Reply to New psychiatrist recommending Lamictal for 9 year old

Forum Index » Kids With Special Needs and Disabilities

Reply to "New psychiatrist recommending Lamictal for 9 year old"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]You said it yourself. You think your child's issues are serious, but not extreme.  I would find another psychiatrist who was willing to work with you within this framework, including a period where he is weaned from all drugs for a time so you can get a better baseline.  Obviously you'll need a lot of support to monitor and support his behavior during this time.  [/quote]

Also, another thought that might clarify your thinking/values.  When it comes to your own health, how do you measure the risks and benefits of medications?  I know for me, I am HIGHLY unlikely to take a medication if the risk profile seems to outweigh the benefits, or if I have serious side effects.  I'm not anti-medication (at all) but I just prefer to try to max out all the other possible approaches unless what I'm dealing with is fairly acute.  So for example, I have taken Prednisone when it was really important to avoid permanent nerve damage; I take beta blockers for periodic anxiety; but I have (so far) avoided SSRIs because I've found that therapy works for me; and despite suffering from chronic insomnia, I don't take Ambien because I had a bad reaction to it, and Benadryl just makes me feel awful the next day  - instead I found a CBT approach that really worked for me.

Adding all this up means that for my child, I try to avoid medications unless truly indicated.  That means that I have done a "wait and see" approach to treat ear infections and non-symptomatic strep (I fill the script but wait 24 hours to see how the symptoms go); sought out an asthma doc that would support intermittent steroids for asthma provoked by colds; but you better believe I'm the first in line at Children's when something serious happens and my kid needs meds for croup or whatever.

I just feel like for myself (my own body), if it was possible that psychiatric drugs were making me really cranky, reactive, or otherwise feel really bad, I'd probably try a different approach or a break from meds.  But that's predicated on the underlying condition not being truly awful or life and death.  [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics