DANA PLZ help med questions!!

I don't have any advice for you I'm afraid, but you and your family will be in my prayers.
Take care
Ellie

Sheryl,

I'm with Ellie on the advice part, but you will be in my thoughts. The only thing that I might suggest is that the depakote may help with more than one of her symptoms. I take depakote and its pretty cheap. Overall its a pretty good drug with regards to being effective without too many sideffects. It does often induce weight gain, my experience. I would ask your dr. if maybe the depakote could help with some of the other meds and boost their effects to have them work better. The depakote might help to keep her more level so that the other meds can kick in and work better for her and help to carry her through the day. In the end, I find that it helps to even my mood a little - it doesn't so much change me, but makes things less erratic so that things don't seem so overwhelming and helps the other meds that I take work better overall.

Have you checked into support groups in your area? There might be a group of parents with similar worries who could help point you to some resources in your community - maybe suggest some people to help?

take care of yourself and I hope that you can find a solution that works,

Putter

Ok whle son is preoccupied her is what I wrote teacher it says everything will psot a few more other lettters to her, its easier for me to do that way so I dont have to type twice, and it really sums up how things are going, thanks again for those who responded and care..Love..Sheryl

Dear Mrs Stroh and others invested in Kara's best interest:
Seems Kara is keeping her stims and tics at home, saw psychiatrist today, again he says she is autistic, bipolar, tourettes and adhd, which mean multiple meds unfortunately, If you saw her before meds she would not be able to function at school at all, she would be in a corner and rocking on the floor humming songs all day long not interacting with anyone, I know her behavior is not perfect right now, but I am assuming she is not the only one who is getting in trouble, there are many factors to why she does what she does ( examples are allergies at this time of year( unfortunately allergy meds make her behavior worse so I avoid them, also change of seasons affect her, over stimulation, sights, sounds, smells, etc, there is more than her just not wanting to behave, she seems very anxious at school these days.) I would like a conference in middle of December, before school lets out for the Holidays to go over a little bit about these disorders with all who are working with Kara, there are different kind of approaches that can be taken, she is very much monkey see, monkey do, she has a natural tendency to talk nasty( not brought on by what we as parents are saying, we do not use this language) ( this is not good, it is part of her tourettes, we are working on it.) I think maybe we should implement an Individual Behavior Plan for Kara consisting of positive reinforcement, as well as consequences. This had to be done with my son in kindergarten and first grade. It helped greatly. We are using it at home as well.
Due to the adhd traits she is experiencing he has put her on Ritilin SR, along with the other meds to help stabilize her, she cannot be one the ritilin without a mood stabilizer ( the depakote), she needs the prozac and buspar for anxiety and to help be as social as she is now, which may not be exactly where we would like it to be, but without it she would not be social at all, and in her one little shell shaking and rocking all day, and eat even less then she already does. So it is necessary for her to be on these meds we are hoping the ritlin will help with the attention span, and attentiveness at school, please monitor her closely, if it does not work I do not want her on it. We will probably have to tweek meds until we get a good combo, we will not be able to achieve perfection, but hopefully, achieve a child (Kara) who is happy and not angry, and compliant to what authorities are asking of her, even then she will have her bad days, but hopefully not so many. Its important we work together and I need your feedback by email maybe weekly to let me know her progress, or regression, I will forward to Mrs. Freeze as well, and a few advocates I am working with as well to keep them abreast of what is happening with Kara's Progress. She goes for blood work next Monday, but school will be out so that should not be a problem, her doctor is very thorough, and wants to make sure everything is doing well. She is having a hard time coming of the Geodon, which would be expected being weaned off any med. She goes back to the psychiatrist on Monday Dec. the 5th I will check her out early then as well, and yes there will probably be more tweeking of meds, we discussed losing her night time prozac and replacing it with disipermine, which he said would help with sleep and anxiety and in the long run with the adhd, he did not want to do it now, as he wants to see what's working and what's not, so she does not have to be on meds that are unnecessary, so she may be able to lose the buspar too, the less meds the better, just what she needs to be able to function in a somewhat normal expectation at school and hopefully at home as well. .I will keep you all posted to any and all changes going on.
Her Doctor has given me questionnaires he would like you (Mrs. Stroh), and Mrs Freeze to fill out with her behavior prior to this week, as hopefully the ritilin and extra depakote will help, he wants to know how she has been before this week. Ok thanks so much for your help.

