Should we medicate our teen daughter for anxiety

[Anonymous]

OP, I hesitate to post this because I always get nasty comments directed to me online when I suggest diet changes. Standby comments saying I'm a nutjob.

I was on the verge of having to be medicated for anxiety. At the same time I suffered from an IBD (inflammatory bowel disease). I went gluten free to
try to calm my gut.

Amazing after about 8-10 weeks the anxiety was gone. I was not expecting these results. My gut was also healed.

It is worth a try but if you give it a try you need to give it 8 or 10 weeks trial. I also find 400 mg (for a kid I'd go with 100 or 200 mg ) of magnesium glycinate taken in the evening also helps to lower my stress.

Eliminating processed foods (anything with an ingredient list) and eliminating sugar should also help.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Take this with a grain of salt as I have two neurotypical teens.

If your daughter had a physical illness and all your home remedies weren't curing that physical illness, wouldn't your next step be to take her to the doctor and get a medication to alleviate the symptoms/make it better?

Couldn't the same be said of a mental illness such as anxiety? If your daughter was physically sick and no homeopathic treatments were working, it would be common sense to give her medicine. Why the hesitation when treating a mental illness?

Good luck.

Because physical ailments and mental ailments are not the same.
There is not agreement in medical science that psychotropic meds are the best or most appropriate answer for all mental health issues. And it is generally agreed that if one can effectively treat depression symptoms with a shower, a walk outside, or throwing oneself into service acts that benefit others, then you try that first rather than hop into a daily regimine of happy pills or mood stabilizers that numb or stimulate a part of your brain and come with a plethora of moderate to sever side effects.
OP is right to exercise caution.

For years parents were advised to hop on the Ritalin train to get little boys to be calmer and more classroom compliant. It worked.
But there are a large percentage of those kids who are now adukts saying that they didn’t actually experience LIVING as a child. No highs or lows.
Just numbness.
It fixed the problem at hand, but at what cost.

Again, OP is right to be cautious about meds.

I would make sure you exhaust all other avenues of adapting and coping and cognitive behavioral therapy before getting your kid psychologically dependent on a drug to alter her universe.

“Happy pills?” “Hop on the Ritalin train?”
You are profoundly ignorant. You should keep that to yourself in the future.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Find the root cause.

This. With the help of a therapist and/or doctor. And if you start meds, don't just say "all is better now" without finding the root cause or it will upheave her life later on.

The root cause is often the wiring you are born with.

The root cause is genetic but also the daily influx of these kids are exposed to such as:
a world pandemic, Ukraine,/ Russia War, Palestinian / Israeli war, ptsd, social media, friendships, excelling in school, etc

addressing what’s really escalating her anxiety helps tremendously.

Kids growing up around the world during World War II were not medicated for anxiety and/or depression from exposure to news about WWII. Instead they were outside in the sunshine working in family gardens and outside doing metal drives.

They also didn't have television, internet, 24-hour news media, and unfiltered access to news. It was much easier to shield them. Also, when their big brothers and sisters and came home, they got the truth. Then the baby boom happened, and dads became high functioning alcoholics and women were prescribed new miracle pills, aka "mother's little helpers". And then the 60's etc. It was those kids growing up at that time that first starting taking meds for anxiety. Think Thorazine, Lithium, Trofranil.