Both our boys took risperdal for a while. difficult child 3 showed minimal effects but did lose weight when he came off it. It did seem to smooth out his moods a bit but on its own it didn't do enough to justify the expense.
difficult child 1 was sedated on even a quarter of a tablet. He also doubled his weight in six months (went from a six-pack to a beer keg). We took him off it because it didn't seem to be making enough difference. He lost a lot of the extra weight and is back to being a skinny stick.
What concerns me about your daughter - doctors seem to be trying to medicate away the symptoms but who is looking for a cause to deal with THAT? Because some problems, you can't medicate away. The best you can do is find ways to adapt, maybe using some medications to ease the process.
Has she had a neuropsychologist evaluation? NOT done by the school, because they generally don't look deeply enough. The combination of anxiety and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is consistent with anumber of conditions, including Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD). And if it's Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD) then you may find she does a great deal better with some more directed support. Other problems may simply be masked, or not so obvious behind the really obvious problems in the Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and anxiety.
difficult child 3 is a great example here - when he attended mainstream school he loved going to school but was very sick, always vomitting. His teachers would either send him home or send him to sick bay. I was concerned that by removing him from class (and therefore getting out of doing wjatever class task had been set) he was getting a payoff for being sick. He wasn't doing it deliberately, of course, although his teacher did begin to say things to me like, "I'm sure he's making himself sick, the timing is just too apt," it was just that his desire to be in class was outweighed by the fear of bullying and his inability to handle the stress of being in a classroom environment.
We had the advantage with difficult child 3 that we already had a diagnosis of autism for him, so we knew that was the underlying disorder. He also knew he is autistic and had taken this knowledge on board to help him realise, it's not his fault.
Girls display autism differently, quite often. It can be missed, especially if the child is high-functioning. Also a kid can show some traits (as with our middle girl, easy child 2/difficult child 2) but not enough for a diagnosis. In our family it also is accompanied by ADHD, which thankfully has responded to medications. So for us, ADHD medications have actually helped our kids reduce their anxiety (sounds odd) because it makes it easier for them to stay focussed and on task; and one of their tasks is, to cope with their environment.
We also have had the ODD symptoms from all of them, which we see as caused by the underlying Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD)/ADHD. Again, they responded to a different way of handling them.
Have a look at the Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD) questionnaire on
www.childbrain.com. You can't use it officially to diagnose because only a health professional can do that, but whatever the result you get (including "she's perfectly normal") you can print it out and show a doctor, because the questions and how you answered them can give a health professional some broader ideas on what is a concern. You may be living with things in her that are NOT normal, but when you live with them all the time, you just don't notice, or remember to tell anyone.
Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD) is also not bad news, necessarily. Your daughter is your daughter. You know her well, a change in label doesn't change who she is. But it could change how you see her and that could make life easier for both of you.
Marg
