maxeygirls
New Member
difficult child has been on Depakene (500mg/day) since July of last year, risperdal from July until April and Abilify (2mg/day) from April to now... well until a week ago actually.
I had made the decision to remove difficult child from her medications for several reasons; finding out exactly who is under the medications, fears of her being downright drugged (slurred speech, groggy, fighting sleep 24/7, strange outbursts), her psychiatrist's lack of attention to monitoring the medications (she may go 2 months before checking the blood tests she said were urgent) and the fact that her psychiatrist swears she needs to stay heavily medicated due to family history (paternal grandmother, not even around her) and how she acted a year ago... she hasn't spent more than 5 minutes with difficult child in a year.
We got rid of the Abilify first, very slowly (1/2mg change to one dose a day for a week), and difficult child's violence vanished, literally vanished. She could actually communicate clearly and focus. She also isn't fighting sleep all day... but now she's fighting to stay awake at night. I just reduced her Depakene to 400mg/day and I'm hesitant to go any further.
difficult child has been waking up between 3am-5am since we started Abilify but now all of a sudden she's up between 11pm-3am and stays up until 8am! She's also back to her sneaking ways which means even with the baby monitor turned all the way up and right next to me, she can sneak out and get into everything.
She takes 9mg of melatonin a night and it isn't time release. I've tried giving her another dose around 3am and it does nothing. Im exhausted, only getting an hour of sleep a night if I'm lucky and I feel like I've made a huge mistake.
Every time I look over my journal of difficult child's behavior and patterns though, and it seems that she struggles the most during the day when she has sleep problems the night before. She is getting into everything 24/7 and is more defiant than ever before. I can turn my back to pour a cup of coffee and she's vaulted over the baby gate into my room, medication/'no-no item' lock box and hammer in hand from the kitchen and I'll catch her trying to break it open.
I've often wondered if the problem was based mostly on a sleep issue and now I'm sure of it but what do I do?! There is NO other psychiatrist in town or even in state who will see her until she's 5, I can't stand keeping her on medications that aren't helping and I can't go with close to no sleep for the next year or so until she turns 5.
We're all suffering again. I don't like difficult child doped up to the point that she talks like a drunk and wanders around in a daze all day but easy child hasn't gotten 5 minutes of my time in a week and I'm so busy chasing difficult child and cleaning up her messes that I don't even remember to eat!
If anyone has any suggestions, I know this is a huge jumble of info with no clear aim, Im exhausted beyond belief and sicker than a dog so I'm sorry. But if you have any suggestions, HELP!
I had made the decision to remove difficult child from her medications for several reasons; finding out exactly who is under the medications, fears of her being downright drugged (slurred speech, groggy, fighting sleep 24/7, strange outbursts), her psychiatrist's lack of attention to monitoring the medications (she may go 2 months before checking the blood tests she said were urgent) and the fact that her psychiatrist swears she needs to stay heavily medicated due to family history (paternal grandmother, not even around her) and how she acted a year ago... she hasn't spent more than 5 minutes with difficult child in a year.
We got rid of the Abilify first, very slowly (1/2mg change to one dose a day for a week), and difficult child's violence vanished, literally vanished. She could actually communicate clearly and focus. She also isn't fighting sleep all day... but now she's fighting to stay awake at night. I just reduced her Depakene to 400mg/day and I'm hesitant to go any further.
difficult child has been waking up between 3am-5am since we started Abilify but now all of a sudden she's up between 11pm-3am and stays up until 8am! She's also back to her sneaking ways which means even with the baby monitor turned all the way up and right next to me, she can sneak out and get into everything.
She takes 9mg of melatonin a night and it isn't time release. I've tried giving her another dose around 3am and it does nothing. Im exhausted, only getting an hour of sleep a night if I'm lucky and I feel like I've made a huge mistake.
Every time I look over my journal of difficult child's behavior and patterns though, and it seems that she struggles the most during the day when she has sleep problems the night before. She is getting into everything 24/7 and is more defiant than ever before. I can turn my back to pour a cup of coffee and she's vaulted over the baby gate into my room, medication/'no-no item' lock box and hammer in hand from the kitchen and I'll catch her trying to break it open.
I've often wondered if the problem was based mostly on a sleep issue and now I'm sure of it but what do I do?! There is NO other psychiatrist in town or even in state who will see her until she's 5, I can't stand keeping her on medications that aren't helping and I can't go with close to no sleep for the next year or so until she turns 5.
We're all suffering again. I don't like difficult child doped up to the point that she talks like a drunk and wanders around in a daze all day but easy child hasn't gotten 5 minutes of my time in a week and I'm so busy chasing difficult child and cleaning up her messes that I don't even remember to eat!
If anyone has any suggestions, I know this is a huge jumble of info with no clear aim, Im exhausted beyond belief and sicker than a dog so I'm sorry. But if you have any suggestions, HELP!