gcvmom
Here we go again!
We increased difficult child 2's Seroquel XR to 500mg and reduced Depakote ER to 250mg on Thursday night. No difference noticed Friday.
I let him sleep as long as he wanted on the weekend (which was past noon both days) so the day was kinda messed up and it was hard to really know what I was seeing. Today was a better test. He got up by 9:30 (after me bugging him at 8am and 9am to get up) and we went to a friend's pool from about noon to 3pm.
He did great with the other kids (not so great with difficult child 1, but that's a whole 'nother issue). He was a bit easier to redirect and he wasn't as hyperactive or impulsive -- still symptomatic but not as bad as he usually is by 1 or 2pm most days. Even this evening has been better, I think. I hope I'm not imagining things. psychiatrist said it would take 3 to 4 days to notice any change. I plan to call with an update by Wednesday. I still think he'll need to go to at least 600mg if we decide to stick with this medication.
And I don't know if this is because we've lowered the Depakote, but he doesn't seem to be in as much of a mental fog... the neuropsychologist told me he had significant processing delays when he was evaluated in April, and now I'm wondering if it was the Depakote. Last year was a struggle for him to get through his school work, and he never had those problems until we started down this mood disorder path and started MS's (he's been on AP's before and they didn't seem to affect his cognitive speed).
Perhaps if we can get Seroquel at the right level, he won't need the Depakote...
Something else interesting -- yesterday he suddenly wanted to play a computer game of his that he hasn't touched in MONTHS. We bought it when he was kind of manic and he was interested in EVERYTHING then, but he couldn't stick with anything. It's like he forgot about it or it suddenly became too hard for him to focus on it -- hard to say which. So yesterday and today he's been playing this game again. Not obsessed like he was before, but just normal interest and able to attend to it. Plus, he was able to install it himself, which he couldn't do before.
So I HOPE what I'm seeing is real here... that we're getting a handle slowly on the attention, the focus, the mood, the whole ball of wax. That would sure be great to be able to say with some degree of certainty.
I let him sleep as long as he wanted on the weekend (which was past noon both days) so the day was kinda messed up and it was hard to really know what I was seeing. Today was a better test. He got up by 9:30 (after me bugging him at 8am and 9am to get up) and we went to a friend's pool from about noon to 3pm.
He did great with the other kids (not so great with difficult child 1, but that's a whole 'nother issue). He was a bit easier to redirect and he wasn't as hyperactive or impulsive -- still symptomatic but not as bad as he usually is by 1 or 2pm most days. Even this evening has been better, I think. I hope I'm not imagining things. psychiatrist said it would take 3 to 4 days to notice any change. I plan to call with an update by Wednesday. I still think he'll need to go to at least 600mg if we decide to stick with this medication.
And I don't know if this is because we've lowered the Depakote, but he doesn't seem to be in as much of a mental fog... the neuropsychologist told me he had significant processing delays when he was evaluated in April, and now I'm wondering if it was the Depakote. Last year was a struggle for him to get through his school work, and he never had those problems until we started down this mood disorder path and started MS's (he's been on AP's before and they didn't seem to affect his cognitive speed).
Perhaps if we can get Seroquel at the right level, he won't need the Depakote...
Something else interesting -- yesterday he suddenly wanted to play a computer game of his that he hasn't touched in MONTHS. We bought it when he was kind of manic and he was interested in EVERYTHING then, but he couldn't stick with anything. It's like he forgot about it or it suddenly became too hard for him to focus on it -- hard to say which. So yesterday and today he's been playing this game again. Not obsessed like he was before, but just normal interest and able to attend to it. Plus, he was able to install it himself, which he couldn't do before.
So I HOPE what I'm seeing is real here... that we're getting a handle slowly on the attention, the focus, the mood, the whole ball of wax. That would sure be great to be able to say with some degree of certainty.
