Medication Challenges

[Guest guest]

I am at disagreement with Janie's psychiatrist about her meds right

now. She currently takes abilify 2.5 mg AM and PM and trazodone 75 mg

at night. The psychiatrist had us try giving her 1.25 mg of seroquel

at bedtime instead of the PM abilify. I gave her ONE dose. At some

time during the night she vomited clear liquid. It took the entire

next day (about 20 hours) and benedryl to get her to quit thrashing

her arms, kicking, basically flailing out against everything, and she

got a pretty bad facial tic again. She was totally out of control and

miserably unhappy. The facial tic is very slowly decreasing and seems

to appear now mainly when Janie is in a stressful situation. The

psychiatrist thinks MAYBE it was just a one time reaction and

something else was going on. She wants me to try it again. There is

no way I will do that to Janie. Prior to trying the seroquel the

psych had mentioned the possibility of trying an SSRI. After meeting

with a group of her peers she decided on the seroquel instead because

of the possibility that the SSRI MIGHT increase Janie's symptoms.

Personally, I would rather take her off the abilify for a little

while since it does not seem to be very effective any more and try

the SSRI. Or try it with the current dosage of abilify. We tried

increasing the abilify and had negative side effects. If the SSRI

doesn't work, we can stop it. No harm done. It just seems to me that

since the seroquel was so awful it would be more harmful to give it

to Janie again than to try a whole different approach. All

thoughts/experiences/suggestions are welcome. Thanks!

P.