Re: Advice for Self Injury

[Guest guest]

I am so sorry - My son was a fierce head banger from 2-6 yrs old....We tried everything.....and I have no idea what worked or if the head banging just stopped. Try a rubber band on his  wrist and see if you can teach your son to flick the rubber band.

Snug fitting knit cap - asserted some pressured on his forehead. KateOn Sun, Apr 22, 2012 at 7:20 PM, <mrs_lizrussell@...> wrote:

 

My son is 9 years old. He is severely autistic and non-verbal. He is sometimes self injurious but before today it has never been that bad. He would slap his legs until they got red or pinch himself and leave small bruises. Today, with no warning, he picked up his ipad and started hitting himself in the forehead as hard as he could over and over. I held him and tried to calm him down but each time I let him go he tried to hit himself again. He has a large swollen bruise. We went for a long drive to help him calm down and he hasn't hit himself again.

Does anyone have any advice for me? We tried resperidone in the past and he had a bad reaction to it but I will try anything else to keep this from happening again.

Thanks so much. -Liz

-- Kate MyersTravel Desk773.904.8267 V773.698.8184 F

[Guest guest]

Does he have a headache?Elaine

[Guest guest]

Not sure if this would help (and you should definitely check with your doctor to see if it's OK to try it), but we found that when we saw our son starting to get increasingly agitated, if we gave him Advil, the situation would often be totally diffused within 20 minutes. Some may think that could be linked to a possible headache, but I've wondered if it's counteracting some type of brain inflammation.HTH,HeidiFrom: "" <mrs_lizrussell@...>autism Sent: Sunday, April 22, 2012 5:20:35 PMSubject: Advice for Self Injury

My son is 9 years old. He is severely autistic and non-verbal. He is sometimes self injurious but before today it has never been that bad. He would slap his legs until they got red or pinch himself and leave small bruises. Today, with no warning, he picked up his ipad and started hitting himself in the forehead as hard as he could over and over. I held him and tried to calm him down but each time I let him go he tried to hit himself again. He has a large swollen bruise. We went for a long drive to help him calm down and he hasn't hit himself again.

Does anyone have any advice for me? We tried resperidone in the past and he had a bad reaction to it but I will try anything else to keep this from happening again.

Thanks so much. -Liz

[Guest guest]

Our daughter's behavior too would calm down if we gave her motrin. We just assumed it was a headache. Later on she started putting water on her head instead of banging her head and screaming. Now she will say "hurt". Her headaches apparently came from zonegran, a seizure med. When we took her off of it, her headaches have nearly disappeared. She complained the other week about her head but she also had a bad cold.I would try a pain killer of some sort and see it the behavior decreases.Elaine

[Guest guest]

whenever my son has a meltdown I would give him milk of magnesia and two cups of water. I believe it could be the correction of constipation or the calming effect of magnesium. I also make sure he eats frequently and does not become hungry. If he does not drink enough water that is another reason for meltdown so even if he does not ask for it I make sure he drinks 8 or 9 cups of water per day. High pitched voices also seem to agitate him so I try to speak to him in a soft voice. These changes seem to be working ,sofar we haven' t found any drug that could help us.

Savithri Kumar

[Guest guest]

Self-injury is heart-breaking. I know. We've had more than our fair share. My

son mostly does head banging and over time has detached his retina in his right

eye and lost most vision in that eye.

Neurotherapy was very very helpful in reducing SIB. We also implemented a

behavior plan for SIB in our ABA program which was very helpful. Medications

made it worse.

We are not done yet. My son still does SIB about once a month but that's down

from over 30 times per day. But I have big hopes that we're almost there.

If he starts head-banging more. Get his eyes checked frequently.

Jill

>

> My son is 9 years old. He is severely autistic and non-verbal. He is sometimes

self injurious but before today it has never been that bad. He would slap his

legs until they got red or pinch himself and leave small bruises. Today, with no

warning, he picked up his ipad and started hitting himself in the forehead as

hard as he could over and over. I held him and tried to calm him down but each

time I let him go he tried to hit himself again. He has a large swollen bruise.

We went for a long drive to help him calm down and he hasn't hit himself again.

>

> Does anyone have any advice for me? We tried resperidone in the past and he

had a bad reaction to it but I will try anything else to keep this from

happening again.

>

> Thanks so much. -Liz

>

[Guest guest]

Check out this website: http://www.crossroadsinstitute.org/home.html

I don't know if other neurotherapy programs are the same. This specific program

helped my son and they claim they have had really good results with lots of

Autistic kids. My son receives services from their satelite program here in

Anchorage. They also have a distance program too. And I believe they have moved

their main office to California.

Here's what happened. First they do this really long assessment which includes a

QEEG brain mapping. If you know your kid can't handle it, then you can break the

sessions up into smaller chunks of time. My son was pretty aggressive during the

first assessment so we wrapped him tightly in a blanket which helps calm him.

After the assessment results come back, they design an individualized program

for your child. The main part is the neurofeedback using the computer.

Originally they tried to get Kavan to do all these games but he hated it. So

later they tied the neurofeedback to videos.... which worked really well. They

also may have your child do other exercises.

This service is really expensive so I decided to commit to doing one round of

treatment (36 sessions) and then decide if it's worth it. For my son, it's worth

it. But as we know, our tough nuts don't always respond so you'll have to see.

Our first sessions only lasted 15 minutes. Now he can do the entire 80 minute

session with no problems. In fact he loves it now. So far we've done four rounds

but we are getting ready to start another one.

My son is so much more cooperative, fewer mood-swings, more language, calmer,

learns quicker, shows some self-control. But best of all, his internal flips

that turned to aggression all but disapeared. And teaching him tolerance started

working so his meltdowns due to external triggers also dramatically decreased.

His aggression / SIB episodes decreased from over 40 per day to less than 2 per

MONTH! I have big hopes that we will be able to eventually extinguish this

behavior. Oh yeah.... He's really happy now most of the time. I love it. Each

time we do QEEG map prior to a new round of treatment, the

results show that his brain activity is closer to normal than before. I don't

expect him to recover because we didn't start until he was 12 and his brain was

already developed. I just want improvement.

The state paid for his first two rounds but then turned us down based on some

ridiculous reasons. So I went to fair hearing with the state and WON. I had cool

charts that showed how much his SIB had decreased. So now they are paying again

for this service under his Medicaid waiver.

Here's a brief story about my son on another Neurofeedback site.

http://www.centerforbrain.com/conditions/Autism and Aspergers Treatment/Autism and Aspergers Treatmentautism\

\ -case-examples/family-finds-a-normal-life/

You can see the SIB graph that we put together for fair hearing. Click on the

graph to see the whole thing.

I'm trying to find a post where there were more Neurofeedback links but I can't

find it right now.

> >

> > My son is 9 years old. He is severely autistic and non-verbal. He is

sometimes self injurious but before today it has never been that bad. He would

slap his legs until they got red or pinch himself and leave small bruises.

Today, with no warning, he picked up his ipad and started hitting himself in the

forehead as hard as he could over and over. I held him and tried to calm him

down but each time I let him go he tried to hit himself again. He has a large

swollen bruise. We went for a long drive to help him calm down and he hasn't hit

himself again.

> >

> > Does anyone have any advice for me? We tried resperidone in the past and he

had a bad reaction to it but I will try anything else to keep this from

happening again.

> >

> > Thanks so much. -Liz

> >

>