Has your opinion on "Psychiatry" changed because news

Hanging-On

New Member
Since the story about the little girl dying from medications, I've been thinking about this issue in the news regarding "Psychiatry" being a farse &/or abusive. I was wondering if any of you were rethinking your position on all of this? I find that when I now give difficult child his medications, I am questioning myself whether this is the right answer (especially sense I've seen some behavior improvements when the medications changed recently. one was changed, and one was reduced).
 

oceans

New Member
I think that the problem is that psychiatry is not an exact science, and there seems to be a lot of trial and error in diagnoses and treatment. There are so many times an evaluation is wrong, that it is scary. I know my difficult child could not get by without the medications that he is taking right now. It is frustrating to me that it took so many years before we found medications that worked, and that we needed to get evaluations so many times from different psychiatrists. Until it is a more exact science, or there are major changes I feel it will always be this way. I know that difficult child could not survive in this world without the medications....that is one thing that I do know.
 

Karen & Crew

New Member
My opinion hasn't changed.

Some kids really need the medication. Other kids don't. My difficult child needs something although I'm not sure what as his current medications are obviously the wrong choice right now.

I think there will always be parents out there who abuse their privlege as parent and drug their kids to keep them out of their hair and unfortunately, for some families, this will lead to deadly consequences.

Did the family in MA intend to kill their daughter? Were they following the advice of multiple psychiatrists or physician assistants who didn't check notes? Were they making it up as they went along and thinking if it was OK to do this for child A then its OK for child C? I doubt we'll ever know for sure. Either way I think more people than just the parents need to be held responsible.

I think more education is the key. Doctors need to take the time to sit and explain everything to their parents/patients. Don't assume because someone looks intelligent and has a good job that they understand everything or will take the time to research. I will say that I would bet the family in MA didn't ask questions and took their doctor's word as Gospel but I know of quite a few well educated professionals who'd do the same thing.

We've been fortunate in that the doctors I've always relied on most heavily sat and explained each medication to me, how it worked, why it worked, what dosage we would start with, how we would titrate and what the maximum approved dosage for age and weight was. A lot of people aren't and sometimes the information is hard to find and when it is found its hard for someone who doesn't have training in medicine and pharmacology to understand.
 

MeadowLark

New Member
When my oldest son was seeing a certain Dr.
That Dr. told me to "give more medications whenever I saw my son acting out or more aggressive." I always called before I gave an extra dose to my son because I didnt want to be accused of this very thing!
I have tried so hard to help my kids without medication. Then, I finally bowed to the medicine. Nothing has changed. The kids and behaviours are the same or worse. Now, I'm having to giv emy son up as a ward of the state in order to get help.
I have no idea where the lines should be drawn... just the pain of trying to get help for my son. :frown:
Today, I'm still calling and waiting since Thursday for the caseworker to call me back. All I can do is leave messages that are not being returned. GRRR!!!
MeadowLark
 

tiredmommy

Well-Known Member
I see a rush to medicate or operate rather than change lifestyle. I see this throughout the medical realm. Ex: Some (maybe even most) morbidly obese people will greatly benefit from gastric bypass surgery. But what about taking the time to also help that person adapt a healthier activity level & better eating habits after such a risky surgery? Another example: lots of people use sleep medications, whatever happened to not having caffeine past 5pm, etc? Sure lifestyle changes won't provide enough benefit for some people (insomniacs) but would benefit the majority of us. I remember reading once that the kids with adhd that had the best outcomes (no legal run-ins, maintaining grades, etc) received therapy along with their prescriptions. I fear we've become a nation that hands out scripts before using common sense. Now don't get me wrong, medication has a very important place in the treatment plan of many people. And rightly so. I just think our society needs to do a lot of preventative care like proper diet & exercise.
 

DammitJanet

Well-Known Member
TM...you sound like my doctor!

