Well, I guess I should have seen it coming but Rye fell apart yesterday morning after coming home sick from school with a bad cold. Mania revisit. Without going into all of the details, it was not good.
Once you’ve seen the far away eyes of mania, you never forget it. It’s haunting.
Despite my saying previously that I would not use the Abilify again, I did. I guess that makes me a liar. But I had to use it to bring him back down to earth. Otherwise his plan was to take the car and drive himself to California. Which, according to him, he knew exactly how to do and in his mind knew exactly what roads to take. Within about 15 minutes of taking the Abilify he said he could feel it start working and calmed down.
Oddly, he’s fine today and had a good day at school.
Next week we see the psychiatrist about starting Lithium.
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Hi Meg,
Please reconsider your decision to start Ryan on Lithium. As I previously mentioned, psych meds greatly worsened my learning disabilities and I greatly fear Lithium will be alot worse than the meds I was on as far as Ryan’s LDs.
Also, these meds have greatly destroyed my life, including work and personal. At work, I greatly worry about my job due to several mistakes that were the result of med withdrawal issues.
I also feel my personal life has been greatly neglected and I have let relationships disintegrate because of psych meds.
None of these drugs have good records long term and the cure ends up being worse than the disease.
I know that when you’re dealing with mania, it is hard to think of the long term as that can be very frightening. But as a person who is dealing with the pain of how psych meds have destroyed my life, I am asking you to try.
Some suggestions:
1. Use psych meds on a temporary basis for emergencies as you did with abilify. Jim Gottstein and it seems to work for him.
2. check out the forums on http://theicarusproject.net/ to see what people are doing as far as alternative methods.
3. Check out this site, http://ALT-therapies4bipolar.info for alternatives
Thanks for hearing me out.
AA
AA: I appreciate your input. I am not thrilled with using meds (as I’m sure you can tell by now) but I’m starting to worry that if these episodes happen when I’m not around to give Rye a med to calm down when he needs it, he will do something to get himself into trouble when it could have been avoided. It’s such a hard decision and not one I take lightly, I assure you. I go back and forth on it. I’m going to wait and talk to the doctor and Rye and Don and see what everyone thinks collectively. Thanks for the links.
This was a placebo affect.
For a PRN (emergency calming agent)the benzos are the ones that work that fast, though can be addicting.
Klonopin, Ativan, Xanax etc.
Abilify does not work within 15 minutes. It is not designed that way, and long term many people I know, including my daughter and several doctors have noted the manic behavior induced by the drug, now known anecdotally by consumers since approx 2005.
Another website you might want to read (and forums) is crazymeds dot org.
AA has left invaluble information here, and the rest, will be learned by doing.
I implore you to give your son informed consent; he already gave it via the “way Abilify made him feel” (suicidal).
Have him chart his own progress, on 3×5 cards, per med, per MG and have 1/2 or more of his psychiatrist appointment alone, without you.
Meg, I totally agree you are in a tough bind. My heart goes out to you.
This may sound like a weird question but could Ryan be taught to administer meds on an emergency basis? Obviously, you would have to decide if he was capable of this and it would not be an overnight process.
The reason why I am thinking he may be is he sure recognized what Abilify did to him previously.
I agree with Stephany on Ativan. When I became suicidal thinks to being cold turkeyed off of Prozac by my previous psychiatrist several years ago. taking an ativan would stop the ideation.
Anyway, I greatly applaud you for taking the time to think through a very tough situation.
Stephany: Interesting about the placebo effect idea. It’s possible. Rye already does have informed consent. He does not take anything that he is not a part of the decision on. In this particular instance we only gave him one 2mg Abilify tablet and he was ok with taking it. Obviously it’s not good to take anything that gives him suicidal ideation but he was open to taking it just to get through this immediate event and it did help, placebo or no, as he was completely out of control (I didn’t go into the details on here). Also, when Rye goes to the psychiatrist I only spend about 10 minutes with the doctor and the rest of the hour Rye spends with him. And Rye and I never discuss what they discuss. I completely respect Rye’s privacy with regard to his therapy and I respect him as a person and his ability to know himself (to the extent he can at 12 years old, he still needs and wants a lot of parenting).
AA: I will ask the doctor about Ativan for ‘as needed’ times. I do think it’s hard to know what is true mania and what is a cataclysmic build up of unmanaged anxiety that then tilts his brain into the abyss temporarily. I often wonder about this with him.
Hopefully, he will be able to watch how he feels on certain med classes of drugs and tell the doctor, because that’s what I am concerned about as a bystander who has been there–once he can red flag a drug for suicidal/homicidal reactions (thoughts) doctors will know better how to treat him.
My daughter reacted so severely to ALL SSRI’s she had a wrist band that said ‘allergy’–and she also reacted that way to another few drugs given for anxiety (BuSpar for one).
She kept the detailed charting of how she felt on what drug, so it’s a tip from her is what I am trying to give, that’s all.
Stephany I always, always appreciate all of your input as God knows you and Lindsay have been through the ringer on all of this and you have a lot of experience to share. I agree with you that SSRIs are completely out for Rye. If anything we need down and even, not up. SSRIs would make him crazy for sure. I took Zoloft for 1 week at 2 different times in my life and once it zoned me out and made me feel emotionless and the other time it completely wound me up and made me high as a kite. Neither effect was good. Rye’s suicidal thoughts were only on the Abilify and luckily he recognized them as thoughts and not a true desire (although where one crosses the line on that I have no idea and that is the scary part). BuSpar is out too. I’m pretty sure that’s what gave Don his heart attack (heart attack is listed as one of the side effects) as he has no health problems or heart problems otherwise other than mildly high blood pressure. Don now takes a high dose of Niacin (vitamin B3) which helps his anxiety/mood a lot. We may try this with Rye as well.
I wondered about Ativan also as a an “emergency” sort of remedy. It is given in a crisis, after an accident, etc so I wonder if it might not be a good answer in such a critical situation. If taken only on an emergency basis, I would think the danger of addiction would be much less than with regular use.