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17 Yr old son has CD
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<blockquote data-quote="susiestar" data-source="post: 722465" data-attributes="member: 1233"><p>I know your wife is scare and I totally understand where she is coming from. I have been there with my son. It is hard to feel you have to choose. </p><p></p><p>Is your son seeing a psychiatrist? Is he on any medications for the bipolar? If not, that should be treated with medication. It is possible that what is seen as CD is actually untreated bipolar just running wild. If that is treated properly and he is medication compliant, some of this may go away. Hypersexuality is a symptom of bipolar, and even that can be subdued by the right medications.</p><p></p><p>You have to be careful when treating bipolar. There is a protocol recommended by the board that certifies psychiatrists. It calls for mood stabilizers first. Antipsychotics can be added if needed to help stabilize moods. Once moods are stable, if there are still symptoms that are problematic, very small doses of antidepressants or stimulants or other medications can be trialed. People with bipolar should not be given stimulants or antidepressants unless they are on mood stabilizers and their moods are stable. Why? Because those medications (and quite a few others including decongestants) can cause mania and mood cycling. </p><p></p><p>I mention this here because it takes quite a while to follow this protocol. It takes a few weeks to a few months to titrate mood stabilizers up to the therapeutic level to see if they will work. Then they have to be in your system at that level for about 6 weeks to know if they are going to work. Then you carefully add either a second mood stabilizer or an atypical antipsychotic and titrate that up to a therapeutic level. This can take months. Few doctors and fewer patients have the patience to wait this long for results. Many doctors will give you antidepressants because the patient will start to feel good right away. They will then go into mania, but they feel good, so it's all good, right? Wrong!!! At one point we had to change my son's doctor several times in under a year due to insurance changes at my husband's work. Each new doctor wanted to change my son's diagnosis to bipolar and change all of his medications. They didn't want to do an inpatient medication wash, or follow this protocol. They wanted to take him off of his medications cold turkey in a week. He would have had serious problems and ended up in the ER most likely (which I knew, thankfully, because our old doctor and our pharmacist had warned us when we started 2 different medications. Each needed to be slowly weaned off under hospital supervision, but they changed his life for the better.) When I told each new doctor that we could only do the new medications if they did a hospital medication wash and the mood stabilizers/antipsychotics routine, suddenly the new docs didn't think he was bipolar. They didn't want to bother with the medication protocol was all I could figure out. </p><p></p><p>Your son probably also needs a drug test. If he is using, there is absolutely no possible way to tell if he is mentally ill or just on drugs. If he ever gets clean/sober and into recovery, he might turn out to not have any mental illness. Or he might have exactly what he is diagnosed with or even more mental illness. There really is no way to know until he is clean/sober. If he is going to detox, please make sure he has medical supervision. It is incredibly dangerous to detox without medical care. Many people die each year from this. </p><p></p><p>I completely respect your wife's need to be away from your son. Her instincts are telling her that he is very dangerous to her. I guess if you wish to contact her once he is 18 and has dealt with these charges, maybe you can email and meet in public places to ensure your safety and your wife's safety? You need to respect her fears, but she needs to respect your relationship with your son also. </p><p></p><p>Pressing charges was the right thing to do. It takes courage to do that, but it is necessary. He won't learn not to do that unless he faces the real world consequences. It is hard to turn your son in though. Given how much he has stolen from his mother, why didn't she make him face more consequences? Is there a way that you could communicate better with your son's mother? Some way you could work together to help him face his charges? Or is that impossible? </p><p></p><p>I am sorry you feel you have to choose between your wife and child. I hope that it becomes easier as time passes.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="susiestar, post: 722465, member: 1233"] I know your wife is scare and I totally understand where she is coming from. I have been there with my son. It is hard to feel you have to choose. Is your son seeing a psychiatrist? Is he on any medications for the bipolar? If not, that should be treated with medication. It is possible that what is seen as CD is actually untreated bipolar just running wild. If that is treated properly and he is medication compliant, some of this may go away. Hypersexuality is a symptom of bipolar, and even that can be subdued by the right medications. You have to be careful when treating bipolar. There is a protocol recommended by the board that certifies psychiatrists. It calls for mood stabilizers first. Antipsychotics can be added if needed to help stabilize moods. Once moods are stable, if there are still symptoms that are problematic, very small doses of antidepressants or stimulants or other medications can be trialed. People with bipolar should not be given stimulants or antidepressants unless they are on mood stabilizers and their moods are stable. Why? Because those medications (and quite a few others including decongestants) can cause mania and mood cycling. I mention this here because it takes quite a while to follow this protocol. It takes a few weeks to a few months to titrate mood stabilizers up to the therapeutic level to see if they will work. Then they have to be in your system at that level for about 6 weeks to know if they are going to work. Then you carefully add either a second mood stabilizer or an atypical antipsychotic and titrate that up to a therapeutic level. This can take months. Few doctors and fewer patients have the patience to wait this long for results. Many doctors will give you antidepressants because the patient will start to feel good right away. They will then go into mania, but they feel good, so it's all good, right? Wrong!!! At one point we had to change my son's doctor several times in under a year due to insurance changes at my husband's work. Each new doctor wanted to change my son's diagnosis to bipolar and change all of his medications. They didn't want to do an inpatient medication wash, or follow this protocol. They wanted to take him off of his medications cold turkey in a week. He would have had serious problems and ended up in the ER most likely (which I knew, thankfully, because our old doctor and our pharmacist had warned us when we started 2 different medications. Each needed to be slowly weaned off under hospital supervision, but they changed his life for the better.) When I told each new doctor that we could only do the new medications if they did a hospital medication wash and the mood stabilizers/antipsychotics routine, suddenly the new docs didn't think he was bipolar. They didn't want to bother with the medication protocol was all I could figure out. Your son probably also needs a drug test. If he is using, there is absolutely no possible way to tell if he is mentally ill or just on drugs. If he ever gets clean/sober and into recovery, he might turn out to not have any mental illness. Or he might have exactly what he is diagnosed with or even more mental illness. There really is no way to know until he is clean/sober. If he is going to detox, please make sure he has medical supervision. It is incredibly dangerous to detox without medical care. Many people die each year from this. I completely respect your wife's need to be away from your son. Her instincts are telling her that he is very dangerous to her. I guess if you wish to contact her once he is 18 and has dealt with these charges, maybe you can email and meet in public places to ensure your safety and your wife's safety? You need to respect her fears, but she needs to respect your relationship with your son also. Pressing charges was the right thing to do. It takes courage to do that, but it is necessary. He won't learn not to do that unless he faces the real world consequences. It is hard to turn your son in though. Given how much he has stolen from his mother, why didn't she make him face more consequences? Is there a way that you could communicate better with your son's mother? Some way you could work together to help him face his charges? Or is that impossible? I am sorry you feel you have to choose between your wife and child. I hope that it becomes easier as time passes. [/QUOTE]
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