Re: Trilepital/ mood stabilizers?

[Guest guest]

Grace-I made the dx with my child from the Bipolar questionnaire for

children that is in Dimitri Papolos's book or you can get it online.Children

with BP can be oppositional, obsessive, mood swings-there are actually 80

different symptoms-some of them far fetched. We answered " yes " to 78 out of

the 80. The strongest evidence seems to be trying an antipsychotic for

ODD-if it works really well, the child's possibility of BP is strong. Also,

if alchholism or BP runs in the family. My daughter never had raging or

manic stages until the last year. And, SSri's are noted to irritate BP. I

believe it is also correct that OCDers don't have suicidal thoughts but I'm

not sure. Don't know what the homestudy rules are everywhere but in PA there

is homebound where a tutor comes 5 hrs/week. You can't take tests without a

teacher present. Some kids might go into school for tests. Also, check it

out because we were told made up work had to be done within two weeks after

the quarter ended but I'm going to recheck that out because we had a case of

a car injury at our school and there was no way she was still in the hosp. 2

wks after the quarter ended. We had to change my daughter's whole schedule

to easy classes since she had missed so much and way too overwhelmed. Good

luck to you but it does sound very much like BP to me-what you describe.

Ellen

[Guest guest]

Hi Ellen, I wonder what symptoms contributed to a bi-polar diagnosis

for your daughter? I am wondering if a mood stabilizer would help my

daughter, though she does not have a bipolar diagnosis.

I will ask the p-doc about mood stabilizers, b/c it looks like ssri's

will not work for my daughter. This is based in part on my brother,

who seems so similar to - he also cannot use ssri's, but ended

up with an MAOI(nardil) and he also uses tegretol. His diagnosis is

GAD with social phobia. I don't know what the tegretol is for, then,

since I thought mood stabilizers were for bipolar.

tried lexapro and it was too agitating/activating, but she does

not have bipolar- never has had manic episiodes, or prolonged rages,

or days of sleeplessness (in fact generally wants to sleep too much)

but does have spells of heightened creativity (will draw and write

for entire days if time permits).

Currently her diagnosis is generalized anxiety disorder and she is

trying buspar which makes her dizzy, sleepy, and nauseous for a time

after she takes it, so she is not able to go to school while trying

it out. I'm wondering how long we should stick out bad side effects

and what meds will work if ssri's don't work, and if buspar, which is

supposed to be a pretty good med in terms of few side effects, is

making her sick. It took my brother 15 years to settle on a meds

combination that works! He'd rather deal with the dietary

restrictions (no pizza, no cheese!)on nardil, than try any more

ssri's.

has varied symptoms that could fit into several diagnostic

categories, but are not " full blown " for any of those diagnoses, if

that makes sense- some grooming ocd that seems to enter the realm of

BDD, some specific phobias, some mild to sometimes more severe skin

picking, some social anxiety, some elevated to very irritable moods,

but not manic according to the p-doc, and more recently depression

that has been verging on thoughts of self harming to suicidal.

I guess the idea is to medicate for the anxiety and see if it

resolves some of the depression. It is hard to tell if there is a

mood disorder, or if her changeableness is a result of the anxiety

and inability to cope or feel good.

She is in much better spirits out of school currently, b/c I guess

that relieves alot of her anxiety, so I am seeing someone who can be

helpful around the house, attentive to her siblings, conversational

etc, which I have not seen in a long time since getting through

school each day is such an ordeal and zaps all her energy and coping.

Has anyone tried temporary home-study in highschool? We are trying

to set up an arrangement of e-mailing with the teachers and her

catching up on assignments at home (she currently has no final 3rd

quarter grades, which are due, b/c she missed most of the last 3

weeks). I hope this works, and she will cooperate, do the work at

home, and get back to school once she feels better. In highschool

missing a quarter or more is more of a problem- the teachers cannot

just write off missed assignments or submit grades for only half the

work, b/c there are graduation credits to fullfill.

The last day she attended school she had a meltdown upon returning

home and it precipitated a deep depression. So it seems until her

anxiety is reduced we'd be having the same scenario if she returns.

I'd prefer her to be in school even though her teachers (private

school) are open to her doing school at home and submitting her work

weekly or so, b/c with her tendency to social anxiety, I think

staying home could feed into greater social anxiety.

Plus I'd hate to see her lose contact with her 3 good friends at

school, and she is not motivated to see then outside of school, feels

she is not " deserving " of their friendship when she is not attending

school. I would like her to see then while not in school, but not

sure how to set it up.

's OCD seems actually to be the easiest to treat symptom, but

getting a handle on OCD does not seem to have solved her other

symptoms.

Guess my question is with these varied symptoms, and ssri's not

working, might a mood stabilizer be another consideration.

nancy grace

> My child is Bipolar but her OCD symptoms are also severe. The

SSRI's

> irritated her BP and we went on Trileptal as mood stabilizer and

the pdoc

> could not believe it-the OCD symptoms practically disappeared!

Don't know if

> this would work for everyone but worth a try for us-it can't hurt-

there are

> no side effects that we found. ellen

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