A bit of Jake's background for all of you...Re: Colleen

[Guest guest]

Okay, let me give you all a bit of background. When Jake was 3.5

years old, he had a severe cough and cold. The pediatrician

recommended an OTC med., which we gave to him. This was the night

before Easter. Before long after taking the med., Jake began to

hallucinate. I called the ped., who told me to take him to

Children's. I did. They took blood and after finding that I did

indeed give him the correct dose of the med., the answer to the

hallucinating was that Jake had an adverse reaction to the

decongestant. It was decided then that we had to be very careful

with medication. So, Jake was not given anything other than

Benadryl, Tylenol/Advil, and antibiotics. Jake's pediatrician said

that Jake was very medication sensitive.

Fast forward to Jake at age 9. Jake was suffering from anxiety. He

has had GAD for many years. However, last year things got to be a

bit harder for him in school, and as a result, he would cry and

almost refuse to go. His therapist told us that she thought it was

time to try a medication to ease his anxiety. We spoke to his ped.,

and with many reservations, we agreed to put him on Celexa.

Please remember that the anxiety about school was the only issue we

were dealing with at that time.

Three days into the medication, Jake started to have problems. He

began to be bothered by the voice in his head. The thoughts started

as sexual thoughts and quickly went to that and the

thoughts " telling " him he wanted to harm himself/others. Not having

a clue what this was all about and where it came from, I panicked.

We called the ped. and the therapist. The ped. told us to stop the

medication immediately. He more or less let us know that the med.

and Jake's hyper-sensitivity to meds. was not a good mix for Jake.

Within a week, Jake was admitted to an outpatient partial

hospitalization intensive treatment program for kids with OCD. This

is run through Western Psych. hospital. We met weekly with a

therapist and the psychiatrist, who agreed with us that medication

was probably not the best route for Jake at that time. They did

strongly suggest that alternatives to medication would be work

researching. As a result, we started the Omega 3. (We tried

Inositol, but a few days after starting that, Jake had horrible OCD

thoughts. We stopped the Inositol.) Jake was in the progrom form

the end of January through mid-May.

The voice/thoughts were much worse last year than they are at this

point in time. I am aware that the OCD will wax and wane, so things

may get worse. His current therapist contacted another therapist

from the IOP, who informed us that Jake is welcome to return to the

program if it becomes necessary.

The program helped him immensely last year. Currently, the

thoughts/voice is not a problem while Jake is in school. Jake is

not avoiding me. He is still smiling and doing all the things he

did before the thoughts bothered him. He is functioning. He tells

me about the voice/thoughts, and also tells me that he is in control.

I would not hesitate FOR ONE SECOND doing all that I can to help my

son. If the therapist told me that Jake needed medication, then we

would go that route for Jake. Considering that the therapists agree

that Jake can do this with talk therapy/ERP/CBT alone RIGHT NOW, we

feel that we need to have faith in in that.

To be honest with you, I get he feeling that I am being judged

here. That isn't why I joined this group.

>

> Hi Colleen,

> Does your ds have the " bad thoughts " frequently? Is he able to

function? I think the question here is his ability to function at

school , home and in the community, as well as the content of the

thoughts.

> My dd was diagnosed with intrusive thoughts.like vomitting and " if

she didn't kiss the chair, she would be choked " etc, etc, horrible,

but she could function because it was not constant, and it was

manageable.

> My ds on the other hand had unbelievable horrific thoughts about

seeing burning bodies and eyes coming out of heads, thoughts of

poking himself in the eyes with a fork , etc, etc,. These types of

horrific thoughts must be treated.!! These cannot be helped with

therapy alone!! I hate giving my child meds. but you have to

consider the child's quality of life. These meds can give the child

back their life. You have to weigh it out. Do you want your child

living with the thought of killing you and not being on meds, or put

the child on meds and have him thinking normally?

> Hugs

> Judy

>

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