gcvmom

Here we go again!
I'm late to this but just want to send you my love and hugs for all of you... I'm so sorry she is struggling and that it is causing you so much pain to watch. I can't really advise on the medications... the only thing I can think is that perhaps the Lithium levels are similar to Depakote levels. If you don't get it up to the right range, it's like there's nothing there at all. We've seen that with difficult child 2. And what others have said about growth in kids and the need to tweak medications totally makes sense to me. K isn't even close to puberty yet, but her brain is growing every day, changing. So it would stand to reason (in my head, anyway) that stability will be a fleeting thing until she slows down a little. We kinda went through that with difficult child 2 from about first through fifth grade. He was always needing MORE or needing things to be changed. Now that he's bigger (or his brain is anyway) he seems to respond to medications a little more typically. We still have to make adjustments, but I don't feel like we're on the drug-of-the-month merry-go-round.

Sometimes a medication wash is in order, but like others have said, you may not have given Lithium an adequate trial.

Hang in there. You are a Warrior Mom and you will figure this out eventually. And we will all be here for you along the way.

(((((HUGS)))))
 

pepperidge

New Member
Toto,

you seem to have a very good plan in mind. I know exactly what you mean about being in a good place when you (finally) get to see the psychiatrist. There's a relief, talking to something, doing something, that it makes it hard to really bring up how really hard all this is and how stressful and painful and how you need help too managing. I haven't learned very well how to remember to present all of that. Maybe just make a list of questions and concerns and highlight that one.

It is interesting, I have had almost no psychiatrist ever ask me how I was coping with it all. Yet if you think about it, we parents are on the front line and if we don't have the wherewithal to do a good job every day we are not doing our children any good. It seems like the parent's mental health, health of marriage, etc ought to be front and center as an important component of the child's mental health. But it doesn't seem to work that way.

Hang in there. There have been days when I honestly didn't know how I was going to get to the point where my kids were adults. you've got a long way to go. I wish these tdocs and psychiatrists really had a sense of what it is like to live with these kids 24/7.

hugs.
P.
 
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