Hi there. It's been a while since I've updated. Here's where things are and I am hoping the collective wisdom will have some words or advice or comments to help educate me. Really hoping to hear some positive stories of their difficult child's successfully coming off Risperdal. Please tell me how it's gone when you've taken your kids off some of their medications.
difficult child 2 has just completed his neuropsychologist testing. We meet with-the dr. for results next week. In the meantime, since the summer, we've cut the Risperdal down from 1.5 to .5 given in AM only. He's still having trouble sleeping dry many nights, although that's decreased since we cut way back on the Risperdal. I truly think the Risperdal may be contributing to some of his problems, not helping, and I suspect at our next appointment. the psychiatrist will suggest we eliminate it completely, which I'll be thrilled with. Honestly, since dropping the after school dose, he's been much easier to deal with after school. He was a nightmare after school for awhile (while still on that afternoon dose of Risperdal) and we actually tried adding a small dose of Ritalin in the afternoon that he had a terrible reaction to. I had forgotten how many stims we tried that caused horrible explosions before we found the Concerta.
My only concern is that cutting out the Risperdal entirely might upset the balance of the effectiveness of the other medications. My main concern being the Celexa. He's been doing fairly well, although he still has issues with-poop holding that we do have a plan in place for that works, but he still won't just go on his own with-o prompting and cajoling. It's extremely frustrating. He's had a few outbursts at school, that I'm keeping an eye on that. They appear to be not that frequent and always center on recess or gym and somehow something being "unfair" in the game or that he thinks the other team "cheated". Exact same thing happens with-my difficult child 1 too.
difficult child 1 has been doing ok. Her teachers have told me that she's been doing well and she's only had a few times at school that she's told me she's had issues. So, the psychiatrist and I agreed we should try cutting the Risperdal out for her as well. I had cut her down from 1.5/day to 1.25/day over the summer and she did fine. Now, we cut her back to 1.0/day of the Risperdal. At first, honestly, I could tell that she was less in control of her anger. At home, when she gets angry, it's 0 to 60mph with-nothing in between. It is so frustrating. However, her emotional outbursts at home for the most part seem to have leveled off on this lower dose. The psychiatrist had wanted us to cut the Risperdal out completely by taking her down .5mg/week. I think that would've been crazy. To go from 1.5mg of Risperdal to nothing in less than a month would've really been bad in my opinion. I am holding her at this 1.0mg level for now, although, she does need to come off it completely, I agree. We've had a lot of life stressors lately (mother in law passed away and difficult child 1 was extremely close to her). I just feel we need to do this at a snails' pace. We have a second opinion with-a different psychiatrist scheduled for both kids with-in the next couple months. It's taken more than 6 months to get these appts!
Please tell me that some of you out there have had good results coming off the medications! For those of you who've taken your kids off Risperdal, or any other medications for that matter, have you seen some initial emotional stuff, but then maybe it evens out?
difficult child 2 has just completed his neuropsychologist testing. We meet with-the dr. for results next week. In the meantime, since the summer, we've cut the Risperdal down from 1.5 to .5 given in AM only. He's still having trouble sleeping dry many nights, although that's decreased since we cut way back on the Risperdal. I truly think the Risperdal may be contributing to some of his problems, not helping, and I suspect at our next appointment. the psychiatrist will suggest we eliminate it completely, which I'll be thrilled with. Honestly, since dropping the after school dose, he's been much easier to deal with after school. He was a nightmare after school for awhile (while still on that afternoon dose of Risperdal) and we actually tried adding a small dose of Ritalin in the afternoon that he had a terrible reaction to. I had forgotten how many stims we tried that caused horrible explosions before we found the Concerta.
My only concern is that cutting out the Risperdal entirely might upset the balance of the effectiveness of the other medications. My main concern being the Celexa. He's been doing fairly well, although he still has issues with-poop holding that we do have a plan in place for that works, but he still won't just go on his own with-o prompting and cajoling. It's extremely frustrating. He's had a few outbursts at school, that I'm keeping an eye on that. They appear to be not that frequent and always center on recess or gym and somehow something being "unfair" in the game or that he thinks the other team "cheated". Exact same thing happens with-my difficult child 1 too. difficult child 1 has been doing ok. Her teachers have told me that she's been doing well and she's only had a few times at school that she's told me she's had issues. So, the psychiatrist and I agreed we should try cutting the Risperdal out for her as well. I had cut her down from 1.5/day to 1.25/day over the summer and she did fine. Now, we cut her back to 1.0/day of the Risperdal. At first, honestly, I could tell that she was less in control of her anger. At home, when she gets angry, it's 0 to 60mph with-nothing in between. It is so frustrating. However, her emotional outbursts at home for the most part seem to have leveled off on this lower dose. The psychiatrist had wanted us to cut the Risperdal out completely by taking her down .5mg/week. I think that would've been crazy. To go from 1.5mg of Risperdal to nothing in less than a month would've really been bad in my opinion. I am holding her at this 1.0mg level for now, although, she does need to come off it completely, I agree. We've had a lot of life stressors lately (mother in law passed away and difficult child 1 was extremely close to her). I just feel we need to do this at a snails' pace. We have a second opinion with-a different psychiatrist scheduled for both kids with-in the next couple months. It's taken more than 6 months to get these appts!
Please tell me that some of you out there have had good results coming off the medications! For those of you who've taken your kids off Risperdal, or any other medications for that matter, have you seen some initial emotional stuff, but then maybe it evens out?
