I'm starting to lose trust in my 8 year old son's psychiatrist. Nick is already on 45 mg Concerta plus Tenex, and the dr. also put Nick on Celexa about a month ago and gradually increased the dosage until he was taking 2ml every morning. No real changes until the last increase to the 2ml...that week he was in trouble twice at daycare and once at school for punching another child in the stomach, which earned him in school suspension. So dr. went back down to 1.5 ml at the last appt. Now mind you we have no evidence that my son is either anxious or depressed, it's really just a guess. I have asked about further testing for Nick to see if anything else is going on (he seems moody and prone to angry outbursts) but so far I've been stonewalled.
NOW the psych thinks we can't move towards a comorbid diagnosis without making sure Nick gets enough sleep at night. He's never slept a lot and sleeps about 9 hours a night. Psych says that's not enough and wants to try Trazodone. He got irritated with me when I said I would have to research it (because I didn't think it was for children) so I didn't fill the prescription. I figured I'd make another attempt to get him more sleep using Melatonin, maybe just give it earlier.
Now I finally have time to research Trazodone and come to find it's an antidepressant. Isn't Celexa also an antidepressant? Is it common to prescribe 2 antidepressants? I'm starting to think I need to dump both Nick's docs (he also sees a psychologist) and just start from scratch, (the psychologist is yet another post) but we have 4 years of history with these doctors.
When talking about anti-anxiety med. options for my child, Celexa was one of the ones mentioned. IDK if it's also an anti-depressant, but it's definitely an anti-anxiety medicine.
As for what you're seeing, my child's dr. said that all of the anti-anxiety meds. have the possibility of a side effect of increased impulsivity, espec. in an ADHD individual. That might be what you were seeing on the higher Celexa dose.
What exactly is going on w/ your child that they're trying to control through this medicine? I get that sleep is an issue. Is anything else a problem? What dosage of melatonin have you tried? Did you ever try Tenex (guanfacine) or Clonidine?
Trazadone is very sedating. My child's dr. said that'll be our last resort if everything else fails trying to get him to sleep through the night. So far, we haven't needed to resort to that. We're currently doing a combo. of guanfacine (Tenex), Benadryl, and sustained release melatonin.
I would love to know more about sustained release melatonin. Who makes it/where can you get it? Nick's on .5-.75 mg melatonin-any more than that and he experiences nightmares. We use a liquid form so we can pinpoint the dosage. Melatonin gets him to sleep just fine- he is always up extremely early. The earlier he gets the melatonin, the earlier he gets up. He's also on Tenex right now- but at wake up time and noon. We had success with Clonidine early on but the last time we tried it (and had to discontinue the Tenex to try it) it didn't work.
Discontinued the Celexa this week-the side effects were not worth the benefits we were seeing (which were none!)
trazodone (from what I know of it) is not like most