klmno

Active Member
psychiatrist wants to change difficult child (slowly) from lithobid and depakote er to this. What is it and does anyone have any experience they can share??

difficult child is currently belligerent- possibly full blown manic- court first thing tomorrow and this afternoon filled with psychiatrist appointment and mtg with his attny over possibilities- and me trying to get him to do homwork, just in case. Now what do I do? He tore fence up and has left our property and gone to the woods.
 

smallworld

Moderator
Zyprexa is an atypical antipsychotic that would be good as an add-on but not as a substitute for a first-line mood stabilizer. While Zyprexa should help with anxiety, mania and aggression, why would the psychiatrist dump both Lithobid and Depakote?

My daughter has been taking Zyprexa for 1.5 years for her eating disorder. It has helped her with anxiety, distorted thinking and raging. Side effects can include hunger, weight gain, sedation, high cholesterol, metabolic changes like diabetes and movement disorders like dystonia.
 

Steely

Active Member
Ditto what smallworld said. There is NO way I would dump 2 mood stabs to put him on an AP. If anything I would do the AP as an add-on to his 2 current medications.

My son has had an AP with his 2 mood stabs until just recently. Some kids/people need this to help with the mania. It sounds like your son is fitting that criteria.

However, if the psychiatrist was going to add an AP, I might suggest Abilify or Seroquel - as the increased appetite is not quite as heightened with those medications as it is with Zyprexa.

Do you have a PRN for him tonight? If not, maybe a trip to phosph is in order? Great reason for him to not be in detention - he is sick! Really ill with his mental issues, and he needs to get some help.
 

gcvmom

Here we go again!
difficult child 2 was only on it for 2 weeks and suffered a dystonic drug reaction that was kinda scarey and made me take him to the ER.

We had better luck with Risperdal and, to a lesser extent, Abilify.
 

klmno

Active Member
Well, that panic time is currently calmed- thank God!! If he had to go to psychiatric hospital tonight, I can't get him in one. This *****, for me and for him. Anyway, he's in and I joked with him a little and he loosened up some. He has done some homework- but I didn't harp on it. I think he did it to have something to keep his mind off things.
 

dreamer

New Member
Could you clarify for me, is it detention as in after school or saturday spent at school, or do you mean juvenile detention as in juvie hall/incarceration type detention?
 

klmno

Active Member
Juvenile detention- he could get 5 mos plus more.

I couldn't finish my post earlier- I'm having to write it in pieces since he is getting up wandering around. It's ok- a whole lot better than 2 hours ago. Before coming in house he threw sticks in yard, threw something at a window of our house (didn't break anything), spray painted part of a tree in our yard, and tried to fix the portion of fence he tore up (you should see that LOL).

So, I'm trying to get him calmed enough to get get shower and in bed. Homework was a issue because if he doesn't go to detention, he is supposed to go back to school tomorrow and have all this work completed that they gave him to do while suspended. It is a ton of work and there's no way he'll have it all done with everything else going on. That will be another issue at school, I'm sure.

What is a dystonic reaction?

difficult child was having some more side effects from this recent increase in lithobid and it was stopping raging- it did seem to help with sleeplessness. I didn't know it was an AP that he added but he did say lower the lithobid back down and maybe he could stay on this. He something like "he wants to get him off the lithobid and maybe depakote and if he has to add something else afeterwards he will". He tried adding trileptal and lowering lithobid a couple of months ago, but too many signs of mania starting coming back. We put him back where he was, but it seems like he never re-couped. Maybe it was just the bad time of year to be trying a medication change. I can't remember- is trileptol a mood stabilizer or AP? psychiatrist also says he had spoken and consulted again with the psychiatrist at the hospital where I had an MDE done last fall. That made me feel better. She is known to be an authority in this and actually thinks difficult child is cycling but not "true bipolar". (Although- would they be treating him with these medications if they decided he was psychotic or schizophrenic and wouldn't psychiatrist mention this to me if they thought that?)

On a side note- I spoke with the advocate/attny today and he said he can't help much with school unless difficult child is in it because it would cost me a lot of money and they would have more weight in due process by saying "he's not even attending our school now". He said he might be able to get a little compensatory(sp) funds from them, but not much. Well, I'm thinking now that "not much" to him might be a lot to me, Know what I mean?? I'll mull that over. He says he'll help if difficult child goes back to that school- advocacy or due process, whatever. He also mentioned that this sd has a habit of treating people like "they will do whatever they want to" until the see an attny, then they become a little more cooperative.

Then, we had to go see defense attny to prep for tomorrow. I grabbed him quickly last year to try to appeal last year's charges and he had a reasonable fee but I wasn't too impressed with him waiting to the 11th hour of the appeal to look into it and tell me that he thinks difficult child got the best deal he could. So, I've been leary about him now that things are worse. But, after we spoke today for a while, he says "my son's diagnosis is just changing from adhd to BiPolar (BP)" partly because his son had a reaction to stims. I didn't go into the "well, it isn't necessarily BiPolar (BP)", he said his son was 5 yo. I said "God bless you, and prepare yourself, and if you have experienced this, then you know that I am not just a mother trying to make excuses for her son". He said he had seen it in his and he knew it was real. I reminded him that an increase in prozac at the same time difficult child was already losing stability last year is exactly what lead him to a 2 hour crime spree, based on what psychiatrist says and I believe it.

Anyway, I felt sure you guys would appreciate about how it feels when profs (tdocs, attny's, whatever) seem to not really get it and disappoint us in their lack of knowledge and efforts--- until, it seems, they see it in one of their children. HHMM. What a difference in attitude and effort I see in this attny. now. Maybe we shouldn't be looking for credentials- maybe we should be looking for those with difficult child's themselves...

SSHEWW!! Finally got all that out! Now, if difficult child actually can get in the shower...
 

Steely

Active Member
Just to answer one of your questions. Trileptal is a mood stab, not an AP. When a person takes an AP the side effects can include a "dystonic" reaction (although quite rare) - this is a reaction involving the muscles of the body - as in sustained muscle contractions causing twisting and repetitive movements or abnormal postures.

Again, it is just something to consider when looking into an AP, but many of our difficult children have had to take them. I would not rule that choice out. I would, however, caution against d/cing any medications without him being admitted to a psychiatric hospital. He just sounds too unstable.
 

klmno

Active Member
Steely, psychiatric hospital might never be a viable option for difficult child again as long as we live in this state. Unless it is under the worst condition- where courts send him and it would have to be out of state. I can't get difficult child there myself now, he is too big and wise on it. I'd have to have him TDO'd and court wouldn't send him- they would lock him in detention- and then if he acted clearly insane in detention (clear to those running the place- not clearly manic to me), he would have to be sent out of state. GAL had SS call all these places last year and of course they tell them all his charges and no facility in this state will take him. You would think he had committed a mass murder. I know it was bad and wrong- it was that he set a brush fire. Arson, period, no facility here will take him.
Unless, ss just said that to get him released back to me because they had checked me out and found that I was a fit mother but wanted judge and gal to know they had looked into things as requested. i don't know. I need to have a conversation with psychiatrist about all this- what to do if XXX happens stuff, without difficult child being in the room.
 

gcvmom

Here we go again!
This is what happened when difficult child 2 had his dystonic reaction to Zyprexa:
  • lower jaw jutting sideways and very difficult to bring back to center, painful.
  • head twisting back and to one side.
  • involuntary upward gaze.
  • drooling.
  • tongue thrusting.
  • sensation of throat and tongue swelling and difficulty breathing.
  • grimacing.
I was surprised to learn that certain nausea medications and antidepressants can also cause this reaction in some people.
 
Top