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[Guest guest]

Hi everyone ... I am a newbie here. My therapist suggested I start taking 10g Celexa 3yrs ago when I was morbidly obese and about to undergo the gastric bypass surgery. I stayed on Celexa after surgery since my hormones were out of whack while losing 100 lbs. Then I got laid off last year and went into a spiral depression .... my Celexa was increased to 20g. I feel great now and have started seeing a nutritionist. She is suggesting I wean myself off Celexa and use natural herbs (St. 's Wort) instead. Has anyone had luck doing this?

Thanks,

Lauri in Atlanta

[Guest guest]

Lauri,

Welcome. The best thing you can do is go through the files here and

check what is there. Also, peruse the stories in the messages. I think

you will find a common theme of those who go too fast seem to be the

ones who suffer the most, myself included. 5-10% cuts at the most and

wait until you stabilize before cutting again. As for the St. 's

Wort, that has antidepressant properties in it and although they are

natural your brain has a great deal of healing it needs to do. I

wouldn't go near it. I would focus on getting on a protocol and dealing

with it through nutrition and homeopathy. SO go through this stuff and

either start the basic healing protocol or wait for to get

back in a week and set up a consult with her. I really don't think

St.'s Wort is what you need. Remember that although things are

natural you still need to be very careful about what you take. Welcome

again and God bless,

Casey

[Guest guest]

Hm. I meant to say:

My Squidoo Lens: http://www.squidoo.com/autisticspectrum/

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[Guest guest]

,

I hope you can find something that works for your daughter. How

horrible to be depressed at that age (I know, because I was...) and

to always be told that you are somehow wrong or bad for being

different. At least she does have you on here side, even if

you " don't count because you're mom. " That is INVALUABLE. I hope you

realize that. My mom was on the side of trying to make me fit in so I

wouldn't be an embarassment to her.

Shea, you do sound lucky to me! I took the faces test, the one where

you have 4 choices. I got almost every single one right, which means

2 things. One, that I am RIGHT when I see people looking at me

disdainfully, skeptically, sneering, dismmissive etc. and TWO, I have

no idea what to do with that info or what I did to make them feel so

snotty and above me and disparaging. Ouch. That hurts. Growing up in

a family where the watchword was " What will the neighbors think? " I

realize I really cared, for most of my life, what people thought, but

it didn't matter as I was still getting it all wrong, whatever it

was, that they wanted. All that started to change on 6/06/06 (isn't

that a cool number!?) which was when I self-dxd as an Aspie.

, what will you do with your daughter if you do have to remove

here from school? Can you homeschool? I live in a rural area and was

planning to homeschool. I would say I've met children on different

places in the autism spectrum while meeting homeschooling parents.

Many schools just fail the children horribly. I can't homeschool now

because of finances and also because in my area there is not enough

infrastructure. My child is a social animal and needs other kids.

Although the past 2 days when we have gone to the park he has picked

kids starting at 4 years older than him on up. He was hanging with

some skateboarding teenagers! They thought he was funny and let him

tag along. He's 3.5. Today he hung out with the lifeguards at the

pool. When I was a kid I was afraid of the lifeguards. Still am... so

I let him go hang with the lifeguards and kept to myself. (I was only

15 feet away just in case but I kind of ignored them).

Does you daughter NEED to be on drugs? Do you think they help her?

You and she could perhaps talk about it. No one can FORCE you to be

on drugs, right? (Is that right these days?) The suicidal ideation is

a bit scary. Many teenagers, including girls, do have suicidal

ideation that comes to nothing. I ended up having some self-injury

problems. I can still do some head banging... which I posted about

her recently... it has gone away once I started stimming again, which

I seem to have forgotten how to do, or had trained out of me. I would

say watch out for her being coerced into doing or not doing things

that are not natural for her. For me, I will say stimming seems to be

saving my life, literally. But that's just me. Anyway, it is a good

thing to keep on top of, talking with her, etc. I think someone else

already posted the names of some sites she could join to talk with

people her age...

I am concerned about my son also. I think he is very NT, but also he

is very " different. " Can one be NT and " different " at the same time?

He was rejected from one preschool program before we even got signed

p (we did a 7-week intro program), and now think we have found a

private one that seems good. But the second he gets a wrong diagnosis

and drug suggestions, we are out of there. (If he was older than 3 I

would at least listen, but as an active 3.5 year old, diagnoses of

ADHD etc. just seem plain WRONG. He's just a busy intelligent kid).

When I was in college I made up independent studies, did extra book

reports, wrote papers that were 20 pages instead of the required ten.

One professor said " Every word had better count! " as he did not want

twice the reading. I told him not to worry... I got an A and extra

work assigned, which I loved! No one else was assigned extra work. I

think perhaps he realized he had better keep me busy or I might

become a pain (like pointing out inconsistencies in his theories in

class!... I knew better than that, I always waited until class was

over!) People who say we are doing " research " in a belittling way, as

I rather thought the recent NPR radio program did, do not understand

research!

Rhonda