How quickly we forget.
As I have been posting and reading over the past few days it has occurred to me, I think we have all missed a key piece in our journey here.
Rye was taking Adderall XR for a brief time before he had the real strange behaviors appear – including seizure-like activity, extreme hyperactivity and agitation, paranoia, and hallucinations. Before these behaviors presented he had, since the age of 6, a diagnosis of ADHD. And although admittedly he had always had a hard time concentrating at school, he had otherwise done fine without medication for years. After the Adderall, however, and after these behaviors showed up, the diagnosis moved to bipolar disorder.
And with that came the start of the atypical antipsychotics.
Now, why this only recently dawned on me, I have no idea. I guess because he really only took the Adderall for two or three months at most. And even then he only took them every so often since he didn’t like the fact that he didn’t eat while taking it and it gave him headaches as well.
Adderall, though, is a stimulant. It is thought to work in part by increasing Dopamine in the brain. Like any medicine it can build up in the system (well, my guess is some people will want to debate this one but I’m holding my ground on this due to the lack of long term use studies on this drug and what I witnessed personally) and consequently, because it is a stimulant, in some people it can cause stimulant psychosis. And Rye had been taking it for more than a few days in a row at the time this all started because he was having end of year state testing for school and needed to be able to concentrate to pass and move on to the next grade (which I realize is completely ridiculous for the 5th grade, or any grade really, but that’s a whole different topic altogether).
So I wonder…could the Adderall be the cause of the symptoms we saw that went beyond the usual ADHD?
The answer might be yes.
It says here that Adderall can induce psychosis in adolescents.
And the FDA says here that Adderall XR can cause new psychotic symptoms, auditory hallucinations, aggression, delusions and thought disorders in children.
So I guess the question then becomes, if the psychotic episode was in fact initiated by the Adderall, is Rye really bipolar?
I don’t know.
Why do psychiatrists say that children/teens that have this reaction to stimulants are bipolar?
I don’t know.
And would this psychosis have ever occurred naturally on its own without stimulant use?
I don’t know.
So, I will keep searching and reading.
2 Comments
Yes, keep thinking drug adverse psychiatric reaction! it’s how my daughter was given OCD dx, “intrusive thoughts” the psych called it when she was given an anti depressant for bed wetting prevention and became “psychotic”. She raged like no other on anti depressants, they loaded her up on TWO more, then changed the dx to bipolar within 2 months she was on the famous Depakote, Zoloft, Zyprexa cocktail, that proved to be horrific in results, catestrophic in life changing ways.
PS– psychiatrists never pay attention to or acknowledge the psychiatric drug adverse reactions, notoriously add a drug to “combat” those reactions, and that’s how kids/adults end up on such a large mix of drugs.
Zyprexa actually has “schizophrenic reaction” and psychosis in the fine print as a side effect, and of course not one doctor yet will acknowledge that.
rxlist dot com is a good one for a quick reference of package insert info with fine print.
Also, I used to ask the pharmacist for the actual package insert (that many parents never are given regarding their kids meds and I bet the kids aren’t given it either
I was shocked at how enormous the Depakote printed sheet was! and my daughter read that at age 17 and was so pissed.