PLEASE Please please can someone help me. I have a five year old daughter with Autism. We have always been against medication and she has been in therapy for three years. Recently her OCD disorder began taking over her little life. Everything was a ritual or obsession. I have always said I would never medicate her to make our lives easier, but now we felt we needed to make her life easier. On 3/28 we began giving her 5mg of Zoloft in the morning. The first six weeks seemed ok, but then things went downhill. My daughter has stopped speaking, she is so hyper and has stopped showing love. These were things that took years to happen. She is showing small improvement in OCD and self injury. We took her to the doctor yesterday with the hope of them telling us how to get her off. The doctor told us to double her dose to 10mg. We did that this morning and our baby was sent home from school today because she could not sit still. I feel like this is not the right medication for her, but have no clue how to get her off it. We tried to lower her dose before yesterday and it went very bad. Please I do not know what to do. This child is my heart and soul. I feel like I am losing her and I cannot let that happen. She is so young and with the Autism I can find nothing. Any advice...
ok, I had a son who had ADHD so I understand your problem. It seems as if the zoloft is NOT helping her and if I were you I would just stop giving it to her cold turkey, or give her the 5 milligrams broken in half for a few weeks and then take her off them completely. Zoloft isn't too hard on you when you stop taking it, but be prepared for her to sleep more probably. As for the doctor...get a new one...and make it a psychiatrist and work on them with the meds. My son took Ritalin and had no bad effects from it and it helped him tremendously, we only gave it to him when school was in session and not over the summer because like you said we gave it to him for him, not to make our life easier, but for him to be able to get decent grades and NOT to have to have a great big cardboard box around his desk ( that happened in the FIRST grade) I was truly beside myself and I'll help as much as I can.
Please find a new Dr. A child psychiatrist may be your best bet. And if that's who your seeing, please seek another opinion. You can tell as her mom this med is not helping her. Everyone reacts differently . Stay strong!
@hopealways
Thank you so much. I am gonna get her off this and take a big break from medication for a while. I want my Autistic, OCD, anxious, perfect girl back. Man, this was not how I saw this going. Hopefully no withdrawl from this stuff.
Thank you guys. I just left a message with the doctor to tell me how to get this child off this medication immediatly. She was already so hyper, but she is just plain insane. She cannot sit still for a second. We have managed to keep her safe for five years and this is the first time I have ever doubted if we could do it. This is not my little girl. We have climbed mountains taking baby steps and now I feel like someone has pushed us off. I wish to God I would have tried the Ridalin or anything else. Just want my baby back.
@autismmom222
My heart is just broken and I feel so so guilty. God I love this girl so fiercely. I wish it was me going through this and not her. I will take OCD over this mess anyway.
Thank you. I am thankful to everyone. I feel better now knowing that I am gonna take her off this. I feel like I have a rough road ahead, but I am ready to get my girl back.
@autismmom222 -I’m glad your feeling better! -keep us posted!!
I hope so too!! :)
From Autism and Learning Disorders to ADHD