A month or two back the psychiatrist gave Rye klonopin (clonazepam) as a PRN (as needed) med for anxiety.
At he time Rye was in public school and we were going through the whole teacher attack incident (the teacher attacked Rye, not visa-versa) and Rye was extremely anxious. It seemed he really needed something to chill out at times and some days needed something just to make it to school as he would get so anxious it was crippling.
So, we tried klonopin.
Well, for us it was a mixed bag. The first couple of times he took it it seemed to help and I’ll be honest, I was kind of worried about him liking it too much and wanting to take it all the time (from adults I’ve talked to that have taken it the effects are quite nice and like Valium). After a few times of taking it though, we both noticed that Rye seemed to have the opposite effect of what it is supposed to do. Instead of getting calmer, he would get very angry. No, I take that back. Typically he would get chilled out/calmed down for a while but then as the med wore off he would get very angry (and actually even a few times he very got angry just from taking it). And I mean very angry. Like scary angry. And this kid is really, really strong and is as big as me now and much stronger than me so when he gets angry it’s not pleasant.
Anyway, as a result, we have not used klonopin in a while now. In fact, I’m going to take it off the list on the front page of medicines and vitamins we use. And with that removal, this puts us back to no meds again.
From what I have read, getting angry is an allergic reaction to the medicine. We seem to have this a lot with pharmaceuticals. Rye is allergic to them or oversensitive to a lot of them. And this is why we don’t use them. To date, they have caused us much more bad than good.
I guess in a way we are lucky this happened. If one gets addicted to klonopin, the withdrawal process can be bad as noted here:
http://bipolarblast.wordpress.com/2010/04/11/10382/
http://bipolarblast.wordpress.com/2009/12/15/valium-vs-klonopin/
http://bipolarblast.wordpress.com/2009/12/01/more-on-benzos/
2 Comments
Meg, please call your doctor or find a new one, I am worried about Rye experiencing the “bipolar kindling effect”… I am sending a link: http://bipolar.about.com/cs/brainchemistry/a/0009_kindling1.htm
Paula: I appreciate your concern. We are currently awaiting a Neurologist appointment and EEG results before starting any continuous medication. We are not sure at present if Rye is epileptic as well as bipolar and none of his doctors (general doctor, psychiatrist, or neurologist) will medicate him with anything more than a PRN until we know this.
Also, I’ll be honest, I’m not sure I believe in the kindling effect. Rye was originally diagnosed as bipolar at 6 years old after a manic and psychotic reaction to Adderall and we were told at that time he needed to be on medication around the clock for the rest of his life or the disease would ‘grow’. This was not true. We corrected the mania and psychosis within a few weeks and he remained completely off meds with no incident from 6 years old until 11/12 years old, at which point we again tried Adderall at the urging of the schools and he again had a bad reaction. Psychiatric medications all have side effects and long term effects – especially on children whose minds are developing and growing. Although we may now put his on Lithium or Depakote in the next few months. I’m glad we didn’t listen to his doctors from when he was 6 years old who told us he needed to be continuously medicated to be ok or he may have ended up now looking like one of those kids in “Frontline – The Medicated Child” instead of the strong, healthy, tic-free child he is today.