Hi everyone,
First I want to thank everyone who has helped me on the boards a while back.. it took a long time to finally get to see the psychiatrist but today we finally did! He said my son is showing bipolar tendancies and is treating him with Risperdal. We had taken our son off all stims in the beginning of the summer and he has been so much more "pleasant" but still has his moments .. of course! But on the stims he was just so much meaner, moodier and a mess! He was suspended from school twice at the end of the school year for hitting a teacher .. and he is only in first grade!! Scary stuff. Depression and suicide are in my side of the family (moms) and alcoholism in my husbands .. which I think is also a form of depression. So tonight we start the Risperdal and see how he does the rest of the summer on just that .. the doctor then says we may revisit the stims at the beginning of the school year we all feel necessary to "try it" again. Anyone with any info on how their children were or are on Risperdal would help me alot. Thanks!!
I think lot of kids here are bipolar or ASD, so I'm not surprised, but I'm really sorry...it's hard. Risperdal is an atypical antipsychotic. It is NOT a mood stabilizer...I don't know why some doctors use it instead of mood stabilizers, but you'll have to ask your doctor. To talk to parents with bipolar kids, I can give you a few links. The first one is a bipolar message board...it's really good. It costs to join, but, if you can't afford a fee, you just e-mail Sissy and they'll let you join for free. The second is a Conduct Disorders link, and tons of the kids there are diagnosed with bipolar. Risperdal is commonly used so you can get various opinions. It's not an ADHD drug. Here ya go and good luck:
Yeah thanks for the welcome, I am just happy to finally get a better dx so we can start helping our son since we have been needlessly medicating him for the past three years!! It is hard .. I will look out for anything strange when we start the risperdal .. I have heard some had good results on it so I have to stay optimistic.. and if it isn't right we try again! I'm afraid to start it now since he is starting camp .. and he loves camp but Im also worried for his safety if he is too hyper or oppositional with the counselers and other children.
Thanks for the links ... been looking through the sites tonight and will continue to some more.
Welcome to the club -- probably a club you don't want to belong to. I have two children -- 13-year-old son and 11-year-old daughter -- who have working dxes of bipolar disorder. To be honest, my kids are improving steadily on a combination of two mood stabilizers -- Depakote and Lamictal. Following his manic reaction to Zoloft last fall, my son was prescribed Risperdal and only lasted a month on it. He had both a dystonic reaction (uncontrollable mouth opening, lip licking and tongue thrusting) and akathisia (external and internal restlessness). Needless to say, we stopped Risperdal and turned to mood stabilizers. We have also discontinued all stimulants because they were causing more side effects than was worth it. I also believe my son's attention and focus will improve as his mood stabilizes.
The links above are good sites where you'll get a lot of great info. Good luck, and keep us posted.