really do except ride this out. I know this is not what he would want but would a shot of antibiotic be a faster way to go?
 

Wiped Out

Well-Known Member
Staff member
Hugs-I hope the ear infections are cleared up soon! My difficult child used Depakote for quite awhile-it was helpful at first but then not so much.
 

smallworld

Moderator
I'm so sorry for all you've been going through. Definitely go for the surgery once the chest congestion is clear. It's not worth having to live through all those medications thrown at your difficult child that can negatively affect his mood.

I've had two kids on Depakote -- one is still on it -- and my son in particular did very well on it until the dose got to a higher level and he became depressed (we've since halved his dose). But right after his prolonged intense manic reaction to Zoloft in October 2005, Depakote was his savior. After six weeks at a therapeutic level, all raging stopped dead in its tracks. We have rarely seen a rage since. Just short of miraculous in my book.

I hope Depakote works for your difficult child, and I hope things improve soon. Hugs to you.
 

Steely

Active Member
Hi Litlredhen

I just wanted to say how sorry I am as well.....

Just a few things - one is that predisone is a steroid, which can induce mania. I know your little guy is too young to probably have a firm diagnosis, but it is something to note in his records that he may have had an adverse reaction to steroids. When my son had steroids due to severe poison ivy, he went off off the deep end for months. There are cases of steroids inducing mania in patients that were not previously diagnosed with Bi Polar, so if he is unstable, it is something to keep an eye on for the future.

When my son first started Depakote he had a huge aggresive streak for about 2 days - it then went away, and the Depakote seemed to work. As years went by, we took him off of it, in lieu of Lamictal - but I just wanted you to know that intially he did have worse behavior problems, and then they waned. I would stick with the Depakote for a couple of weeks before chalking up his outbursts to the medication.

Good luck with all of this. I am sure he is feeling physically so poor, that being calm is almost impossible for him.
Hugs to both of you during this difficult time.
 

Alisonlg

New Member
Wow...what a rough go of things! I'm so sorry that your difficult child is feeling so ill and that you're bearing the brunt of it! Hopefully you can get the congestion to clear up quickly and get those ears fixed!

::hugs::
 

BusynMember

Well-Known Member
I'm going to join on the Prednisone is a steroid bit. I took Prednisone for a year and I have bipolar II, but get more depressed than manic. On Prednisone I had the happiest year of my life :smile: I was literally "high" all year, although I didn't realize it at the time. I was also prone to going "over the top" and raging a lot, and I was 27, not 7. I think it may be best to deal with allergies with using only one thing--tissues--unless the allergies are life threatening, like asthma. Without question, steroids can cause moodswings, rages, and mania. When my kids allergies kick up (and they don't HAVE moodswings) I choose to only give them a box of Kleenex. All of those allergy medications can cause weird reactions, and you never know if they will. As for myself, I have bad allergies, but even Bendadryl soups me up, so I do the tissue thing too and just live with the annoying allergy symptoms (and wait for winter, which I love). Depakote is a mood stabilizer that takes eight weeks to kick in. If you don't wait eight weeks, you haven't given it a long enough chance to work. It also needs to be at a therapeutic level or it also wont work. My daughter took it and tossed it in the trash saying "It makes me stupid. I can't think." She was 19 and old enough to realize the cognitive dulling. Try it. It may work. If it doesn't, or there are bad side effects, there are other mood stabilizers. Depakote can also cause weight gain. Steroids can mess with the Depakote, causing it not to work. I personally have never felt even a twang of a mood swing from any antibioltics. It's always been fine with antibiotics :smile: Good luck!!
 

Steely

Active Member
Yes - it can.
Jane Pauley's has a great book out about how she developed Bi Polar at age 40 after being on steroids for a year for recurring hives. She has been on Lithium for the last 10 years to control her illness.

 

klmno

Active Member
Not to sabatoge the thread, but are their a lot of people on this forum whose kids had to take albuterol or other steroids when they were very young?
 

smallworld

Moderator
Since age 3, my easy child/difficult child 2 has taken Albuterol to stop an asthma attack in progress. She takes Flovent, another inhaled steriod that is an asthma preventive medication, during allergy season every spring (about 4 to 5 months). It appears not to affect her mood symptoms. When she took oral steroids for a bronchial infection a few years ago, her mood symptoms did appear to worsen.

Is your difficult child on any inhaled steroids at the current time?
 

klmno

Active Member
My son hasn't taken steroids in a few years, but had to many times, and albuterol, from the time he was a newborn until then. I was just curious if a lot of kids with issues like ours, no matter the diagnosis, had taken these as very young children a lot. You know how years after a "popular" diagnosis and/or medication is given to pregnant women or very young children, then they find out "oops", maybe it had more side effects then we knew about. I think there are still issues we have that were definitely not caused by these (depression and anxiety in me and both my parents), but the conduct part- we never had those kind of mood swings and conduct issues. Then, I wonder how much the different society rules/policies effect it to- like zero tolerance in school, discipline different at home, less family moral support, etc.

Did I sabatoge the thread? I apologize, sincerely.
 

smallworld

Moderator
I'm guessing that the difference may be that you and your parents were not exposed to SSRIs as youngsters. SSRIs can cause the kind of behavior problems your son is experiencing.
 
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