Thanks, guys! He was put on prozac last year and I was reluctant at the time to agree because he was in psychiatric hospital and many changes were taking place at home and school so i knew if medications came in the picture, there would be no way to know for sure what really helped or didn't. as it turns out, i think it probably did help. then, this winter/spring we go thru similar problams and difficult child gets in big trouble and doctor says maybe problem was caused by increase in prozac. (try telling that to the judge)So, he switches him to a mood stabilizer. i have a feeling that the doctor's office (psychiatrist and psychologist who did testing) knows they never considered bipolar or major mood swings before and they should have- but i'm happy with them anyway- it's better than over-reacting to everything a 11 or 12 yo does. it would have made me feel better though, if psychiatrist would have told me all along how much of a shot in the dark all this is. psychiatrist switched difficult child to lithium in spring but that wasn't working well because of times for dosages, blood tests, and a few minor rashes. he just switched him to lamictal about 2 weeks ago- working up from 25 mg/day. i can see where a mood stabilizer might help, even without more of a diagnosis. it has helped to join this forum and find that other difficult child's have been put on the same medication for epilepsy, without having epilepsy. but it is frustrating to know at some point in time, we could have worse problems and psychiatrist say "oops, wrong medications". is there a point when difficult child should stop taking medications and start over with diagnosis and medications? I know when things are working, we shouldn't change them, but when things are in crisis, if everything changes, how do we determine what helped or didn't?