New Here with Unofficial diagnosis

Avatar for stephsmom98
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-28-2003
New Here with Unofficial diagnosis
5
Wed, 01-25-2006 - 11:53pm

Hi ladies. I have been lurking here for several months and see great support and am finding lots of information. I suspected that my only daughter, Stephanie (age 7 1/2) has Asperger's and possibly ADD with anxieties and fears as well. She also has epilepsy which started at age 5 and she is taking two medicines, three times a day for it.

Her neurologist suggested she see a psychologist and child pyschiatrist as well for percular behaviors she was displaying and the fact that we told her that Stephanie keeps talking about pain in the vaginal area, but after having numerous tests done incluing an MRI, that there is no physical basis for the pain. Is she making it up somehow or is her mind making it up? She holds her vaginal area quite a bit and dances around alot. It is interesting what you all said about urinating and accidents. Although she doesn't have accidents during the day, maybe a few years back, she was. It seems like her mind was telling her she had to pee, but not until it was almost too late. She urinates in bed most nights, but doc said that just could be a weak bladder. The thing was she used to control it better and we thought she had a handle on it, but when the epilepsy started, she wetted her bed a lot and is still doing it. Now she is homeschooled and I tell her to go to the bathroom for the most part, but sometimes she tells me she has to go. But she had a period some time back that when we would go somewhere, she got nervous and fearful and the first thing she asked was, "is there a bathroom there." She does that more with DH than me as he is sterner than I am and has less tolerance for those things. He says she can hold it.

She also has many fears and anxieties that come and go depending on how she feels. She says she fears the baseboard heaters at times and the ironing board. She seems to be obsessed with colors and all her senteinces contain a rainbow of color words and she sorts everything by colors. She talks loud, moves fast and isn't careful at most things. Like she rushes when she colors and cuts things out and rarely takes her time on anything, including her lessons at school and her handwriting is pretty sloppy. Many times I have to tell her over and over again before she gets it. She seems to forget things you tell her and makes the same mistakes, yet she seems very intelligent. Her motor skills are below par I feel. She doesn't cut well at all and she can't tie her shoestrings.

As far as fears go, I should have know there was some type of problem at age 3 when she was terrified of her window. She went to the far cornor of her bed and sat up and wouldn't allow herself to fall asleep for fear of the window. After a few days she got better at it and fell asleep, but was still afraid of the window. She is not afraid of that anymore thank God. But I wonder if that was the start of something going on that she has today.

We are waiting to get in to see a child pyschiatrist for they are expensive and the office is working on taking our insurance. We just saw a new pediatrician yesterday who suggested she has Asperger's and possibly ADD with fears and anxieties and he did say symptoms of other things overlap. But he said he isn't the expert, but it looks like that is what her problems are. He also suggested we contact the school district to ask for therapy for Asperger's.

Sorry this is so long and I hope I make sense because I am writing this around midnight LOL.

I hope to get to know more from you ladies and am looking forward to meeting you all for support and friendship.

Debbi

Debbie, Mom to my "only" Stephanie
iVillage Member
Registered: 08-26-2005
Thu, 01-26-2006 - 1:38pm
Hi debbi,
Welcome to the board. It's hard when you still don't have a diagnosis because you don't know what your dealing with. My ds(almost 3) was diagnosed with PDD last year and my dd has sensory problems and we are waiting to see if there are anymore problems with her because she is only 19 months and it's just too early to tell yet.Have you ever thought about having an OT see if she has sensory issues because she sounds like she's craving movement. Do your heaters make noise? Or have you warned her not to touch either the iron or heater because they are hot?
My ds and dd have shown an early interest in numbers,shapes and colours. My ds knew all of them by the time he was 20 months.Now he is mostly obsessed with trains and alot of his conversations are based around trains.Lots of kids on the spectrum have motor problems. My son has low muscle tone and motor planning problems. He is getting better but was just recently tested and is over a year behind in gross motor skills and I assume about the same in fine motor. He holds a pensil with his whole hand rather than with his thumb and index finger. He has trouble using both sides of his body together.I think contacting the school district is a good idea. Have any of her teachers ever had conserns about her?
Keep us updated,
Teresa
Avatar for stephsmom98
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-28-2003
Thu, 01-26-2006 - 4:36pm

Hi Teresa:

Thanks for the welcome and info on your situation and for your help.

It is funny because one of the first things Stephanie learned were her colors and now she is obsessed with them.

I can Stephanie being behind in all motor skills, even though friends have said that all kids just grow at their own rates. I myself didn't learn to tie my shoe until I was 8.

I am sure the psychiatrist will check her for different things. We homeschool, but teachers at church didn't show any concern and said she seemed to be normal except that she talks fast at times. I helped with her three year old class at church and at that age, she showed no interest in playing with the ther children. I am glad for now she is homeschooled because she seems to regress on things and forgets what we just learned last year. Other things she is normal at. But she gets confused in large settings and when there is lots of noise around. She doesn't want to go to dance class anymore, saying it hurts in her vaginal area. Looking at it now and after reading many posts on this board, I can see that maybe the loudness and confusion of her dance class could have caused her stress. The class was held at a community center in the open gym with four classes going on all at once and the parents up on stage. They played appropriate music for each group and the stereo was right by her group. I am sure all the noise and the others there caused her confusion. Despite it all, she did get the routines down, but after a lot of practice with her at home.

It is an eye opener reading the posts as I can see why she does the things she does now. She'll be seeing the pyschiatrist on Feb. 21 and we will go from there.

Thanks, I will keep you guys updated and I look forward to hearing from you and others.

Debbie

Debbie, Mom to my "only" Stephanie
Avatar for googolplex
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-31-2003
Thu, 01-26-2006 - 8:49pm

Debbi,

Welcome. Stephanie sounds like a wonderful little girl who could use a good psychiatrist. The best thing you can do is to be as thorough as possible in describing her to the doctor. Tell the pdoc about the window incident, for example. There's no such thing as too much information when you are trying to get treatment for your child.

Best of luck.

Evelyn,

Avatar for stephsmom98
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-28-2003
Thu, 01-26-2006 - 10:31pm

Thank you Evelyn for the welcome and help; I really appreciate it.

We see the doc on February 21st and to be honest, I am a bit nervous, yet we want the best help for her.

Thanks so much.

Debbie

Debbie, Mom to my "only" Stephanie
iVillage Member
Registered: 01-04-2006
Fri, 01-27-2006 - 3:28am

Dear Debbi,

Although I hate to bring this up, if your daughter has told you repeatedly that she has vaginal pain, she probably does, even if the cause doesn't show up on an MRI and there is no obvious visible trauma. Unfortunately, what leaps to my mind is that she might have been molested at some point. I'm not trying to upset you and I hope this isn't the case, but it is worth sounding her out about the topic in a gentle way.

Also, if she is on seizure meds, that explains the bed-wetting. I had childhood epilepsy, and the meds make one sleep extremely deeply. Your daughter is probably sleeping too deeply to awaken when she needs to go to the bathroom.

Your daughter sounds like a sweetie. I hope you find the answers to some of what's bothering her.

--Lisa