Changing Sam's Medications

With the new move comes a new doctor for Sam. Personally I'm happy about him having a new doctor - his old one never listened to me about Sam's medications, and he never talked to Sam either, although he insisted Sam be present at all the appointments. It was ridiculous, and his old doctor refused to give me a referral to a new doctor too, leaving Sam without a doctor for the whole summer while I tried to find a new one.

I finally contacted the pediatric neuropathologist Sam saw last year to see if she had any recommendations. She did and gave us the necessary referral to see the new doc. Sam's appointment was last Friday, and she agreed with my concerns about his medications.

See, Sam was on Risperdal, which is a powerful anti-psychotic medication that is also used as a mood stabilizer for children with ASD. But the side effects are horrible. The drug causes weight gain because the body can't feel that "full" feeling. Sam would eat until he made himself physically sick. I know this because it happened a couple times until I realized what was going on. 

He was only 7 years old when he started taking the med and he ballooned from 80 pounds to 100 pounds in just a few months. He's still at 100 pounds almost a year later, so he hasn't gained anything since then, but he also can't lose any weight either. This has affected him emotionally and socially as well as physically, because kids are picking on him and calling him fat. He's already got strikes against him socially - last thing he needs is to be teased about his appearance. He's such a beautiful boy!

So the new doctor took him off Risperdal and is planning to change up his other meds, possibly putting him on one medication which will replace the three he was taking. But... Sam's not handling things very well since we took him off the Risperdal. 

It's been almost two weeks, and he's already overly emotional about everything. Today the school called to tell me that he was having a bad day. He wasn't physically aggressive to anyone (which had been a real problem lately at home) but he was just emotional - crying, easily frustrated, upset and angry. 

I don't think it's withdrawal from the Risperdal because these were the things I was seeing in him before he went on it last September. So... I placed a call to his doctor, who was out of town today for a conference. Her nurse said she'd be back on Monday and would get in touch with me then. 

I don't like seeing my boy like this, but I don't want him back on Risperdal either. It's hard to know what to do... 

Unsolicited Parenting Advice

You'd think I'd be used to this by now. Almost every parent who has a child with autism, Asperger's Syndrome, or any number of autism-spectrum disorders deals with this regularly. Some people have this compulsion to give unsolicited parenting advice - and quite frankly, it pisses me off.

Here's what happened today. Someone freaked out because Sam had two doughnuts. I didn't care that he had two doughnuts. He's on a medication that doesn't allow his body to feel "full". Weight gain is a common side effect for Risperdal - Sam has gained 20 pounds since he started taking it in September. I know Sam is overweight. But... it's not like he eats two doughnuts every day. 

This man - who, by the way, doesn't even have children, much less a special needs child - told me that I needed to "curb" this behavior and not let him eat so much or he would grow up to be obese. He was really freaking out that Sam had two doughnuts! It's a really good thing there were other kids around, otherwise I would have told him exactly where he could stick that bit of parenting "advice".

How do you handle the unsolicited parenting advice? Today was a bit extreme - for the most part, the unsolicited parenting advice I've gotten was definitely more gentle. I usually smile and nod and tell them we've tried that already, because chances are we have. We've tried everything!

I ended up just ignoring this man, but if he ever opens his mouth again to tell me how to raise my son, I will say something. Rawr!