psych appts--how often? | ADHD Information

After the initial Consult and eval, which consisted of 6 visits, 2 hours long, and 1 visti 4 hours long, all in 2 weeks time, we see the Neuropsych monthly.

Thank you so much for all of your responses.  I had the idea in my head that these visits should be more often, once a week in the beginning until we got a handle on things, and after reading all of your posts it seems my head was in the right place. 

We have our first appt w/the child psychiatrist on Mon, so hopefully he will be of help to us, as I think we're in need for a med change.  I think I will call the therapist DH & I have used in the past & ask her for some direction.  At this point I think we're in need of more help than just for DS, we need help as a couple and as a family. 

we also used a social worker for counseling instead of a psychologist and went weekly. We also had a "set" appointment, we see the psychiatrist for med checks every 3-6 months depending on how things are going. Our social woker moved and at this point we are not doing any counseling. This all depends in the screening process I remember the 1x per week for 2-3 weeks then another appointment with just myself and my husband for the results.  Once that was done he  met with my girl 1-2 more times and helped us with a plan and then we came back 1 month later to let him know how it went and to make adjustments.  Now we go 2 x per year as needed I also know I can call him anytime with questions or  concerns and he will  help me over the phone and if he feels is serious enough he has us come in.  Ours has had my child pegged day one and is awesome.

I should also add each child is different and the needs are different so appointments will also vary. Jillette39478.2595486111Our therapist is a licensed clinical social worker.   When we first started working with him we saw him every week until things stabilized - which took about two months.  For the last two months, my daughter has seen him once a month to basically check in and see how things are going.   We are planning on one last follow up in March - assuming that things stay stable.

Our guy's schedule gets pretty booked.  He had no appointments available after school, so I would pull her out of school to take her.  He had some early morning slots, so she would miss about an hour of school, sometimes two.

To get on his schedule on a weekly basis, I would book two months of appointments at a time.  I figured this was easier to cancel and appointment if we didn't need them than to get on his schedule if things come up.

We use a psychiatric nurse practitioner for meds.    We see her every 6-8 weeks - more often if we are adjusting meds - longer like 12 weeks if things are stable.   Her schedule is full as well, but once we seem to get on a regular interval, they aren't hard to get.  What gets tricky is having to reschedule.  Sometime we have a long wait to get in if we have had to do this.

DH & I just had our 2nd appt w/child psychologist today and I left feeling very disappointed.  First of all, we waited for over a month for the first appt and then 2 wks for the 2nd appt and now another whole month for the next appt.  Is this normal?  She just met w/us today w/o DS to discuss suggestions for discipline or ways to change behaviors.  Most of what we talked about are things that we've already tried and only came up with a couple things to try.  Our first psychiatrist appt is on Mon, which I'm hoping produces a med change.  How often does everyone out there meet with their psychiatrists or psychologists?  At our appt today we dove right into discussing DS so I didn't even get a chance to ask questions that I had prepared and now feel like I have to wait another whole month to ask them!  Part of me is expecting a "miracle fix" with these appts but realistically I know it will take some time.  I just feel like 2 wks and a month between appts isn't helping us.

We use a counselor instead because we felt she could give our son more consistency and us the time we needed to help him.  She gets quite busy too. Thank goodness we can book appointments in advance each time we go.  So we usually go every 2 weeks.  Sometimes once a month depending on our need.  In the beginning we went weekly.

We use a psychiatrist for the med check and the one we use allows us to come in every 3 months for a med check.  We get prescriptions monthly.  They send us the prescription in the mail monthly when we are ready for the next prescription.