"Try going to the gym, walk more, no caffeine after 3pm, all your ills would be cured!" Yeah right doctor. Do people think I havent tried all those things? If I could afford a gym I would go but I cant. I cant walk very much on orders of a ortho doctor but not only that my knees kill me but I do walk as much as I can possibly do so and pay greatly for it. I have tried limiting caffeine and it doesnt make one iota of a difference in my insomnia. Without sleep medications I dont sleep. Simple as that. Doesnt make a difference to my psychiatrist. He gives me 15 restoril a month. I can pick the nights I get to sleep. The others I have to overdose on benedryl and pray that puts me out.

In my view, all medical care is more art than science and I have lost most of my faith in it.
 

BusynMember

Well-Known Member
Not at all. I've always known there were good doctors, with stellar reps, that people were happy with and terrible quacks. I always was aware that non-MD therapist and even non-MD psycologists (minus NeuroPsychs) are terrible diagnostitians and that good psychiatrists want to make their own diagnoses, not hand a kid over to some psycologist. I started psychiatry at any early age since I have bipolar and I've dealt with the good, the bad, and the ugly.This helped me with my son. I pretty much dissed anything a non-Psychiatrist said, but I also didn't feel ANY professional was exempt from being wrong. I went with my gut. My kid had a BiPolar (BP) diagnoses, but he didn't appear to have the moodswings, and he had tons of symptoms for Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD), so we had a neuropsychologist test him for twelve hours. He said Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD)-not otherwise specified and that has been a blessed diagnosis. Since then, my son is off medications, and is doing phenomenal. You can't entrust your child to everyone, and you always need to question, if something isn't working. Any doctor who overmedicates is a quack in my book. Also, I don't trust long laundry lists of diagnosis. Hone in on the major one and stabilize the child. You can do therapy along with that, but therapy alone will only help somebody who has a situational problem. Alone, therapy will not help an unstable child. All the reward charts and parentings methods in the world can't help a child who is truly mentally or neurological ill/different. I would put my child on medications, if necessary, but I'd monitor everything if I felt the doctor was piling on the medications too thick, I would object. As parents, we have that right. Check out who has a great rep. If possible, avoid local county mental health clinics--they often get the worst of the bad, and a high turnover rate. I've always known the system is flawed, but the mentally ill and neurologically impaired NEED treatment. It's up to us to find the BEST professionals, not just any ole person who has a title. All Psychiatrists and NeuroPsychs are NOT created equal. The one involved with this child who died was likely from a mental health clinic (low cost) and not "up" on the latest medications or treatment. The family was poor so that makes sense. But we're poor too...lol...and I found really good help for my kid. Sure, we had to travel, but it was worth it :smile: For what it's worth I tried healthy living, and still live a very healthy active lifestyle. It made me in fantastic physical shape, but in no way did it stop or even curb my terrible moodswings.
 

tiredmommy

Well-Known Member
<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Dammit Janet</div><div class="ubbcode-body">TM...you sound like my doctor!

"Try going to the gym, walk more, no caffeine after 3pm, all your ills would be cured!" Yeah right doctor. Do people think I havent tried all those things? If I could afford a gym I would go but I cant. I cant walk very much on orders of a ortho doctor but not only that my knees kill me but I do walk as much as I can possibly do so and pay greatly for it. I have tried limiting caffeine and it doesnt make one iota of a difference in my insomnia. Without sleep medications I dont sleep. Simple as that. Doesnt make a difference to my psychiatrist. He gives me 15 restoril a month. I can pick the nights I get to sleep. The others I have to overdose on benedryl and pray that puts me out.

In my view, all medical care is more art than science and I have lost most of my faith in it. </div></div>

Janet, I'm not referring to a person with a bonafide sleep disorder. I'm refering to the person that drinks a pot of coffee at 10pm and does nothing to control stress, diet or fitness. These people may not actually need a medication to sleep but lifestyle changes instead. You are in a different category, you live with chronic pain so sleep is inherently more difficult for you than other people. You are the sort of person who needs a sleep medication.
 

