Dr. Goldberg and SSRI's

[Guest guest]

Toni,

I don’t know about other kids who are patients of Dr.

Goldberg who take SSRI’s. I only know about mine. Eventually

I think he puts most kids on an SSRI. However, I realized some time ago

when I started trying to help my son that no one can make me do anything I

don’t agree with.

Even though Dr. G has helped my son tremendously, we have

had many arguments over the years he has been my son’s doctor. One

day when we still lived in Minnesota, my daughter came home from school and

heard me screaming at someone on the phone. She came running up the

stairs because she never heard me talk to anyone like that and asked who I was

talking to. I told her Dr. Goldberg and then she understood. I

don’t always follow everything Dr. Goldberg says and we all have to

decide for ourselves what is best for our kids. I am grateful to him for

what he has done for my child but it is a bit of a love/hate

relationship. He definitely is the best medically. However, he

thinks he knows the behavioral and educational, even though he doesn’t.

So we used to argue over that too. Things got easier when I stopped

telling him about things I knew he wouldn’t agree with.

was doing great and I was

starting to feel hopeful about his future. That’s when Dr. G threw

a wrench in the works. When Dr. Goldberg first suggested putting

on a small dose of Prozac (a Selective Serotonin Reuptake

Inhibitor --SSRI) I promptly told him that we would

not give those kinds of drugs. I was mad and let him

know those were fighting words. That’s when Dr. G calmly (very

unlike him) asked me if my child had diabetes, would I hesitate to give him

insulin? Dr. G explained that the Prozac was an extremely low dose

prescribed not to control behavior but because it is an immune modulator and

would improve blood flow to the affected area of ’s

brain. I left his office not sure if we were going to try the

Prozac but eventually decided to try it for a short time after I realized I

could stop it anytime I wanted to.

Almost immediately after we started

the SSRI, ’s teachers reported tremendous changes. I

hadn’t told them about our visit to Dr. G. The normal behaviors

observed at home started to occur at school. I got very positive

reports. But it was not until I was the class helper did I realize how

much “more normal” was at school. The change was

incredible! He initiated and sustained various social encounters. I

nearly cried when he spontaneously said “Hi” to the librarian as he

passed her in the hall.

I too was concerned about the long term effects of the

medications and SSRI’s. But our kids are really sick and need to

take medications to get better. Dr. Goldberg requires blood tests every

six weeks and monitors our kids very closely. This is so he will catch

any problems from medications before they can do any damage. In sixteen years

we never had an irregular blood test that showed complications from

medications.

Hope this helps,

Marcia Hinds

P.S. Please email me privately if you need more info

about the NIDS treatment and I will forward it.