We had to up the dose of my daughters medication, again.

[momto3]

She has been out of control lately. Rages, physical and verbal abuse towards us and her brother. I even asked my tae kwon do master to teach me ways of restraining her without hurting her.

She is on geodon, welbutrin and lamictal. We increased the geodon, but are discussing a new med altogether. Her doc is talking about risperdal She was on this about a year ago. Worked okay, but made her gain about 15 lbs. That in itself was a terrible thing. Young girls are so self conscious anyways. But, we have already tried many of the other drugs available and of course most of these are not rated for children so the side of effects of long term administration are not known.

Hopefully this will work. Geodon had been perfect for her. It just feels like we are shooting in the dark.

Thanks for reading.

[BeHereNow]

1. Oh how I can relate-

Took my daughter for a GP appointment yesterday-
Doc added risperidone about a month or so ago to curb
the aggressive behavior. She got on the scale and saw that she had
gained ten pounds. TOTALLY depressed the rest of the day.
Not a good drug for people struggling with self esteem to begin with,
especially young women.
We ended up taking a two hour hike after her appointment to
work off some weight...she now seems to be focused on losing weight
even if it means stopping medication... not the outcome I'd hoped for
when we started the Resperidone. I don't like it; she seems "off" lately.


Back to the drawing board, and yes, it feels like "shooting in the dark."

BHN

[EFerrari]

2. All drugs of that type made my ex gain weight.

Withdrawing the wellbutrin seemed to handle most of the aggressive behavior, in his case any way, along with me doing 24/7 monitoring to spot the meltdowns before they hit. That was exhausting. It would have been really helpful to me to have a couple of days "off" per week but I never managed to arrange that. He often presented very well so people didn't get it, that things could change very quickly let alone, that he could stay decomped for weeks if the meltdown wasn't headed off.

[Tobin S.]

3. Are you sure she's taking the meds like she's supposed to?

[momto3]

4. We are now.

It only counts if she takes them with either my husband or I present. We went through a stretch where should did not take them. Fortunately, she is not too sneaky yet. I noticed that her prescription was ready, but she still had a full bottle of pills.

She seems to be better this weekend. We upped her med dose and we are making her eat in the morning when she takes her meds. This should have been intuitive to me, but I completely missed it. When her stomach is empty, the geodon is cleared rapidly through her blood stream. She has been very stubborn about eating in the morning. Now she is eating mac-n-cheese or tuna salad in the morning. Whatever works, right?

[hunter]

5. I eat "backwards."

Small "breakfast" a banana and coffee or something when I get up, a big meal early in the day, more breakfasty and snacky things toward the evening.

I adjust my meds to accommodate that.