Pill poppin’…..
October 6, 2008
Filed under Parenting and all it's glory
Tags: ADHD, aspergers syndrome, behavior disorders, medication, violent children, Vyvanse
I’ve mentioned in previous posts that my son has Asperger’s syndrome and ADHD. He’s super high functioning… but not high functioning enough to be able to spend his full school days in a regular classroom (he spends part of his day in a Behavioral Theraputic classroom… which is amazing that the school district we live in provides this kind of service, and it’s why we have to live in this district and pay INSANE amounts of money for rent so that he can be able to go to this school). We have tried every single thing under the sun to help him with his issues- regular therapy, behavioral therapy, homeopathic and natural mood stabalizers, dietary changes, reward systems, strict daily structure routines, every single parenting method provided in every single parenting book ever written, etc. We’ve done it all… but he just CAN’T keep his anger and impulsiveness from taking over and destroying his days. It’s tearing his self-esteem to shreds and keeping him from thriving the way he desperately wants to be. It’s keeping him from having friends, and doing well in school (which he’s INSANELY smart, and a really amazing kid- so it’s a total shame). So we finally got to the point where meds were an option.
I hate meds. I hate the pharmacutical system and the way doctors will just give pills out like candy. So this was a REALLY hard decision to make. But I’ve always said that meds should be used as a last resort… and that’s where we’re at with my little guy. He’ll be in junior high next year, and we’ve got to help him pull some of this stuff together before then, because junior high is BRUTAL and he needs to have his wits about him.
So after another reevaluation, and a firm rediagnosis of Aspergers and ADHD, we went to his doctor who started him off on a mild dosage of Vyvanse. I had him start taking it on Saturday morning so that I could closely monitor him throughout the weekend before unleashing him onto school. I wanted to see if there were any side effects that I need to worry about.
Within in 4 hours, I noticed that the things that would normally send him into a blind rage didn’t bother him. He had been working on a drawing for 2 days, and he accidentially screwed it up… normally, he’d tear it to pieces, throw his colored pencils across the room, scream and yell that he wasn’t good at anything, and a full blown hour-long meltdown would follow. But Saturday, when this happened, he came into my office a little sad and asked me if I’d hold onto the drawing for a while and maybe he’d go back to working on it later…. AND THAT WAS IT!!! No explosions, or destruction, or nightmarish chaos. Just calm and sound behavior. And a couple hours later, he DID go back to it and happily finished it! This may not seem like a big thing- but after almost a decade of daily destruction melt-downs, this was huge. When he was playing at a friend’s house and I came to get him & informed him he needed to come home and help me with chores (which is normally another thing that sends him into a rage), he happily complied. This was how our whole weekend was. He was able to actually finish tasks he started without jumping from one thing to another manicly, and was much more reasonable with everything.
The side effects were there, though. Saturday night, he couldn’t get to sleep until 3am. I thought this would probably work itself out (and last night he was asleep by 8:30). If he’s hungry at all, he gets super nauseous- so we’re going to have to have him snack on regular schedules at home and at school (which is totally fine). And he has flashes of weepiness/nervousness. He’ll come up to me with a little panicked look on his face and say “I’m really nervous and I don’t know why!”, or he’ll say he feels really sad for no reason. So I’ll have him take some big deep breaths, and within a minute or 2, it passes.
And then there’s the talking. He’s always been a massive talker… and produces far more chatter than my ears can take in on any day. But this weekend, the chatter was NON-STOP. It was like someone pressed the “play” button on his mouth, and threw the “stop” button in the garbage. By the time he went to bed last night, I thought my ears were going to bleed. He would even repeat things over and over just to keep the chatter-flow going. He didn’t do this when he was playing with friends- only when he was with me and Brad. So hopefully he won’t do this at school because there’s no way that his teachers are going to be able to have a productive classroom with this going on.
But that’s my story. I promised the other Aspie mom’s who read my babble that I would keep updates on here when we started the meds. There aren’t meds for Asperger’s syndrome since it’s a behavioral disorder… but usually ADHD and Asperger’s go hand-in-hand, so it’s the ADHD that I’m trying to get a thumb on.
So if anyone out there has any experience with this new med Vyvanse (because it’s pretty new to the market, and it’s supposed to be alot milder than previous meds with less side effects), I’d love to hear it!! The info I’ve found online has pretty much all been sponsered by the medication’s manufacturers- so their propaganda is pretty biased. Any “real person” input would be SOOOOO appreciated!!!! 
Life has gotten a little too rude for my liking… and I’m about to poke it in the eye.
