up, down, all around...suggestions?

[klmno]

Well, as some of you might have read on my previous posts, I'd been trying to get my difficult child in an inpatient evaluation. -finally got everything in place, go down there to pick up paperwork, they tell me go home and verify with insurance co. that they'll cover it. i told them i'd already called ins. co. a few weeks ago and they said it was covered. they said tell them specifically, a non-acute evaluation.- ok, well as many of you know, acute means different things to different people. anyway, i call ins. co.- they call the treatment center to discuss definition of "acute". ins. co. calls me back and says they will not cover the costs. so, now, 2 months down tubes for nothing. i'll go the outpatient route, again, and hope for better results. :faint:

then, i spoke with psychiatrist on phone because difficult child had been awake for about 36 hours earlier in the week, then slept about 16 hrs., now up again. (he recently started on lamictol and was about to increase from 50mg to 75 mg). Also, he's been moodier this past week then when before he started these medications. although, that could be lack of sleep. psychiatrist says take him off medications, slowly, and we agree to get him back to base, especially since he's going to be re-evaluation'd. i think this is best for difficult child and makes me more comforatble that evaluation will be accurate, but it scares me because before he was ever on medications, he had really lost it. i had to take him to an acute hospital to get stabilized. i guess if this happens again, i'll do same thing -then ins co. will pay and someday maybe realize preventative care works a little better!! it also scares me that if he turns out to be bipolar, what medications can he take if neither lithium or lamictol sat well with his system? :whew:

difficult child had full psychiatric/educational testing last march. do you guys think he needs the full retake now or can they do part of it? can i find one person to do testing, write recommendations, and be advocate on iep team? maybe this would be too much- we had psychiatric do testing last year and she basicly ignored the depression component, even though psychiatrist, hospital, me and others said it was obvious, and she misquoted us a couple of times in her report- so if i don't agree with everything this time, i should have someone else be an advocate. :smile:

suggestions or input??

 

[flutterbee]

First of all, hugs for all you've been through and continue to go through. It certainly hasn't been easy for you.

There are other mood stabilizers out there besides lithium and lamictal. I don't know of all of them, but depakote is another frequently used mood stabilizer. But, don't borrow that worry just yet.

I would have a full evaluation done now, but have the previous evaluation available to those involved and it should be considered and/or included in their evaluation. Those are just my thoughts on it.

I'll let someone else respond to the advocate part because I really don't know.

 

[Hound dog]

Makes you wanna pound your head into a wall, huh? Sheesh.

There are many mood stabilizers that can be tried. medications work differently for different people. Abilify and trileptol have worked great for N but she doesn't do well on just one. It has to be the combo. We got lucky and the right medications were found pretty quickly. Sometimes it can take a while.

If you don't feel your advocate is doing the job and another may do it better, than go for it. T had an advocate for all of 6 mos then funding ran out for the county so any advocating has always been done by me. I know around here alot of inexperienced parents try to connect up with one with lots of experience and buddy up for IEP meetings and such. It does help.

Hugs