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Originally Posted by liesagain  last year May of 08, my 17 year old son began to have changes in his behaviors.............in a matter of weeks be progressed into a full blown psychosis and had to be admitted to the hospital. No problems with my son before this.............well some as a child, As a child hed been diagnosed as ADHD, learning disbled (auditory processing disorder) and Gifted.
Leading up to the hospital he had rapid speech, changing subjects mid sentence and this need to "get organized" he was also irritable. Then he began telling me he could "tell" how people were feeling, had this insight that I couldnt possibly understand............then he became obsessed thinking he had something wrong with his heart.and also became obsessed thinking something was wrong with me or his dad........and began saying he "had to get away from it all" and he was paranoid of people in general---thats when I took him to the hospital. He was admitted to the psych ward and the episode progressed rapidly until I had a doctor (who I'd yet to speak to) call me telling me my son was bipolor needed shots right then as he was trying to "escape"
that was the first I'd ever heard of any illness and his panic sent sheer terror thru me. During the week he became convinced he was losing blood, the staff was killing of patients( because the patients were getting discharged) and that his food was poisioned.....he would only eat when we could visit and we convinced him it was ok
Within a week he was stablilized and came home, (stabilized on Geodon then Depakote..........but couldnt tolerate the geodon so then just depokate but gained 30 lbs in short time so than switched to Limictal for several months) intil the was taken off all meds(by the doctor)
he took the meds for almost a year, then the doctor ..........who never would give me a difinitve answer on WHY this occurred................said maybe bipolor may have been pot............or other drugs hes not admitting too (but his tox screen was negative for all drugs just trace THC when he went to hospital)
anyhow about 4 1/2 months ago the doctor started telling us that when a year was up she would discontinue the meds...............to see if the episode reaccurred. Told him what to watch for made him promise to tell if he felt changes etc
So June 5, he had issues with graduation...........oneday hes gonna graduate then some transcript error at the last minute so they told him he may not......... so he was stresssed. He did graduate everything worked out and then went out of town with his dad(we're divorced so it was his time to visit and son loves to go with dad)
................less than 2 weeks passed and his dad called, said our son was again having racing thoughts his perception was off and he was somewhat paranoid................he came home we went to the doctor...........basically they said well yes, its bipolor here restart the lamictal and come back in a month.
Its been a rough few weeks only been on the lamictal for 2 days ............this episode hes crying alot, still manic too but seems to go up and down rapidly thru the day.
SOOOOO, long story short. I could use some support............so information and some personaly experience from any of you that have bipolor.
Out doctors are so vague.........not telling me what type of bipolor or if this particular med will be enough or if he will have episodes or another psychosis
The bright side is my son now 100% believes something is wrong and he vows to never stop medicine again.
Any experience strength and imput would be great THANK YOU |
I would go with your son's intuition on this one. It sounds like, based on his previous episode with severe paranoia, that he has bi-polar with psychotic features. I would suggest him going back on the Geodon to calm his anxiety and slow down the more psychotic, paranoid thoughts. He also needs to be doing talk therapy. There's just no way of recovering from mental illness without meds AND talk therapy to give him tools to counter the paranoid, negative thoughts. Your son's doctors seem odd, especially pulling him off the meds to see if he has another episode. That's not right to experiment like that. Are they actually psychiatrists? If they're just general practitioners, you need to see an actual psychiatrist right away, or maybe just see a different psychiatrist, because GPs know next to nothing about mental health. I would get a second opinion. Also does he exercise? He should be doing 30 minutes a day 3-5 days a week. That's fundamental in treating depression.
The best thing you can do is to be supportive of him and monitor when he goes into his manic phases. If it persists, you may need to up the dose on the Lemictal. Also make sure he avoids caffeine and amphetamines as those can spur manic episodes. And depending on how much pot he smoked--he needs to be honest about that--it can definitely trigger paranoia and psychosis, especially if he already has latent bipolar disorder.
Good luck and take care,
Clayton