I have been posting about my 9 year olds start with Zoloft for anxiety and depression. We are at 12.5 mg, 1/2 a pill and after 1 week I think I see a diffference. am I nuts or is he in a better mood. Even didn't complain about stomach 2 nights now. What is the standard? 25 mg. He is med sensitive and I don't want to over medicate him. Is he just having a good week by chance? What dosage is normal for a small 9 year old with severe anxiety symptoms.I also want to try and add his stim back in at some point. Do I cut it back then? The docs office didn't call back yet and they don't care much anyway.
He told me to go up to 25mg after 1 week but I have heard of many people on 12.5 and doing well. I feel that I should maybe give it more time. He can't have it this weekend anyway cause he is going camping with dad and cub scouts and he won't watch him good enough to see if there are any changes, so it would have to wait till next week anyway.I would send him camping on the 12.5 and next week when he comes home increase to the 25 as prescribed. THEN if you see any side effects you could drop back down (I dont think you will). Or if/when the time comes and you add a stimulant and you need to drop the dose back down you can. Get this anxiety under control and then take the next step.Thanks Diane it sounds good to me. I do want to be here where I can watch him though so I think after camping it will be.My son will not take ADD meds but when he did he had much less anxiety not enough to let go but much less. Since the zoloft 1.5 weekd ago he is no longer complaining of his daily stomach aches and headaches. So good so far.Jake had a rough time camping and missed us (me and the animals alot) he got no sleep the first night because it was too noisy but slept the second night and passed out cold before 8pm last night. NO STOMACH COMPLAINTS! I am going to call the doc and see if he stilll wants me to go up the other half of the pill. He probably will. Definatly seeing some results from this though and his anxiety is definatly down! Yeah! Now if we could just sneak that Focalin in there....ya right!What is his camping schedule? You really don't want to miss a dose. Or did I read your post wrong. Is he not going to take it at all this weekend or not increase to the 25mg?My son was about 9 or 10 when he started taking zoloft, he is now 12. I think we started like that too. He worked up to 50 mg, now he takes 100 mg 1x a day. He is a worry wart!!! He also has OCD, which cause him to pick at his clothes and his hair when his anxiety is HIGH. For the most part Zoloft seems to do fine, some days are better than others, but if he misses a few days, ( because, he is 12 and smarter than me ) He can tell, he said he feels sad, and usually folllows by alot of picking.
Just wondering...do you feel like the ADD meds make your son's anxiety worst? I feel like by fixing the ADD I had to add like 3 other problems!!!
We started him on a whole Zoloft this holiday weekend. We have to break the pill in half and he takes it twice, It is the smallest thing. What a difference it has made in our relaionship though, He sat down and made me a beautiful card yesterday morning and had been so much more relaxed.Whoo YA!spamula, this is great, just keep going along. I'm glad for you both he is happier.I don't know if anyone has been reading this but after 2 weeks of 1/2 pill we went up to 25 mg Zoloft yesterday. We actually had to break the pill in 1/2 and he took it 2 times because he thought it was too big. It is so small it is ridiculous. Whatever floats your boat. So far we are having good results with the med. No more stomachaches or headaches(except for 1 bad day at school) thats what prompted me to go up in the dosage. He was anxious about something at school and did not want to go. Well that is all.Well my neighbor around the corner just called and wanted to know what happened to my son. She said she saw him scootering around the block(something he never does) and he stopped to have a pleasant conversation with her. Definatly gotta chalk this one up to the Zoloft. It has done wonders for his mood and anxiety! Yeah! Now if he would just take his ADHD meds we'd be set!I am SO glad that this is working so well for your son. Maybe in a couple of weeks you can talk about all the positive changes from the zoloft and ask him to consider the focalin again. He seems like such a smart kid - you can try appealing to his more intellectual side by talking about the fact that he really can just "try out" the focalin because it's a stimulant. Maybe with his anxiety in check you can get to the bottom of his concerns about sitmulants.