LittleDudesMom

Well-Known Member
That particular story didn't change my opinion of the industry or the medication. One stupid set of parents and one inept doctor doesn't prove anything to me. There are stupid people everywhere and inept workers in every profession.

What has changed my perspective is the actual living and experiencing with difficult child. I was ani medication for a long time. (As a matter of fact, I still have to be really sick to take medicine myself. Fevers and runny noses are our bodies way of fighting off infection so I usually suffer unless I can't carry on my role.) I fought giving my son adhd medications for over a year. I knew he had it, the doctor knew he had it, but I turned every stone before giving him the pill - dietary changes and behavior mod being the most worked at.

But, after almost 18 months of trying I agreed to medications. And it made a huge difference the very first day. His handwriting improved, his focus improved, his compliance improved and his impulsivity improved. When we ended up having to add medications to the mix, I researched thouroughly before the doctor appointment so I could understand and ask questions.

Are there parents who medicate too quickly? Sure. Are there docs who dispense too readily? Sure. Unfortunately that is life.

Psychiatry is a science. Sometimes it's trial by error because what works for one human body does not work for another - and that goes for medications for other bodily ailments as well. But that would never prevent me from investigating further in order to give my difficult child the tools he needs to acheive some success in his life.

Sharon
 

judi

Active Member
It didn't change my mind about psychiatry, just the nutty parents that killed their child. Continually giving medications without an exam is a receipe for malpractice and tragic outcomes.

Psychiatry in itself is not to blame for this incident. However, maybe the individual psychiatrist should be questioned aabout his/her actions.
 

slsh

member since 1999
I think virtually all disciplines of medicine have the potential for abuse/misuse (think plastic surgery and Michael Jackson, or surgery/neurology and the "Ashley treatment"). It's been my experience that if you look around long enough, you can find a doctor who agrees with- you, or who you agree with (chicken or egg - I'm not sure). There are very few "right" answers medically speaking, in my humble opinion. One docs says this, another says that.... who is right? Who is responsible? Who is accountable? Where is the hard and fast line? I don't think it exists.

It boils down to personal opinion and experience. I agree with- LDM. Being at heart a very strongly antimedication/antiphysician kind of person, there is no doubt that life with- thank you (and Boo) has at least made me open to possibilities for bettering quality of life through medical treatment. thank you would not be as functional as he is today if it were not for the medications. Were there some idiot psychiatrists and really stupid medication choices made along the way? Absolutely - but that's just *my opinion*.

I think the recent story about the little girl highlights the need for a much better understanding of children and mental illness, better oversight by concerned professions who in my opinion are the ones who really dropped the ball here, as well as the need for what we've all been searching for - answers, respite, support, financing, research, etc. My gut impression is that the parents had their own issues, had more than 1 difficult child, and unfortunately took the easy way out by medicating their kids to the point of severe sedation. Let's face it - I would bet most of us who have had kids on multiple medication trials at one point or another were faced with- a sedated kid and most of us found it to be unacceptable. on the other hand... there are many a day when I think *I* would like to be sedated into oblivion and there's not a shred of doubt that I could find a doctor who would be willing to do it. Doesn't make it appropriate or acceptable or therapeutic, but it also doesn't make the doctor necessarily wrong either. I think it's all just one huge gray area where you have to weigh the wishes of the patient versus medical need versus appropriate/standardized care and then you have to bear in mind there really is no single acceptable standard of treatment for children with MI.

Or, as my much more succinct father in law always says.... "They don't call it *practicing* medicine for nothin'." :wink:
 

skeeter

New Member
psychiatry, just like all fields of medicine, aren't "exact" sciences. It's often treat the symptom while trying to find the underlying cause. Everyone's chemistry is just a little different, and what works for the majority may not work for you.

The best thing a person can do (whether your see a family doctor, and oncologist, or a psychiatrist) is to be INFORMED. That means reading and researching. Asking questions, and asking more questions. If you don't get answers, or you don't get ones you like, keep looking and asking until you do.

