Medication struggles

We started Kit on Intuniv first.  The Psychiatrist (Pdoc) thought was that perhaps if we can help her to control her impulses, then she may have less mood swings and rages.  (Because she feels more control over herself) Frankly it kind of made sense to us. Knowing that Intuniv is one of the mildest medications of that kind,with very few side effects gave us satisfaction that it couldn't hurt to at least try.  We did and it seemed to help.  Some.  We decided to go ahead and continue it.

Unfortunately, it did not help her to be able to better control herself and so at our last appointment we talked in depth about the risks of giving a mood controlling medication to someone with a family history of bipolar.  For some reason, that class of medication can actually trigger Mania and cause them to be much worse.  We decided to proceed with caution.  Our reasons?

1.  It's summer and this would not interfere with school in any way.  We can fully monitor her in the comforts of our home.

2.  This will give us a big clue as to which direction her treatment should go. It's still not clear whether her behaviors are due to a Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder *or* whether she is showing signs of early Bipolar Disorder.

We started her on a VERY low dose of Celexa.  (1/4 of the lowest prescribed dose)  I was comfortable with that.  Within days she seemed to be doing so much better.  We had almost a week of the wonderful, sweet side of Kit that is rarely seen.  It was awesome.  And then, it seemed to taper off.  So we increased the dose and it was as if someone flipped the switch.  She was bouncing off the walls as if she had consumed an entire can of Mt. Dew!!  She had racing thoughts, raw emotions and all but stopped sleeping.  All signs of Mania. My husband and waited and watched for signs of improvement for several more days before throwing up the white flag in defeat.  I called the Pdoc who instructed us to immediately stop the medication.  She said because Kit was already on such a low dose we didn't need to taper off.  At this very moment I am SERIOUSLY concerned that we should have anyway because things are even worse.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed that she will come down soon.

It's so scary to see her so out of control of herself.  I so badly need someone to talk to, it seems like there is no one that understands what we are going through.