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[quote=Anonymous]OP my son received a diagnosis of GAD and ADHD as well. Both were severe but, for him, the GAD affected him even more at that time. He had already been in therapy for at least 1.5 years at that point and while it had helped, we were heading toward crisis in anticipation of a big life change. The SSRI was truly life-changing for my child. We are lucky that it never had any side-effects either but it was fast, progressively better, and all extremely positive. He went from being unable to leave the house and having horrible panic attacks to being a regular kid with manageable ups and downs.

I am giving you all these details to make it clear that, not only was the SSRI absolutely logical but extremely effective and I couldn't be more grateful. And STILL, after about two years, we worked with the psychiatrist to wean him off of it. We had always considered the SSRI as a reset. My son had continued going to therapy and, for him, it was increasingly effective because I think he WAS more open to it and also older and more able to rationalize thoughts. Deep down, I was hoping he might be okay without the SSRI, but we framed the weaning as a check to see what his new baseline was.

He is now in college and has never had to go back on an SSRI again. For him, ADHD meds have actually been much trickier. Initially, even on the SSRI, he could not handle them at all. Even at a quarter of a therapeutic dose, they increased his anxiety to the point of panic and would disturb his (already troubled) sleep. When he was much older , he tried again and settled on an as-needed kind of pattern. I think he refills twice a year and uses them for test days basically.

My post is already too long to explain all the other ways we tried to address hyperactivity and anxiety but of course we did HUGE amounts of exercise and outdoor time, moved him to a better school fit, weekly therapy, and got all the good parent-training and so on and so on. Takeaway: even a kid who absolutely had anxiety AND ADHD, went off and stayed off the SSRI. I would encourage him to go on one again if he ever needs it. I feel fortunate that we had so many tools available to us and that they were all so helpful.[/quote]

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