Parents, what medications were most effective for your difficult children?

[mindinggaps]

Hi parents, I am curious to hear what your children were formally diagnosed with and after experimentation, in your opinion, which medications were most effective in treating them? Are they still medicated now as adults? I know situations vary widely around here.

I have written about my experiences in depth, but briefly I was formally diagnosed by a child psychiatrist with anxiety and ODD and was medicated with Prozac at age 5. This worked very well for me and aside from dosage adjustments, I didn't need significant changes. I remained on 60mg until adulthood and recently came off. I was able to manage without the Prozac for a while, but unfortunately ended up struggling with anger and emotional regulation. The doctors recently reinstated the Prozac with the recommendation to be on a minimum of 40mg for life as it is simply too challenging for me to properly regulate without.

 

[Xheni]

Hi parents, I am curious to hear what your children were formally diagnosed with and after experimentation, in your opinion, which medications were most effective in treating them? Are they still medicated now as adults? I know situations vary widely around here.

I have written about my experiences in depth, but briefly I was formally diagnosed by a child psychiatrist with anxiety and ODD and was medicated with Prozac at age 5. This worked very well for me and aside from dosage adjustments, I didn't need significant changes. I remained on 60mg until adulthood and recently came off. I was able to manage without the Prozac for a while, but unfortunately ended up struggling with anger and emotional regulation. The doctors recently reinstated the Prozac with the recommendation to be on a minimum of 40mg for life as it is simply too challenging for me to properly regulate without.

My son had intermittent explosive behavior until around 8 years old. He is now 11 years old. He has behaved well for 4 years now. He gradually improved in behavior, I can’t pinpoint any particular thing that helped. Maybe not vaccinating, or not using antipiretics? Or perhaps he got rid of the intestinal worms he was harboring? I suspect that he became allergic to food, was reacting to food with conduct disorder. Once his body got cleaned from the original inflammation source his food reactions (in the form of anger) subsided.

 

[mindinggaps]

@Xheni This is great to hear and certainly whenever things can be managed without medications, it is ideal. It is true that many people do grow out of their behavior issues and I think you highlight an important point which can be missed - it is important to do a full assessment and treat all potentially underlying conditions. Sometimes issues can result from other factors. There's no evidence to suggest vaccines impact behavior so I don't think that is a factor, but it sounds like your son could have had some other things going on leading to the issues.

Unfortunately, for many the issues get worse with age and medications are necessary. This was certainly the case for me - my medication dosages needed to be increased as a grew to keep behavior in check. For some, such as myself, medications can be required long-term. I still require Prozac as without it, I am simply too oppositional and angry.