6 year olds don't need Psychotropic Medications

...unfortunately,  this isn't a fairytale and some 6 yr olds do.

I believe the Celexa is finally out of her system now (after going off it cold turkey 7 days ago) and we can clearly see the difference between her with and without it.  Neither one is very pleasant.

Without the Celexa:  We have "Black Cloud" girl.  She is very dark and moody.  Extremely irritable.  Anyone who looks at her is sure to get screamed at.  The entire family walks on eggshells around her so as not to set her off almost as if she is a ticking time bomb.  Frequent, severe rages and very impulsive.

With the Celexa:  We have "Crazy Hyper" girl.  Bouncing from one wall to the next.  Cannot sit still.  Racing thoughts; cannot stop talking.  Cannot sleep.  She definitely seems happier, but it's way over the top!!  The Psychiatrist (Pdoc) thinks this was actually signs of Mania or Hypomania, thus why she had us take her off of it immediately. Kit will likely have a Bipolar dx in the future like her birthmom- though we're not ready to go there just yet.

Now that we have "Black Cloud" girl back, I am even more convinced that no amount of good parenting or special classes are going to help our child.  I'm starting to really feel like we're doing the right thing.  I mean, if your child has Asthma you wouldn't hesitate to treat them with medication right!?  My child has a mental illness (and likely FASD) and if she requires medications to help her function then who am I to deny that? 

*SIGH*...  why am I still battling such an internal war with myself about it!?!?

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.