A MOMENT OF CLARITY...MAYBE
I woke around 4 this morning.... Just thinking as usual...
so, the point of adding medications in the first place is the shock doctors have about his Concerta dose (and clonidine dose too) and the fear that it is lowering sezure threshold and could cause cardiac issues....
THEN, we try Lamictal.... terrible psychological side effects, caused seizures, super rage filled/angry filled emotions flooded him and he ended up messed up for a while, maybe even still having the effects of that
THEN, we stop the lamictal, he is in psychiatric hospital for two weeks they start Lithium to help with the aggression (some started before Lamictal but REALLY increased after lamictal so we are medicating the effects to some degree) but in hopes of having something that works so we dont have to increase the Concerta, (which helps when he gets bigger and starts having less impulse control overall...every time it works!) we try the Lithium. Side effects of that they say are lowering seizure potential and heart complications. UMMM?????
SO NOW, Lithium does seem to help with some of the aggression and he is more redirectable according to all who see him, including hospital and school and Integrated Listening Systems (ILS) workers. BUt the need for redirection so much at this point (impulse control issues/attention issues) has not been helped. AND we are having to to run to the hospital to get labs for his heart and medication levels and he IS having seizures which was a possible side effect of Concerta but didn't happen (well they felt it could have caused the simple seizures to increase but they were there before the concerta dose was high, they just called it "anxiety" and added Prozac which never helped, because in the end eeg study showed it was seizures and so Lyrica was added for the seizures and that did help). In addition, we have to watch for tyroid issues that happen with the Lithium.
In the END.... since the new medications all carrythe same risks, and are unknown.... Why did we not just increase the Concerta. It is a large dose, true. WE keep monitoring BiPolar (BP) and heart function AND since he has the enzyme issue I was told all along that the Concerta dose that is in his blood serum levels would be much lower than expected. So, I need to check to see if that is true--why would they be so wigged out if that is true??? Also, why are we taking such big unknown risks when we know how well he responds to Ritalin/Concerta.
I know they will argue with me (not the neuro though, she may get it and actually may be thinking it since she is the one with the pediatrician who let the dose be high anyway)
Am I making sense? How do I bring this up???