Extreme irritability

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our ADHD/ASD DD, almost 10, has very similar behavior that ends ups escalating to aggression when it gets bad. Anxiety and intrusive thoughts/ocd are the root for her, and she is helped by a very low dose of abilify on top of ABA and OT for now. She gets stuck on the most innocuous (to us!) things and ends up in a hypervigilant state where she lashes out when we interrupt her or ask anything of her.

As parents, the Unstuck and On Target online version was helpful in providing some insight and support we can use day-to-day. It's still a struggle though. I would press for a further evaluation for your DS to try to get to the root cause of the behavior. It could be as simple as tweaking his meds, but it's so hard to get into their heads sometimes!

OMG, I’m in the same boat. Same thing as OP and the poster above. My 11 yo DS has ADHD combined, severe and anxiety,OCD. He just started Middle School and anxiety has increased, OCD got worse. Hostility towards me, same comments “I hope you die, I hate you” and lots of cursing. He starts with irritability over nothing (?) and it turns into a meltdown quickly. This is happening now every day after school. Before it was more sporadic. He’s on Concerta and a booster. He also is on a small amount of Zoloft. But it feels we are chasing our tail. I think that the stimulant is increasing his anxiety and the anxiety medication is making his ADHD worse (disinhibition). I mention my thoughts about Zoloft possibly making his adhd symptoms worse to his psychiatrist and he said he didn’t think so. He has mentioned abilify or similar drugs have serious side effects like movement disorders, so he wants to be cautious. However I’d like to be open to it because I can’t see my son go through this. It’s painful. I wish I could speak with you two since we are in so similar situation. Let me know and we could coordinate something.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not to take over this thread, but have others noticed this level of irritability in kids who are unmedicated as well? My 10 year old daughter with ADHD has been coming home since the start of the school year very irritated. She was diagnosed about a year ago, and we’ve decided not to medicate her yet as we’ve been able to control her behavior through other methods (exercise, diet, sleep). She’s not yet entered puberty (very small and skinny), but moody as heck. It’s becoming an issue in our home as she’s extremely rude to us and quite frankly mean to her younger siblings. I am at a loss and was coming here to post about this.

Yes, we are one of the PPs from above. No meds at the time. DS was showing no signs of entering puberty too but sometimes their hormones start to change before any outward signs. 10 sounds about right for girls.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our ADHD/ASD DD, almost 10, has very similar behavior that ends ups escalating to aggression when it gets bad. Anxiety and intrusive thoughts/ocd are the root for her, and she is helped by a very low dose of abilify on top of ABA and OT for now. She gets stuck on the most innocuous (to us!) things and ends up in a hypervigilant state where she lashes out when we interrupt her or ask anything of her.

As parents, the Unstuck and On Target online version was helpful in providing some insight and support we can use day-to-day. It's still a struggle though. I would press for a further evaluation for your DS to try to get to the root cause of the behavior. It could be as simple as tweaking his meds, but it's so hard to get into their heads sometimes!

OMG, I’m in the same boat. Same thing as OP and the poster above. My 11 yo DS has ADHD combined, severe and anxiety,OCD. He just started Middle School and anxiety has increased, OCD got worse. Hostility towards me, same comments “I hope you die, I hate you” and lots of cursing. He starts with irritability over nothing (?) and it turns into a meltdown quickly. This is happening now every day after school. Before it was more sporadic. He’s on Concerta and a booster. He also is on a small amount of Zoloft. But it feels we are chasing our tail. I think that the stimulant is increasing his anxiety and the anxiety medication is making his ADHD worse (disinhibition). I mention my thoughts about Zoloft possibly making his adhd symptoms worse to his psychiatrist and he said he didn’t think so. He has mentioned abilify or similar drugs have serious side effects like movement disorders, so he wants to be cautious. However I’d like to be open to it because I can’t see my son go through this. It’s painful. I wish I could speak with you two since we are in so similar situation. Let me know and we could coordinate something.

We are also going through this with 12 yo DS. We increased the Zoloft to appropriate dose for anxiety ahead of school year and it seems to be helping with irritability and meltdowns though they still occur.

[Anonymous]

Just a note that a very very small daily dose of haloperidol has helped my kid. It is not in common use, it’s a very old drug, and we ended up on it after trying several others. It really puts a ceiling on the day-to-day problems… less screaming and volcanic outbursts. It can make u sleepy tho so very very small dose is better.

[Anonymous]

My son is 13 now and we’re just starting by to come out of this. He’s been on focalin since he was 5. He’s also on buspar. The verbal lashing is so hard and the lack of enjoyment is just depressing to watch.

I have no advice. We just powered through. We did end up increasing his buspar but I’m not sure that really made a difference. As his emotional regulation capability matured he’s become significantly less volatile and angry. I put him in some activities he doesn’t mind for some socialization. At 13 he’s now in a gaming social skills group that is helping a lot.