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I am crying out to all of you here in hope that you can give me some support and information. I have posted about my son (adopted at age 8 from Russia). He was diagnosed with ADD, ODD, low self-esteem, low IQ, emotionally/mentally age 4-5. Immediately I took him to our family doctor for ADD meds, she put him on Strattera. He has been on it for two months now and it doesn't seem to be helping him. She upped his dose to 18 mg a day and I have noticed his appetite is less and he seems more and more depressed.
He has always been obsessed with death, dying, afraid of the dark and has night terrors every night and wakes several times a night so he is tired all day. Tonight, my grandma picked him up after school, when I got to her house to get him, she informed me that the whole 2 hrs he was with her he talked about nothing but death and dying. He asked her where you would stab someone to kill them, where you go when you die, what if he dies, claimed he saw someone stab his dad in Russia. Grandma tried to reassure him that he wouldn't die for a long time.... she was really at a loss of what to say to him.
I have noticed (and several of his teachers have mentioned) that he seems depressed and it has gotten a little worse since he has been on the Strattera. He doesn't seem to have any 'energy', wants to be alone a lot, is lying more and more about little things. I saw a check sheet from a book about bipolar children and he matched out with 33 out of 40 of the signs. I mentioned this to our family doctor and she made an appt for him with a child psychiatrist but we can't get in to see him until February.
I am very concerned about him. The depression and obsession with death is really starting to scare me. I feel lost and not sure where to turn for advice on what to do. Anyone PLEASE help me!!
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If you feel he is a danger to himself, you should be able to take him to the hospital for an immediate evaluation. Since your child was adopted from an orphanage and may have witnessed a murder, I would also suggest having him evaluated by an attachment therapist with experience working with post institutionalized children.
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What you describe is not typical of a child with ADHD and, given the child's history, may not the the correct diagnosis. Of all the children we treat in our Center, about 80% have had at least three prior treatment episodes for things such as ADHD, ODD, etc, all with no success; which means the diagnosis was wrong. Many adopted children, especially those from Eastern Europe, are misdiagnosed with ADHD when they are actually experiencing sensory-integration disorders and disorders of attachment. Given your child's age it is VERY likely he has both difficulties. You should get an evaluation, and then treatment, from a licensed mental health therapist who has substantial experience and training evaluating and treating such children. You can find someone like that on the website of [URL=http://www.attach.org]The Assoc for the Treatment and Training in the Attachment of Children[/URL] as a Registered Clinician.
best of luck to you.
First of all I hope you checked out what Straterra is all about before you put your child is on it. America has the highest amount of children on all of these different types of ritalin. Did you know that ritalin is a class 2 narcotic? It is in the same category as cocaine or heroin. The thing that gets me is that the side effects are usually worse than your child's original symptoms. Get a physicians desk reference and look it up. You will notice how all of these drugs are so harmful. Does it make any sense that if you take medicine for depression that your side effects are not only depression but as well as psychosis. Please go down a different road. Try natural healing. If you want anymore information, please contact me. And good luck to you.
Son is now OFF Strattera!!! The prescibing doctor listened to what I had to say and asked son several more questions. She also made some more phone calls and got him into to a child psychiatrist a month earlier then the other that was scheduled.
We go to the psych on January 7th and will see what he has to say. The doctor and our family councelor don't think that it is ADD that son has.... hmmm, wrong diagnosis, imagine that.
I have tried sacrialcranial massage for him and it seems to relax him for the first few hrs but the next day he is absolutely irritable and untollerable.
So, plan one didn't work, time to go onto the next step. I am not willing to give up on this, I will keep going on until I find the answers!!
Children who have experienced trauma, as your child has and who then develop trauma-attachment difficulties usually need an attachment based therapy...no easy solutions...lots of hard work and difficult parenting is needed.
You also should have your child evaluated by an OT who is SIPT certified to see if there are any sensory-integration disorders present. The majority of children with trauma histories and those who are adopted from US foster care or from Orphanages, have SI disorders. Luckily there can be remediated if you are working with an SIPT OT.
regards,
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THANK YOU Dr. Art!!! I looked at your website lastnight and my son has many, many of the SI things you listed. I orginally was thinking he may be bipolar but now am really not sure because of so many SI simularities.
I am going to go armed with this info to the psychiatrist on the 7th. If you don't mind, I am also going to take your name and number with me to the T in hopes he may contact you for more information?
I will also start checking for an OT in our area that is trained in SI. I know this is going to be a very long process with much parenting needed. Luckily for me, I have the support of this board, the support of a family councelor who doubles as an advocate for my son, a very caring and understanding physician and some other people that have done international adoptions.
Thank you again for your help.
Glad I could be of help. sure, feel free to take and use my name and number. Best of luck to you. As you can see, it is really important to work with a knowledgeable person as so many mental health conditions seem similiar and can be misdiagnosed. This is meaninful since different conditions require different treatment.
regards,