http://www.bpkids.org/site/PageServer/PageServer?pagename=fd_pr_jan08
CABF, I think you do some good work but I’m concerned about your response.
You state:
Jacob’s family and doctors stand by his diagnosis of bipolar disorder 14 years after the initial diagnosis and his parents feel he is doing well. While Jacob experiences an unfortunate side of effect of his medication, he is alive, living at home, and enjoying his best year yet instead of being incarcerated in juvenile detention — an all too common outcome for many untreated kids.
This is heartbreaking for me to read. Jacob has tardive dyskinesia and he is still a minor child. He is permanently damaged and disabled from the medications he took as a child and continues to take. He is so mentally distant in his interviews it is concerning. Fortunately, now that Jacob is getting older and can participate in his own treatment, he seeking alternative treatments and working hard to get off of at least some of the medications. And you think his only alternative to being medicated was to be in jail? It seems irresponsible to tell people that.
My son was originally diagnosed as bipolar at 6 years old after a bad reaction to Adderall. After a short stay in a psychiatric hospital (and only short because I fought like heck to get him out and he was released AMA), doctors tried to convince me that he too had a “debilitating illness” and must be medicated to make it through life. I didn’t listen. It all just sounded wrong. He is 12 now and did not have one more unmanageable symptom until we tried Adderall again. And that too has now been corrected.
Is he bipolar? According to his psychiatrist, yes. He meets the criteria according to the DSM-IV. Did he need to be medicated this whole time? No.
And he’s not in jail and he has not committed suicide. In fact, he has very high self esteem, tons of friends, and behaves no worse than any other 12 year old boy at school. And, many of his teachers describe him as being mature for his age.
Now, we’ll see what the future brings. He may need medication at some point. And if he does, he will get it.
But I’d hate to see what he would look like now if we had believed his original doctors and bought into the scare tactics and medicated a very young, growng child all along.
He too may have been permanently disabled.
4 Comments
“What people need to really hear that was said in that program, is that anti depressants were dropped in use by doctors via the blackbox warnings, and atypicals were replaced for use. This is what is happening now, with the use of Risperdal, Abilify, etc.
“The 2 boys shown in the program are quite alarming, one has permanent head and neck movements, which in my opinion look like a side effect from the Risperdal, and it’s being called simply a tic.
“The young boy who sees Dr. Bacon has me the most alarmed, and I want to emphasize that one needs to watch the program and watch the doctor react to the mother/parents questioning of the medications their boy is taking after they watched the Rebecca Riley 60 minutes show. This doctor waved away any idea of therapy, due to him “not being able to get anything from it due to symptoms”, and said the boy is 99% treatable with meds only.
“When that mom described the child’s morning anxiety getting to school, the doctor said they could “get through the morning” or he could give him Xanax. Basically they left with an increase of other meds he was on, and defeated the purpose of the parents concern. When the doctor handed the mom a Trileptal rx, all he told them was to watch for nausea and sleeping all day.
“This is what happens in these appointments. The parents are basically trusting a doctor, and if you pay close attention to Dr.Bacon, you will see how it’s meds on top of meds and more meds.
“I could see the mother’s hesistant look on her face when she questioned the meds, and was glad to hear her decline the Xanax. When a person like her is in a doctor’s office [and I mean this nicely]the doctor rules the roost. She clearly is learning from her gut instinct and I have a feeling she will get a little more pushy now.
“The fact that Dr. Joseph Biederman refuses all media interviews is an example of an evil axis, at work, and I feel the program exposed quite much about how we got into that evil pit.
“Dr. Carlat had one snippet that said, “You don’t know who to trust.”, and I believe he has that right, especially since he is in the process of repaying his “debt to society” for selling Effexor via speaking engagements, and now he’s doing “counter” talks for free.
“What is alarming and what made me the most upset, due to being a parent who sat in doc offices from 1999 until present, was that the same ease of rx is being dosed out, TODAY, and to younger children, and now more and more anti psychotics are being used, it is an alarming situation.
“The reporter questioned the FDA spokesman regarding why there isn’t a black box on antipsychotics, which are more dangerous in side effects than anti depressants, and he stated because all of the data is only about “demented elderly”.
“Lack of data, doctors pushing pills to parents like they are aspirin. That mother had no information given to her about what Trileptal is, does or any side effects except for nausea and fatigue.
“If anyone was watching with a certain view point say, pharma, or parents drugging their kids, go watch it again and pay attention to Dr. Bacon, he is clearly riding the axis of evil.”–stephany, ’soulful sepulcher blog’
http://www.furiousseasons.com/archives/2008/01/frontline_on_the_bipolar_child_1.html
I totally agree. I think Dr. Bacon should have his license taken away. His arrogance makes me ill as he lays drug after drug after drug on that very young child and his only solution to anything is add more drugs or up the dose. The interesting thing I saw, like you, was that the parents in both boy’s cases seemed hesitant about the meds. It’s obvious they wanted to help their children but both seemed like their gut was telling them there was something wrong with using the meds. And it made me ill the way the younger boy’s mom asked, aren’t there any other options? And was told no. Dr. Bacon is just like the psychiatrist my son had at 6 years old. He was a horror – and very arrogant just like Dr. Bacon. A disgrace to the profession.
I’ve had top chief of staff of psychiatry in a prestigious hospital (care paid by uncompensated care fund to the tune of $250,000)be in charge of my daughter’s care at one point, and he was the most arrogant SOB i’ve ever encountered in my life. Ramped her up on 800mg of Seroquel, fried her brain, and called her “retarded”. You don’t go from a 4.0gpa honor society student in high school to retarded over night—these doctors will NEVER admit these drugs are the culprit for what’s wrong, never.
We stopped all of the meds my daughter was on during a summer switched doctors and told him what we wanted her started on and what she was not EVER going to take. He listened. As she has grown and her needs have changed he has made suggestions we have told him what has the research shown short term, long term with children? If he doesn’t have an answer he knows we will not use it. After 2 years My daughter decided she didnt like the doctor anymore because he would not agree to therepy, we have just in the last 6 months found a new dr and same thing with him we told him this is what we want this is how it will work.