Need advice

[ivas611]

Hi I have not been on this site for awhile. My son 4 1/2 was given the diagnosis of Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD)-not otherwise specified and was put on clodidine - did nothing. Changed to Rispodal- worked wonders until he put on weight (4 lbs in one month) He was on .25 ml dr increase it to .50 ml 2 x a day - his impulsiveness got worse and he sleeps 16 hr a day. Only time he is awake is in school. Dr suggested .50ml at night his behavior got worse and he became agressive AGAIN. Now dr wants him to take Abilify 2.5 mlsand cut out the rispodal cold turkey, no weaning. I can not find much info on the medications for children this young. Pharmacist(who is amazing help) suggested cutting the rispodal to .35ml in the am until I can get the rx (on backorder). I did have him on a high frutose free diet until 3 weeks ago, things were going so good I thought we found the answer. We are back on the diet. Any suggestions? Any info on this medication?

 

[lmf64]

My son has taken Abilify twice. The first time he was on it for about 2 1/2 years. I loved the behavior I saw very quickly after we put him on it, but there was a major bad side to the positive side I was seeing. He gained 70 pounds (doubling his weight) in the span of one school year. He then steadied out and didn't have major gains, but didn't lose either. November of '07 we removed the Abilify believing that he had matured enough to no longer need it. He did well for about a year without it, but then went over the edge necessitating the addition of Abilify again. While he was off the Abilify he slowly lost some weight while continuing to grow in height, so he was actually started to look like the kid I recognized (in appearance only).
Like I said in November of '08 we put him back on Abilify and by May he had gained almost 80 pounds. We took him off the Abilify and put him on Geodon. He is slowly losing weight again. He's down about 15 pounds from his high. So, does behavior improvement outweigh massive weight gain? I'm liking what I see with the Geodon so far.