One of the best tips I can give as far as medication is concerned is to get ALL medications from the same pharmacy. Make sure the pharmacist knows absolutely EVERYTHING that goes in you or your child's body - including vitamins, OTC medications, etc.

My father-in-law was put on coumadin, and given absolutely NO directions from his doctor about it. Luckily, I knew what interactions, etc. to watch out for from my own dad being on it for years. I gave my father in law a list of the foods to avoid, and looked at the vitamins he was taking (that he didn't tell anyone about) to see if there was any Vitamin K in them (there was, and that's a big no-no with coumadin). I then told him to talk to his pharmacist and clear ABSOLUTELY everything with them before he takes anything.
 

DammitJanet

Well-Known Member
TM...I didnt think you were saying everyone. LOL. I know I am understood here.

My theory is that there are good and bad doctors and like I told my therapist the other day...You know what you call the last person graduating medication school? Doctor! Somehow I think all those people who graduated last work for our mental health department. LOL.
 

Nancy

Well-Known Member
I am extremely happy and confident with our psychiatrist so I am not rethinking anything. However, I am very watchful for side effects or behaviors that I need to discuss with him and he is very willing to listen to me. He is very knowledgeable with medications in adolescents and highly respected around here, all which helps me feel confident.

Nancy
 

dreamer

New Member
Hanging on, I think articles like that one, stories like that one do hit the media and become sensationalized so hopefully people WILL think things over. This does not necessarily mean the lessons that are there to be learned need to be learned by everyone, but..the silver lining to this tragedy is maybe a few people will realize or learn something that maybe did apply in their situation. The very very sad thing that so pains me is that a child died for people to review practices.
Another sad truth is there are deaths similar to this that happen more often than many realize, cases that do not hit the media.
It is kinda like something else going on locally here right now, too---currently the police in the city near me have now been accused of assault.....2 huge cases all over the news. In my county farther out of the city, this is also happening-we had one on duty county cop get into a drunk driving car accident with the squad car......the same week, another drunk driving accident- the county PROSECUTOR.........(during business hours) and 3-4 cases of cops beating people, starting the fights, no, I do not mean while trying to arrest someone.
We have a prominant lawyer who was just arrested for massive child porn......several teachers in our Special Education district who are currently going thru court - one for duct taping k-gartners in Special Education- duct taped their mouths and the kids to their chairs.another Special Education HS level, having an intimate relationship with a 14 yr old student, another middle school Special Education caught selling marijuana to students.
Not long ago, maybe around the holidays? a child died at the dentist office, in the dentist chair.....

SO many things going on...so many professionals who seem to be acting difficult child ish.......many highly respected in their careers.....in positions of trust, authority, people who are supposed role models.......

SInce nursing school and working in hospitals and nursing homes and rehab facilities, I lost my trust for medical professionals.......

From my own illnesses which were originally diagnosis'ed in 1980- my Lupus- at that time the docs told me flat out they knew little about Lupus.
Then came my RA and it started big in 1998, but it took until last spring for a doctor to figure out how to give me a life back..and in between.there was a lot of BS.a lot of suffering, a lot of crummy medications, and that was WITH obvious bad xrays, labs, etc. With the kinds of diagnosis'es our kids here have.....we do not have solid tangible objective tests to point the way. We depend and rely on subjective tests. ANd yes even neuropschs - while they have tests- their tests are also subjective.....ANd yes I have been there done that handed the smae neuropsychologist evaluation to diff docs and gotten diff answers, diff diagnosis'es- and not just in young children who continue to grow and develop, but also in myself and my husband.

People do need to understand that the treatment of mentally ill or ADD, ADHD, childhood bipolar, etc is new. Medicating them is relatively new. Many of the medications have NOT been tested in children. SOmething else to understand is that when you read side effect profiles and you see the stats for adverse reactions....even if an adverse reaction is only happening in 1% of cases.....as many people as there are on these medications now- yes, SOMEONE is going to experience that adverse effect. We usually dismiss the chance that it will be us in the 1% who has that bad effect.but....someone somewhere is going to be that 1%.