Sincerely,

Sheryl L. Morgan

My reply back to her:
Thanks Mrs Stroh , I will let you know, Mondays are usually best for me as I don't work on Mondays, but we work out a time and date, I appreciate your time and effort, and keeping me informed with Kara's social progress, that makes me feel better, maybe her extra social ness
is a two sided sword, good that she has friends of course, but I think she will copy a lot of what they do good are bad, and yes I know most typical children do too, but with Kara it is the intensity and the frequency of how she does it. She likes telling about the nasty things some of her friends say, particularly boys. She talks about Jaree?? a lot, Dillian, she doesn't talk about too many girls, when she pretends she is teacher at home ( she want's to be a teacher, hopefully she will!!) she is always yelling at a pretend Saidie, she doesn't talk about Lindsey much, she like Katlyn. Is there a Jordan? I am very pleased to hear she is making friends even if she copies some of the bad things too, better that, then no friends at all, again she is monkey see monkey do, if we could guide her to I hate to use the word, but COPY a friend who is basically well behaved kinda have that student as a peer model for Kara if possible would be beneficial to her, she likes to copy others actions good or bad, its part of her disorder, again I know typical students do this too, but not to the extent and frequency children like Kara do. I have a little boy almost 4 in my class he is being evaluated right now, he has aspergers amongst who knows what, he cries if gets off the green light, I try to give them a sticker each day they get on green, and they get something from treasure box if the stay on green all week. I realize by Kara's age this should not be needed, but maybe some kinds of token system would be benificial for her right now, it was for my son. My point with the little boy is a pick out the best behaved boy in the class, and tell my asperger student to copy him, and it works, because I know he will copy what he sees. Kara is much the same way. Anyway sorry for such a long note..again thank you so much for all your help and feedback..hopefully Kara will have a good week, I think too she may be trying to come down with something, holding off on the allergy meds, she is on enough already. If she still seems like she something down with something by next week or she does I will take her to pediatrician.

Well, I'm very in experienced at using these medications in children. I did find a neat web site, that has "ask an expert" on it.

http://www.aboutourkids.org/aboutour/articles/guidetopsychmeds.html

Oh thank you Dana take your time, just knowing you care and wen you can will be greatly appriciated, anytime you can in your own time, will be fine, I am not going anywhere , my eyes and ears are open, thanks so much Dana, you are Gem, we all love you....Love...Sheryl ps thanks for the links when i get home I will research them

Dana, my goodness it has been sooooooooo long, how are you? Miss you tons, please tell me how all is going. Sandra

yeah sheryl it seems to me like with that combination mood stabilizers are first line. But I'm still looking. Sorry I had to redo my cv and applied to two places almost three but got fed up with the application. And I got calls from my boss trying to get me to stay with Walgreens, yada yada yada.

I hope this helps her and you!!! getting of the ritalin and on depakote. Big things with depakote are the liver issues, weight gain, and polycystic ovarian syndrome (sometimes with insulin resistance). Which 10 percent of the population has pcos without using depakote and it seems to be increased in women with bipolar too. It's not serious just leads to fertility issues, inc. male characteristics (hair, balding, acne), and sometimes adult diabetes (which can be controlled). It's essentially too much male hormone causing ovarian size to be larger almost looking like cysts on ultrasound. It's definately a risk benefit issue you, and her doc need to weigh.

But I will continue to see what the consensus is on these issues in children and medication. It's a lot harder to find then for adults since most of my references are for adults and most drug studies are in adults.

And I know this is extrememly frustrating.

And Sandra thanks for you hello. I will post, I know I've been bad about posting.

Love you all!

Dana

this only other one I see them using in children is lithium. But that has bad side effects as well. Possibly worse than the depakote, but lithium can be very effective if you find the depakote doesn't cut it. And lithium is generic so it's pretty cheap.

and lithium needs constant monitoring. I don't know how much your insurance pays on blood tests and how tolerant kara is to getting them taken.

My freind and school mentour and advocate says the tourettes is what needs to be treated the most, I agee, the adhd will have be on the back burnerm vsides her grades are above average in all areas, she get 104 on every single spelling test.
this friend also suggests i go to a tourrettes meeting, she has touretes as well, but not the nasty word parts just the tics, until yesterday Kara had mostly the nasty words, making me think primarily biplar, with some tic clicking , eye blinking, squeels evry few seconds, but nothing real bad ecept the nasty talk, but after that Ritilin she stated hse wa bigger than GOD, she ticced like she never had before, jerks motuh chewing, the whole thing. Funny hting is ritilin will knock me out cold, maybe I shouls take. i am taking Kloinpin its not even touching my anxiety, and he trippled my dose, yeah it takes edge off, but I still feel like i am anxious as heck.

She fuanlly crashed at 3 this morning she ticed for almsot 20 hours, she went outside in the middle of the night, it was as if i could nto get thru to her at all,  iam worried about school today, I have to teach, and she gonna have to go to school, i dont wna to lose my job, I will keep psoted to how it goes, thanks again for everyones support and thoughts, and those of you you have personally emailed thanks you so much for you support, and kindness, i hope I can return the favor...Love....Sheryl

Posted my quetion in nnew topic hope someone responds...Love..Sheryl