I'm wondering what medications you have tried. Mikey is currently taking Focalin, Risperdal, and Depakote. The Depakote has been a wonder drug for us. Mikey is like a totally different child since we started him.

We don't do any... we can't even get a darn vitamin down him LOL...

Can you explain better WHY you give them to Mikey what they are used for? I'd love to know! I know kinda about the Depakote and Rispedril.. but not the other one.

A.

Focalin is for ADHD. In Mikey it is used to help his attention span. Risperdal is used to control his agressiveness. Depakote is used as a mood stabilizer. The Depakote keeps him from being anxious which is a common problem in children with autism. A lot of children with autism use their stimming behaviors to calm their anxiousness.

We noticed a vast improvement with Mikey when we started him on the Depakote. He is like a completely different child. For example, where in the past we would take him to the doctor and he would trash the office, scream, and be uncooperative today I took him to the doctor and he calmly walked in, took a puzzle down from his book case, sat on the rug and did the puzzle. He even let the doctor take his blood pressure. When we saw the endocronologist last week, he couldn't believe the change in Mikey.

The key is to target a behavior that needs to be controlled with medication and with ABA.

Our son Dillen takes guanficine for his behavioral issues. It was about the 8th diffrent drug we had tired, none of the other meds had helped or made a diffrence in him AT ALL and one had even made him WORSE and he was RAGING. This drug has been a God send, unfortuatly though he was been on it for awhile and it doesn't work as well as it once did. We are going back to his neurobehavioralist in Tacoma (6 hours away from home) in the next couple of weeks to get him rechecked and talk about where to go from here. Dr. Daniels says that although Dillen isn't the most severe client she has had by far, he is the most puzzling and complex.... not what you want to hear from a specailist that has been at this over 30 years!

Megan

That is the problem with lots of these medications... they work for awhile and then they stop working. It can be extremely frustrating as you think you finally have things under control and they are getting better and then the medication stops working.

Thanks Tom, it really is the truth and SO hard at times. Our son has a rough history... I will post more about him tomorrow... and he is VERY bi-polar! Our adoption of him almost disrupted when everything started getting worse and worse after our adoption was completed... it has been a LONG and VERY HARD road for our whole family with DIllen. Our families do not understand (who could blame them, I probably wouldn't "get it" either) but it has been a lonely, frustrating place to be the last few YEARS! We finally sat down with the adoption support staff and his specailist and we all decided that he would be instutionalized if we let him go, and we don't want that for him... adopted or not he is our son, and as hard as it can be at times.... we are there for him ALWAYS. He has to sleep in a medical bed that we zip him into to keep him and US safe. He does things that we would NEVER think he would do, and he is unsafe to himself and others at those times. PDD and bi-polar and NOT a good mix. Megan

I have never heard of any of those medications Tom

the only thing we give to Hannah is Omega 3

( here in the UK I saw an advert tonight about milk that has omega3 added to it, so I might well enquire about that tomorrow as that means I could put it on her cereal as she ALWAYS finishes her cereal off )

Hey Jo... is that milk whole milk or non fat or what? I'd love a non fat with Omega's in it!!!!!!!!

A.

it is available in whole milk and semi skimmed

the only thing is I don't know if its available outside the UK

here is the link to it

http://www.omega3.co.uk/omega3/pages/omega3.php

I never got to the supermarket today but will go tomorrow so i am going to buy some and try it

I found this link to fresh Omega 3 milk http://www.dairy-oh.com/ but it's only available in Canada.

Organic milk usually contains up to 2/3 more Omega-3 than non organic milk.

OK.. then.... we are getting CLOSER!!!! LOL... ok.. who can we get in the USA to do this?!! heehee....

A.

I haven't seen Omega 3 milk but we do get omega 3 eggs.

Up here in Canada we have Omega 3 eggs, milk and yogurt. It's all fairly new, except for the eggs. I also saw a program saying Omega 3 is not as benefiacial as they once thought. Unfortunately I wasn't paying much attention.

I have heard of a few kids up here with ADHD whose parents keep them away from red food colouring. That includes, purples and oranges as well.

My son does not have DS. He has Asperger Syndrome, Tourette Syndrome and some symptoms of bi-polar disorder. We have him on Risperdal, lithium, and Wellbutrin. The lithium is because of the bi-polar aspects. The riperdal bothers me the most because of the possible side affects but as soon as we decreased it, we saw how much he needs it. We are beginning to think he needs all of them upped because he's grown a ton since we hit on this combo and his rage and mood swings are increasing.

Ellen:

You might want to ask your doctor about trying Seroquel instead of the Risperdal. Your son is a lot like mine. He's 17, has Tourette Syndrome, and we're still floating between a paranoid schizphrenia and bi-polar diagnosis, with some "autistic-like" stuff thrown in there just for fun. So far he's not had any of the TD side effects often associatiated with all the different meds he's on. But with the TS, sometimes it's hard to know!

Angela ( 9 1/2 with DS) is on Tenex (quamfacine) and Clonidine. When she first started the tenex, there was a HUGE difference in her agressive and implusive behavior. But that lasted about 2 weeks. She's now at the max dose and I really see no benefit from it anymore.

Thanks Leah. If I have the nerve to change I'll ask about Seroquel.

Clonodine made my son a sleep and sleep and sleep.

Yeah, that's why Tyler takes it, because he can't sleep. Actually, he's afraid to sleep because of the hallucinations he was having. But it also helps with the tics.