Many here seem to think I am anti medication.....I am far from anti medication. I am 100% pro informed use. I also understand each person has to make their own balance chart of the pros and cons, and unless you are aware of all the risks, how can you make an informed choice? Sadly, too many docs and too many pharmacists skip informing a patient of each and every possible adverse possibility. SOme docs do not have the time. In many areas there is a tremndous shortage of psychiatrists for children..and literally people wait many months to get an appointment and go many months in between appts. ANd when they DO get appts, they often are 10-15 mins long. I have sat in county mental healthboard meetings and WRAP and SASS sessions and sessions at the nursing home and hospital here.....where other professionals complain and say that if they told a patient of every single possible negative side effect possible, people would not use the medications, they would be too afraid. That attitude takes away the right of informed consent.
One person may decide a risk is worth taking, someone else might not.
My children are no longer on medications, not becuz I wanted them off medications, but becuz my oldest dtr had so many negative medication reactions, ones that made her far more ill than her diagnosis ever made her. Life threateningly ill. I suppose that is why I prickle under my skin when I read here bipolars NEED medications. Maybe many or most do, and I sure was scared- my dtr was suicidal, a cutter, quite volatile..........BUT the medications caused her to become violent, psychotic, altered her blood pressure to above stroke levels, changed her blood sugar dramatically, added 100 pounds on her even tho she paced 22 hours a day, and interferred with her breathing. Maybe the bipolar part of her needed the medications, but the rest of her body had it's own opinion.
For us, at her docs encouragement we stopped her medications.
My son did have a far better attention span on stims, but, his weight also plummeted so he fell to the bottom 1 percentile for height and weight for his age. He suffered headaches that could not be relieved that literally brought my normally bright happy son to his knees. TUrned out the stims also caused his seizures to be more often and more intense. BUT he DID have a better focus on stims (so long as he was not having a seizure at the moment) SO, I am not anti medication........I am for cautious use of medications, informed consent, knowledgeable use.
As for my dtrs unmedicated bipolar? well, yeah it stinks to an unmedicated bipolar kid around BUT I prefer that to one who has suffered a massive stroke ........so- I have had to slowly work on what I can handle and tolerate her in my home.

This was something I had already had some experience with anyway. My husband is severely profoundly mentally ill, quite erratic..........and his liver could no longer metabolize the medications and neither could his kidneys. It really hit home for me when my Lupus and RA hit me so hard and while mentally I function, suddenly physically I could not function. SUddenly I could no longer fulfill the role that was mine in our home, our daily life. SUddenly I was no longer a contributing member of our family home or society. Aw darn, suddenly I could not even tend to my own needs, not even my most basic. I was stuck observing. HA! what else COULD I do? Sadly I feared my family would .well I do not know what I feared they would do- I myself tried to get into a nursing home, but...I had little luck...unless I gave up our house.
we came to some sort of .........conclusion? ....home is where you go, home is where you are, home is a sanctuary? My oldest difficult child sure cannot yet (I still hold hope for someday) function on her own..........my husband has been physically and mentally non functional for so many years.......
somehow we had to find a way to come to terms with all of it. BUT you know? I watch out in the "real world" and I see more and more that there are so many people "out there" who really are not as functional as you might think.
My OB GYne was a GREAT ob gyne........alas, someone else cooked took care of her home, her kids and kept track of her social obligations. My sons high profile outstanding eye surgeon? He cannot write so anyone can read it, and he has no concept of anything other than eye surgery. He knows nothing of current events, nothing of any other sciences, has NO social life, no family....his world is so tiny. People skills? Zero. can they balance their checkbook? I doubt it.

