Ritalin, tics, tourettes, starting again
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Ritalin, tics, tourettes, starting again
| Wed, 08-16-2006 - 7:50am |
Well, The last few weeks have been a challenge to say the least; then yesterday hit!
| Wed, 08-16-2006 - 7:50am |
Well, The last few weeks have been a challenge to say the least; then yesterday hit!
Wow, Dee. So sorry. You are right where we were at a few years back. It just seemed to spiral out of control, but you do get control back. And you are doing it the same way I did.
I nixed all the doctors that were giving mike meds, I dc'ed all his meds and started from scratch by changing diet, out whole outlook, etc. A big part for me was coming to just accept his was different. I think for years pdocs and such had me convinced if I just found the right med or med mix he would be fine. That he was too high functioning to be really different. When we finally sat down and accepted him as autistic and began to change our lives to adapt around that and how to work with that, things went way way better.
As for tourettes, Aspergers is the 2nd most common cause of tics. Some docs will give a comorbid dx but many will just say it is part of thier AS. Both my kids have numerous tics and if not for thier ASD being thier primary dx they would likely have tourettes dx'es too. There is debate whether or not stimulants make tics worse but stimulants can make stress worse for ASD kids and stress makes tics worse so there ya have it. Plus all the school stress.
The eyes dialated would be a huge concern too. Stimulants give Dave seizures. No one told me that stims could lower the seizure threshold so look out for that. Even partials. Dave's are absence seizures so they weren't picked up right away. Bummer because the stimulants really were wonderful with him!
HUGS!!!!!! and GOOD LUCK!!!!!
When is the team meeting to decide on changing placement? It just sounds like this one is not the right one.
Renee
I am a lurker mostly. DS is 6 and undxed as of yet. We have been through lots of testing and since we homeschool noone seems to want to put on a label. We are waiting for an appointment with a dev ped (probably late Oct) to get a dx. We are exopectig a dx of aspergers. The dev ped offcie seemed surprised by the neuropsychs report that she didn't dx him as such. Anyway a sensory diet, ST, and lots of supervision and help at playdates seems to be helping.
What brought me out of lurkdom is the use of word Tourettes. My DS began facial tics last Nov. For a while drs weren't sure if they were focal seizures or tics but finally decided on tics. Tics are common in kids. My sons' come and go usually 3 weeks on and 3 weeks off. The tixs are always the worse right before they stop. When they are off he is much more pulled together. The tics change. For a while it was just hand and eye tics. Then it was hand and neck and now it is hand and mouth. I was told by 2 ped neurologists that they will not dx tourettes until he had verbal and body tics for 6 months. Both also agreed that the tics could easily disappear and not return at any given time. For him the tics are worse at night when he is tired and if he is stressed. They harldy occur if he is doing something active and are nonexistent during karate.
I wouldnt worry so much yet about that label. It seems inapprorproate that they even brought it up if this was the first sign of tics. Heather
Thanks Renee,
I do feel Mike is Liam a few years along.
Dee,
Sorry everything's gotten so rotten. I just wanted to say that I have a DD that's dx'd both HFA and TS. It's actually pretty rare to get that co-morbid for a few diferent reasons that most people aren't arware of.
With TS the problem is specifically tics, which cannot be mentally controlled at all. They are completely involuntary, as opposed to stims, which are 'almost uncontrolable' in so much as they are an overwhelming need. My DD actually tics in her sleep. Also for TS there must be 'fair representation' of each of the 3 catagories of tics: bodily(2), facial(2), and verbal/vocal(1). My DD has 3 bodily tics, 6 facial tics, and 2 vocal tics. Thankfully she doesn't have any tics that are specifically 'verbal'(no actual words that just suddenly errupt out of her mouth). She does this growl sound (which is acompanied by a facial tic where she pulls her mouth back on one side), and she does this little 'whooping' sound (which is accompanied by tic in which her upper lip pulls back and her eyes sort of go out of control and twitch). She has autistic stims such as handflapping (more of a whole body thing), spinning, rocking/bouncing, drawing in the air, etc, but they are very different from her TS tics.
As far as eyes dialating and vacentness I would say that sounds more like peti-mal siezures to me, which are a semi-common co-morbid to ASDs. My oldest AS DD (now 15yo) had a lot of peti-mal sezures when she was younger. She's on meds now (Valprotate) and we haven't seen one in years. They can be kinda scarey. When you look at your kid while they're having one you suddenly have this bazzar feeling that they are no longer in their body. Very weird. Gave me nightmares for years.
I would say push and find out what's going on. Going organic is definately a good start. My 11yo (the HFA/TS one) is doing a lot better since we went 'mostly' organic several years ago. Removing all those untanural peserviatives and toxins from the system deffinately has an impact, on oh so many things.
Hugs,
~SG_1Niner
Dee,
Ritalin can cause tics, or excerbate existing ones bigtime.
visit my blog at www.onesickmother.com
Thanks all,
The ritalin is all gone, and we were only on a small dose of geodon anyway.
Good luck at the meeting.
Liam is a small Mike. He does that thing with throwing around words he doesn't know. Last year we had a thing with the "F" word at school. Had never used that before. Well he had heard it from another kid and was using it willy-nilly for a couple days. Then I explained that the "F' word was one of the "worst" words for getting in trouble. To which he reponded in horror, "you mean it is worse than the D-A-dash-dash word!?!"
Has never said it since, lol.
I hope you find that he evens out soon. We were the same way. Not anti med but dang, if nothing was working then why am I giving them. Mostly we wanted a baseline to see what the real mike was and found out that the real mike sans meds was better than the mike on meds. Not perfect but better than what was going on so heck, we stuck with it.
Renee
Dee!
OMG! I cannot believe they are still waiting around until Monday and not calling an emergency meeting! Both as a parent of an autistic child-- why are you putting my child through this HELL?!-- and a parent of a very timid nt child-- why are you letting this other child stay in the classroom and scare the heck out of my child--- WHAT are the administrators and other staff doing at this school?!?!? hmmm, it's escalating, he's trying to tell them that this placement is stressing him beyond what he's capable of handling. It doesn't matter that the teacher wants to help him and that she might think she can fix things-- he needs more and better! I'm not sure I'd send him back until something better is in place. I wouldn't want him getting hurt or hurting someone else.
I'm pretty anti-meds when the meds aren't doing anything to help! Giving meds for the heck of it doesn't make much sense to me. I hope you find some answers, even if the answers are like Renee's healthy organic diet. The ladies here are such a good resource for supplements and diet, they've done their homework!
I wish you lots of luck at the meeting!
Betsy
I hear ya!
Liam's been on meds since Jan 05; that's almost a quarter of his little life span.
Well you are quicker than I am. I think I am a bit thick some times. Mike was on meds from 5yo to 9yo. Nearly 1/2 his life before I got the hint it wasn't working. The advice always was, lets try this new medicine. There really wasn't anything else. I even asked the neuro once what else we should be doing for him. She said there was nothing and kept pushing more meds. This was when she wanted to put him on a major old class antipsychotic. That was my biggest frustration and the reason I stopped taking him to medical type docs for his issues until this recent pdoc (who works with natural alternatives).
I hope the rest of the week goes well for you all. What a rotten start to the school year and school experience.
Renee