March 17, 2008
Filed under Parenting and all it's glory
Tags: aspergers syndrome, autism, behavior disorders, family, GFCF diet, parenting, vegan, vegetarian
This is the part of the story where someone or something (preferably with superhero qualifications… maybe a little flying… I’d like to fly!) jumps into my “life picture” and says in that booming cartoon-like voice, “FEAR NOT!! I will save you!!”. And then this superhero-like entity throws down whatever magical capabilities they may have up their sleeve… and POOF! Life’s better. All is saved. I fall to a weeping thankful mess all over the rug. We all smile. Wipe a tear. Cut to credits. Happy ending. The world is a better place.
Yeah… fucking whatever.
I’ll backtrack a bit and fill everyone in on my current psychological damage. My son, the light of my life, the creature for whom I work like a dog for, my little partner-in-crime has Asperger’s Syndrome. If you don’t know what this is… you can click over to the wikipedia link to it HERE. He’s extremely high functioning with it (to where you wouldn’t know there were any issues if you just hung out with him for a little while)… but he is so brilliant that this is almost working against him. And when I say brilliant, I’m not just being the “proud inflated mother”… he really is scary smart. I’d almost prefer for him to be an idiot… idiot’s are easy to raise and usually do what they’re told. He has the inability to understand social peer behavior, and can be extremely defiant when he doesn’t understand WHY he has to do something he doesn’t want to do… but is high functioning and smart enough to manipulate an entire classroom and a pack of teachers into a full blown circus with the blink of an eye in order to get out of doing what he doesn’t want to do. This is maddening. For his teacher and for me.
But today was the big kicker. He didn’t want to go to math class today. I don’t know why he has such issues with math because he’s really good at it (he’s extremely advanced in all his classes, and the work isn’t a challenge for him)… but he’s actually getting a ‘D’ in math class because he out-right refuses to do the work. But today, he refused to go. He just wouldn’t do it. His teachers tried every method they knew how to get him to go, and that just made him mad. So it turned into a full blown battle of wills (between him and 5 teachers PLUS the school principal)- and he won. Yes, this is my boy. By “won” I mean he acted out so much, and was so unmoving in his stance that they could not get him to go to math. They were forced to call me. And when he was told that I was on my way there he flew into hysterics because I’m the only one he fears. We have no god in our house- so I am the omniscient force in his life.
Long story short (too late)… he was asked to leave school for the day because they just couldn’t get him to do what he was told, and he was keeping all the other kids from doing their work as well. This has always been a problem. He doesn’t understand authority, or why some people are allowed to tell others what to do. When he was in kindergarten, his principal told me a story about one of the MANY times he was sent to her office. She was telling him why we have to follow rules, and why we have to do what the teachers say, etc etc etc. He very patiently sat and listened… and when she was done, he stood up and put a hand on her desk (he’s very much like a little adult) and said to her, “Listen, my mom will be here at 3. When I go home with my mom, you won’t be there. I won’t have to stand on the line or sit in the corner. You can’t do that at my house. And I don’t care if you do that to me here. So when my mom get’s here, there’s nothing else you can do to me. I’ll wait in the office until then.”… and he marched out of her office. HE WAS 5 YEARS OLD!!!! At 5 years old he had a full understanding of the fact that any of us can behave any way we want if we’re willing to suffer the consequences if we get caught. Most ADULTS don’t ever get a grasp on that concept!!! His principal told me that he sent chills down her spine with his little lecture- because he was RIGHT… and she knew that she had no response to that. In a Utopian society, there would be no such things as “authority figures”… but we live in the real world, and there are rules, and social hierarchy, and social boundaries, and you do have to exist accordingly. But he just doesn’t get it. At all.
To sum it up…. I’m fucked. So very very very fucked. And I’m terrified of his “teenaged years”.
But as of recently, he has feared my powers less and less. And he has become more and more confrontational with his teachers. And more manipulative when trying to get what he wants. So a friend of ours clued us into diet as being a major cause of alot of behaviors associated with this (which I knew already, but not to any specific extent), and in some extensive researching I have found that a GFCF (gluten free casein free) diet helps these kids IMMENSELY. BUT gluten is in everything under the sun… and casein is basically dairy. My son has never eaten meat in his life… so dairy and pastas are a gigantic part of his diet. I’m a little overwhelmed by how much I’m going to have to change every aspect of his eating habits- and also by how expensive this is going to get (cuz all those soy cheeses and gluten free products are not cheap). But I’m going to give it a shot, and see if any positive results come of it. It can’t hurt… right?
So if any of you out there have any suggestions or recipes for vegan gluten free diets…. PLEASE SPEAK UP!!! And please keep in mind that I can’t cook for shit, so the simpler the better.
Back to work I go… I got NOTHING done today, so I get to be up all night trying to catch up on everything I didn’t accomplish today. Vomit.