SOmething to keep in mind is that in any field, there are "goood" and "poor" professionals. There are also smart ones and not so smart ones........there are professionals who care, and ones who could use a big dose of compassion and caring. ANd even in ones who have all kinds of positive traits, they are still after all, simply human beings and they are not so perfect as to never make any mistake at all. ANd while they do have education, they also still do have their own beliefs, opinions, thoughts and ideas.

SOmething else to keep in mind? weigh out the pros and co ns of the treatment, whatever the treatment is. WHat is your specific measurable goal? What do you expect for a positive benefit from a medication. Lay that next to the possible risks of using that medication. Look the medication up- if you do not understand the language, use a medical dictionary. Ask questions, speak up. SOme of us are willing to accept more risks than others, thats obvious by how people act in a casino. SOme will bet the bank and some are far more conservative. Is the expected outcome from this medication worth the possible risks? Only you know. If something goes wrong or badly.....it is not the doctor or the nurse or the pharmacist who will have a hole in their family. It is not the doctor nurse or pharmacist who will end up with a damaged child........Research the medications. Read about them from a variety of sources. Learn what you are dealing with.
 

Marguerite

Active Member
I've already seen some appalling examples of medical 'practice' (and who knows, if they keep practising, maybe one day they'll get the hang of it?). That is why when I saw that story, one thought I had was that the other children in that family need to be independently assessed to see if that psychiatrist misdiagnosed any/all of them - if there was poor medication supervision, then could there be poor medical treatment/assessment in other areas?

However, I HAVE seen it before. I used to counsel people with certain auto-immune disorders and we had a list of doctors who were supportive, as well as a 'fink list'. We never publicised the fink list but if a patient mentioned they were seeing a doctor whose name WE knew was on that list, we might gently suggest they get another opinion.

We also had, on rare occasions, doctors who were high on our list of supportive, useful doctors who we quickly switched to the 'fink' list when it became clear that they were taking all referrals from us and giving all patients the same diagnosis, without properly assessing them. One such doctor had a 'revolving door' diagnosis of hypoglycemia - EVERY patient we referred would call us back and say, "I know what is wrong with me now - Dr Y said I have hypoglycemia, he must be really good because he saw it straight away, as soon as I walked in the room. He gave me a little bottle of glycerine I have to sip every half hour and said I'll be fine eventually as long as I do absolutely everything he tells me, stop seeing my other specialists and only see him from now on."
We also found that Dr Y had begun charging much higher fees than standard and cutting his patients off from other contact, such as support groups.

I'm no longer involved in that organisation so I don't know what's happened to Dr Y - we have a fairly vigilant health care system, which hopefully has caught up with him to ask him some probing questions. But the damage people like this can do to vulnerable patients is appalling. Often something much nastier than hypoglycemia goes undiagnosed and unchecked for much longer than it should, as a result of this approach by a fink doctor.

mother in law is a retired nurse, practising from 40s to 70s. In her day, psychiatry was VERY hit and miss. What she saw of psychiatrists in hospitals was emotional butchery, compared to what it is today. When I got myself in to see a shrink for my PTSD I had to keep it secret because my in-laws were very scathing about psychiatrists. Since then our kids have, at times, had to see psychologists who were VERY good. mother in law has been unhappy about this but now we can talk more freely. She's explained her views and we've discussed them. I've pointed out that psychiatry has come a long way since her experiences and that her negative opinions were probably well justified; but they don't really apply these days.

But there are still shrinks around who haven't changed their practice, or kept up with their reading, since they began practising decades ago. THEY especially are the ones who continue to give that modality a very bad name.

