I would approve short term benzos for anxiety for one of my kids but NOT ssri/snri medications unless it was a long term deep depression like Wiz has always had. I saw it starting when he was 18 mos old and by age five it was part of who he was in his own mind. While ssri medications have helped, we have had trouble with some.
I would NEVER EVER put a male child on zoloft, problem not even let my husband take it. At the time we had Wiz on it, three other people here had their sons on it also. We ALL saw greatly increased aggression, anger and violence between 45 and 90 days after the first increase from the lowest dose. ALL FOUR at the same time? One mom got evidence to PROVE that the medication caused violence and aggression starting at that time frame in males, esp when taken with another medication, which I cannot remember but think was seroquel. at the time, her son was in juvenile prison for assaulting her and she fought tooth and nail to get the defense atty to talk to her (said he couldn't because her son was 14 and old enough to make his own decisions and she got a judge to make the def atty talk to her because her son was a minor) and then to get the judge to pay attention to the information. It was buried in the prescribing info for the rx.
Once we got Wiz off the zoloft, he described the rage buildup while he was on it and I am shocked and impressed with him for not killing me under the influence of that medication. He NEEDS an antidepressant and it took THREE of them to allow him to clear the anger and depression that had taken hold of him (Strattera is an ssri a/d though used mostly for adhd, luvox which is prozac but stronger, and trazodone which helped him sleep and is a tricyclic a/d) and allow him to turn himself around and make much better choices.
I truly believe that if we had kept Wiz on zoloft, one of us would have died years before things got so bad. Knowing what the other moms reported with our boys being around the same age, similar issues, and starting the medication and teh major increase in problems at the same time?
No male that I love will take zoloft. Ever. Not while I live and breathe. It is listed as an allergy on Wiz' information because the last two doses happened while he had an asthma attack and I told the doctor that it was a reaction to the medication, not that it was his asthma. I don't wnat a doctor to EVER get the idea to try it on him. He knows this, and agrees that it should be listed as an allergy because for him, the reaction was truly awful and NOT one that anyone would believe. It is the type of reaction that MANY docs around here would say couldn't happen again, so just try it.
Haozi, be CAREFUL about medications for a kid. from what I have read and the people I have spoken with, the most common reaction of a child who is given an ssri type antidepressant is mania. Jessie was literally acting like she was drunk or high on something when they tried prozac for her. It was sad, but also kinda funny. Bless her teacher that year. We had spoken to her to let her know what was going on, and the third day Jess was on the medications, it got strange. My daughter was teacher's pet, loved school, never got into ANY trouble except for sticking up for kids who were bullied. Well, the teacher ALL knew she would hit a boy in the crotch with a soccer ball if he was bullying someone, but how do you prove that? Esp when no other kid will admit it? Anyway, that third day, after lunch the teacher told the kids to sit down and get out a book. Jess led them in a conga line around the room chanting "we want to play, we want to dance" for about ten min. The teacher watched in utter fascination because it was so out of character for her.
The teacher couldn't keep from laughing when she told us about it, and even two days later she was chuckling over it. I wish there was video, lol. We were BLESSED to have a teacher who understood so well. Her daughter had gone through a period of depression about 2 yrs before, so she 'got it' and was helpful and sweet and very tolerant as we figured things out and helped Jess through everything.
MOST of the kids in the sp ed program that year, and the next 2 yrs all had manic reactions to ssri medications. I honestly think they are not very useful for kids because kids seem very prone to that reaction. Part of me wishes Wiz had reacted that way, it might have helped him or at least been a nice change of pace. Or not.
