gcvmom
Here we go again!
Our psychiatrist is so great. I really mean it. He's totally focused on the big picture with my kids and not just the crisis-du-jour.
He told me today that he's concerned about difficult child 1's reaction to prednisone this week, and that with his family tree, we have to watch for mania. That observation really took me by surprise. I've always looked at difficult child 1 as just your typical ADHD kid with anxiety. But I guess it's something to be mindful of as he goes through puberty. In hindsight, husband's mood issues really came to a head in his late teens, early 20's. That's when he got into fights at school, his grades in college plumeted, and he was never smiling in any family pictures. Go figure.
psychiatrist also is wondering if all the arguing and confrontations I've had with difficult child 1 the past two years are due to Lexapro possibly disinhibiting him too much. He's on 20mg now, so the plan is to drop it to 10mg once school ends and see if there's any improvement in that area.
He's also interested in the neuropsychologist's findings this week, so I'll be sharing that with him when I get the results on Thursday.
difficult child 2 is doing remarkably well (finally) on his current cocktail of medications. There is some question about whether the Daytrana is actually doing anything for attention or if it's merely countering the sedation he has from the Seroquel. When he gets more than 5mg, he becomes very activated and hypomanic, and the psychiatrist thinks that 5mg is really not enough for a kid his size to have any effect on an attentional issue if that's all it was.
So for now, he wants me to only try giving him 2.5mg to see if he's still able to concentrate and if he sleeps better. His thought is to actually reduce the Seroquel XR evening dose once school gets out to see if he can get by on a lower dose, with the possibility of increasing the Depakote ER once we determine that he's okay on a lower Seroquel dose.
So I've got my marching orders for June And we'll see how the summer goes.
Meanwhile, he said my updates on husband are very helpful because it allows him to tailor his conversation and subtly steer it in the right direction. In other words, if husband tries to snow him, he can challenge him with the right line of questioning.
Oh, and on a side note, we were almost trapped on the freeway offramp on the way to the appointment today. A dozen or more airline attendants with their little rolling suitcases had evacuated the shuttle bus they were on because it had caught fire! We were about four cars back from the bus and it was completely engulfed in flames. Fortunately, a few of the cars ahead of us went in the right lane (through the nasty billowing smoke) and got off, while I opted to drive over the center median and get back on the freeway to head for the next exit down. Good thing I was in the Explorer!
He told me today that he's concerned about difficult child 1's reaction to prednisone this week, and that with his family tree, we have to watch for mania. That observation really took me by surprise. I've always looked at difficult child 1 as just your typical ADHD kid with anxiety. But I guess it's something to be mindful of as he goes through puberty. In hindsight, husband's mood issues really came to a head in his late teens, early 20's. That's when he got into fights at school, his grades in college plumeted, and he was never smiling in any family pictures. Go figure.
psychiatrist also is wondering if all the arguing and confrontations I've had with difficult child 1 the past two years are due to Lexapro possibly disinhibiting him too much. He's on 20mg now, so the plan is to drop it to 10mg once school ends and see if there's any improvement in that area.
He's also interested in the neuropsychologist's findings this week, so I'll be sharing that with him when I get the results on Thursday.
difficult child 2 is doing remarkably well (finally) on his current cocktail of medications. There is some question about whether the Daytrana is actually doing anything for attention or if it's merely countering the sedation he has from the Seroquel. When he gets more than 5mg, he becomes very activated and hypomanic, and the psychiatrist thinks that 5mg is really not enough for a kid his size to have any effect on an attentional issue if that's all it was.
So for now, he wants me to only try giving him 2.5mg to see if he's still able to concentrate and if he sleeps better. His thought is to actually reduce the Seroquel XR evening dose once school gets out to see if he can get by on a lower dose, with the possibility of increasing the Depakote ER once we determine that he's okay on a lower Seroquel dose.
So I've got my marching orders for June And we'll see how the summer goes.
Meanwhile, he said my updates on husband are very helpful because it allows him to tailor his conversation and subtly steer it in the right direction. In other words, if husband tries to snow him, he can challenge him with the right line of questioning.
Oh, and on a side note, we were almost trapped on the freeway offramp on the way to the appointment today. A dozen or more airline attendants with their little rolling suitcases had evacuated the shuttle bus they were on because it had caught fire! We were about four cars back from the bus and it was completely engulfed in flames. Fortunately, a few of the cars ahead of us went in the right lane (through the nasty billowing smoke) and got off, while I opted to drive over the center median and get back on the freeway to head for the next exit down. Good thing I was in the Explorer!