I also was put under the care of a team of psychiatrists (along with a range of other specialists - it was a multidisciplinary centre) during several weeks of hospitalisation back in 1997, to try to reassess my disability and how it was being managed. The day I was admitted, we had just found out that both boys are autistic and their sister is borderline Asperger's. We were still coming to terms with that and trying to get things organised, while standing on the footpath outside the doctor's surgery, when my phone rang to tell me a bed had become available. So my state of mind was - turmoil, anger, all sorts of emotions as I was trying to come to terms with this while knowing husband was struggling with the kids at home. The team of shrinks asked me a lot of questions while I was wanting to get it over with so I could get on the phone and start organising therapy appointments and assessments for the boys. The shrinks diagnosed "dysthymia" which I disagreed with. They wanted to medicate me and I flatly refused. My next visitor was a psychologist who knew me personally from my counselling work, who immediately agreed with me that I wasn't suffering from dysthymia, I was just upset about my kids and still coming to terms with it. She remained a regular visitor but the psychiatrists, who were supposed to be continuing supervision and management via counselling, never visited again. They apparently lost interest in me because I disagreed with them.
I still believe they were wrong, but I can of course see why they came to that conclusion at the time - I was still dealing emotionally with my kids' diagnoses. But this is normal! Their assessment system didn't seem geared to take into account this sort of short-term issue, they only considered the patient as typical of their normal presentation and as a snapshot of something in stasis.

What I'm trying to say here - psychiatry is much more exact than it used to be, but practitioners need to be aware that it still is a blunt instrument. Doctors also need to be aware of the pedestal on which a lot of patients place them. When a doctor says that something is acceptable, too many patients take this at face value and don't question it. Similarly, too many doctors don't check things as carefully as they should.

Marg
 

lordhelpme

New Member
after a talk with-my uncle i am inclined to believe that there are more enviromental triggers for difficult children now then in the past and thus it is harder for psychiatrists and sw to identify and treat mood disorders.

not to say that it is all enviroment or chems or food, but that it is a combo that is hard to pin down.

i agree that psychiatrists are working more on anedotal info not concrete info so it is more of an art then science at times.

this just means that we need to be vigilant in our research, ? all decisions even if we agree with-them and continue to be the warrior moms/dads that we are all are/becoming.
 

timer lady

Queen of Hearts
I have to be honest....other than another tragic death of a child, this story had little impact on me regarding medications or psychiatrists.

I had thought long & hard before putting the tweedles on any of the anti-psychotics due to possible long term side effects. I had to weigh quality of life & functionality over the day by day chaos we lived before those medications.

I have to stay the course with the tweedles. I've fought hard to put a treatment team/plan in place that is somewhat effective; I will not let a story on the news or anywhere else sidetrack that.

The only thing that will sidetrack medications/treatment plans is a change in presenting symptoms or behaviors.

I'm sad for the death of this young one.
 

crazymama30

Active Member
Every time I give difficult child his medications, I shudder. I am never quite sure if I am making the right choice or not, but I do know that ignoring the problem is bad. I think that the story is tragic, but shows that parents ultimately hold the responsibility. Parents should take the initiative (sp) to learn about a kids disorder and their medications. We need to realize that we can tell a doctor no. If we are not comfortable with what the doctor wants or expects, tell them no.
 

Hound dog

Nana's are Beautiful
This story had no real impact except for the poor little girl passing away unecessarily. That is always a tragedy.

I grew up surrounded my mental illness. I saw what medications could do, and I saw behavior off medications.

For T I thought long and hard about it. Docs wanted medications for him. I decided not to. T is a threat to no one. Most of his issues are brain damage related. Most are more annoying than anything. He functions fine off medication even if it isn't at a "normal" level.

N was another matter all together. Still I thought long and hard about it. I know more than the average person about good and bad effects of medications. But unlike her brother, off medications N is a threat to herself and others. She can't function hardly at all without her medication. Once she is on the right ones at the right doses she becomes stable. The effect is dramatic to say the least.

I've run across psychiatrists who weren't worth the paper their diploma was printed on, and I've found those that were awesome. Pretty much the same with tdocs. But you can find this in all areas of medicine not just psychiatry.

I tend to like psychiatrists who aren't afraid to medicate, yet aren't in a hurry to do so or to increase doses unless there is a need. N is actually on pretty low doses of all her medications even after more than 2 yrs. I hope she is able to stay with this psychiatrist for a long time to come.
 
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