Stef

Dazed and Confused
Hi:

My son somewhat recently had his medications changed to place him on Risperdal. He was previously on Depakote and Clonidine. The psychiatric felt that Risperdal would adress his aggresive behavior better than the Depakote. When I read up on Risperdal though, it says it can increase agressiveness 26% of the time as a side affect! Ummmm? I ask the doctor about it and he says that that's a possibility, and we'll "just have to monitor the situation." Right. Has anyone here had any experiences with Rispedal with an aggressive teen? I don't need to worsen his behavior by playing wait and see games.

Thanks
 

camjen1

New Member
My daughter takes Risperdal 2 x per day and I haven't seen any side effects from using the medications. My daughters aggression has improved but she still has her days. My daughter views days as either all positive or all negative, never a mixture.

I think with all medications it's a wait and see type of deal until you find the one that is going to work best for your child.
 

totoro

Mom? What's a difficult child?
Well we use the AP's (Risperdal) For Psychotic behaviours and Hallucinations.
It takes away the over the top behaviours and aggression usually.
K had a day of aggression when she first started it.
She is on Abilify now, same class.
Depakote is a Mood Stabilizer, which is usually added on at times to control the mood once the over the top behaviours are controlled. It helps with the moods swings from Mania to Depression or anxiety, hypos mania. Things attributed to Mental Illness most times.

Most psychiatristS will start with an AP and then move to a MS because the AP works much quicker.

I am sure there is much more, someone else will come along and fill in my blanks! ;)

Good luck

A lot of this is a wait and see, unfortunately.
 

susiestar

Roll With It
My son was extremely aggressive and took risperdal from age 7 to age 12 with a LOT of success. It quit being as aggressive and doses had to be increased until it was not a good idea to increase them, so we changed to other AP's. Risperdal can be very helpful.

I would say that it would be worth a try. It has a 74% chance of NOT causing aggressiveness, which is not as good as 100%, but nothing we know of is. I know for us it was a lifesaver.
 

smallworld

Moderator
I'm wondering if you can cite the research that says Risperdal causes agression in 26 percent of cases. That sounds high.

Risperdal does treat aggression. It's probably the atypical antipsychotic that is best at treating aggression. Unfortunately, you will not know whether your son does well on it unless you try. My own son had a bad reaction to Risperdal (dystonia and akathisia), but he has done very well on Seroquel, Risperdal's cousin. It just depends on each child's brain chemistry.

Good luck.
 

Lothlorien

Active Member
So this is your 15 year old? .5 mg is a very low dose. I would expect this to fizzle out, so I'm hoping that your psychiatrist has a plan to titrate this? My daughter is about 85 pounds and is on 7.5 am and .5 pm, which will probably be increased to 7.5 and and pm within the next month.

That being said, Risperdal has been the miracle drug in my house. It has really settled Missy down and for a while, the aggression was pretty much gone. We did a 2.5 mg increase in the am about a month ago, because it was beginning to fizzle, but since the increase, things have improved.

Overall, I've had good success with the Risperdal.
 

smallworld

Moderator
Loth, are you sure about that dose? 7.5 mg sounds like a really high dose for Risperdal. The highest I've ever heard a kid taking is 4 mg total in a day. Do you mean .75 mg morning and evening? That would be more in line with pediatric dosing.
 

Lothlorien

Active Member
Yes. smallworld, you are absolutely correct. I put the decimal in the wrong spot. She's on .75 at night and .5 in the am. Thank you for pointing that out!
 

Stef

Dazed and Confused
http://www.drugs.com/sfx/risperdal-side-effects.html

Depending upon what the patient is being treated for, the aggression side effect ranges between 3%-26% as best I can tell. The site I originally pulled the info from did not differentiate between diagnoses. It simply placed the high side 26% number on the chart for increased aggressiveness. I'm not sure of what site it was anymore. I checked a few other sites this morning, and they seem to all pretty much agree with the drugs.com site.
 

DazedandConfused

Well-Known Member
Son has been taking Risperdal for the last four years. We tried depakote and some others, but Risperdal literally change our family because we had to be so careful of what we did and where we went because of Son's irratibility and aggressiveness.

Son started with .5 in the morning and .5 in the evening. There's been some changes of the years, but the last two years have been 2.0 in the morning and 1.0 in the evening (or afternoon) if he's having a particularly rough day (PRM). It certainly did seem like a miracle in the beginning for us because of what we had been dealing with for so many years with him.

We haven't had the side effects like many others have written about on this forum. It also didn't "cure" Son, he still has his times when I think I'm going to lose my mind with him, but its not daily like before.

I hope you have the good outcome like we have so far.
 

cadydid

New Member
We tried Risperdal with my difficult child. It lasted a week. His behavior got worse, to the point that he was harder to manage then he was before. I just couldn't handle it so we went back to Methylin.

But I will say this, what works for one does not mean it won't work for someone else. I wish you the best of luck.
 

totoro

Mom? What's a difficult child?
The 26% that I could see was at a very high dose I am assuming for an Adult. Clinical trials are rarely is ever done on kids.
The dose for 26% looked like 16mg a day, which a child or young adult would most likely never ever be on.
Also the diagnosis for these % was for Schizophrenia, which very few if any, young adults or children are ever diagnosis'd with either.

While their are always side affects with all of these medications, it is not good for us as parents to scare ourselves with all of the side affects.
We need to know the side affects and be aware of them.
I keep a journal and keep diligent track of K's side affects, and moods etc.
I tell her psychiatrist everything that concerns me.
I am not afraid to pull her from a medication if I feel it is making her worse.
That is our job as a parents.
If you really in your heart feel this is not a good medication for your difficult child, after much research, then do not put him on it.
But seriously, it is so easy to read all of the bad things drive yourself crazy! I have done it...
We are looking at Lithium for K.
She is 7. Do you know how scary the word Lithium is?
Peoples perception of this medication is horrible, but after you actually research it, you realize this medication is likely one of the better MS than a lot of the others out there.

Will it work? Who knows? Will she experience the bad side affects? Maybe...
I hope not.

K is experiencing some of the not so good side affects from AP's right now, but the good out weighs the bad.
I hate this. I hate having to medicate my child. But, she is worse off of the medications.
Off of the medications is doing far more damage to her mind than on.

I know these decisions are hard and tough on your heart.
Keep researching, you are doing what all of us do and have done.
You are a good Mom! :)
 

TerryJ2

Well-Known Member
Stef, I am reading this with interest, because we see our psychiatrist on Mon.
I just wanted to wish you luck!
 
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