Day 2 was fairly uneventful. No comment from Lorelei about the medicine in her juice today. Appetite was back to normal, so I think yesterday's eat-a-thon was just part of her normal cycle of eating/not eating. No real change in sleeping either. We went to see Pinocchio at the children's theater in the afternoon, and on the way there she was rather tired but didn't nap. At the play they get the kids involved and Lorelei was invited to the stage to dance with one of the actors, which she did. But... the entire time she was on-stage she looked totally uncomfortable and barely participated in the dance. I hope that that's one of the things the medicine will help her with - less anxiety in group situations.
In the evening Lance and I had to go to a silent auction/dinner fundraiser at the kids' preschool. The kids went to their classrooms to be watched by several teenage girls. Each knew a few kids who were there, but not a lot. When we picked them up, Lorelei was so relieved to see us. All the way home she talked about how things were different in the class last night instead of her regular class ("We didn't say the blessing before we had snack.") and seemed a little down. She was fine by the time we got home, though.
What will tomorrow bring?
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Friday, April 8, 2011
Day 1
Here we are. Day 1. Today's the day we started giving our four year old daughter, Lorelei, an anti-depressant called Celexa to help her with anxiety, explosive outbursts, crying fits, etc. She's starting out on 1.0 ml of a 10mg/5ml solution. After two weeks I'm to call the doctor and discuss how she's doing, and if it's okay, then she'll go to 2.0 ml per day. Since Lorelei is anti-oral medication in every way, I put it in her apple juice cup that she gets every morning. While I didn't specifically tell her it was there, she did ask me about it this morning on the way to school. "Why is there medicine in my cup, Momma?" Lorelei does know that she is being given medicine to help her not get so upset sometimes, but that's about the extent of it.
We started back at the end of December with an evaluation by a developmental pediatrician at the children's hospital here in Charleston (MUSC), but I just saw the report from that visit yesterday. One of the devped's suggestions was to see a clinical counselor, and we've done so 3 or 4 times now. After talking with the counselor about Lorelei's behavior and our attempts to instill consistency and discipline, she suggested some additional ways to help, but also said thought medication would be beneficial. So back to MUSC we went.
The devped said to watch for "activation" which means that Lorelei will be even more anxious and hyper (oh joy!) and if that happens we'll need to switch meds. Otherwise, we shouldn't see any change in her basic personality (she won't be "flat"). When I asked how long before we see some results, I was told 2-3 weeks, though some people insist they see some immediately. I also asked about how long she would stay on this medication and was told that after about 8 months we would taper off and see how she was doing without it. So at least we have an end in sight.
Lots of mixed feelings... I want her life to be a little easier and less frustrating. I want Griffin to NOT learn from Lorelei's bad behavior. I want to yell less. I want Lance to be able to be more tolerant of her behavior. But is it right to give your small child (sheesh -- she only ways 38 lbs!) such adult drugs, and off-label at that? The scientific side of me says it's fine, but the mom side of me wonders. Am I asking too much of a medication? Part of me wants to fast forward a month to see if it works and if so, how successful it is and how our life is different. Because Lorelei taking this drug WILL BE LIFE ALTERING for the entire family.
I've read over the list of side effects and hope that all the ones having to do with sleep do not take residence in our house. We have enough problems in that arena as it is (and was noted in the report from the devped)! But, Lorelei has been eating non-stop today... that could be either a side effect or it could just be that after a couple of days of eating sparsely she's making up for it. I'll post how her appetite is on future days, just to compare. I'm not really worried about her gaining weight since she's at about 55% for her age/height.
She's also been extremely fidgety today, but that's another one of those that comes and goes depending on the day. Maybe today is just a more fidgety on in general.
So, here we go...
We started back at the end of December with an evaluation by a developmental pediatrician at the children's hospital here in Charleston (MUSC), but I just saw the report from that visit yesterday. One of the devped's suggestions was to see a clinical counselor, and we've done so 3 or 4 times now. After talking with the counselor about Lorelei's behavior and our attempts to instill consistency and discipline, she suggested some additional ways to help, but also said thought medication would be beneficial. So back to MUSC we went.
The devped said to watch for "activation" which means that Lorelei will be even more anxious and hyper (oh joy!) and if that happens we'll need to switch meds. Otherwise, we shouldn't see any change in her basic personality (she won't be "flat"). When I asked how long before we see some results, I was told 2-3 weeks, though some people insist they see some immediately. I also asked about how long she would stay on this medication and was told that after about 8 months we would taper off and see how she was doing without it. So at least we have an end in sight.
Lots of mixed feelings... I want her life to be a little easier and less frustrating. I want Griffin to NOT learn from Lorelei's bad behavior. I want to yell less. I want Lance to be able to be more tolerant of her behavior. But is it right to give your small child (sheesh -- she only ways 38 lbs!) such adult drugs, and off-label at that? The scientific side of me says it's fine, but the mom side of me wonders. Am I asking too much of a medication? Part of me wants to fast forward a month to see if it works and if so, how successful it is and how our life is different. Because Lorelei taking this drug WILL BE LIFE ALTERING for the entire family.
I've read over the list of side effects and hope that all the ones having to do with sleep do not take residence in our house. We have enough problems in that arena as it is (and was noted in the report from the devped)! But, Lorelei has been eating non-stop today... that could be either a side effect or it could just be that after a couple of days of eating sparsely she's making up for it. I'll post how her appetite is on future days, just to compare. I'm not really worried about her gaining weight since she's at about 55% for her age/height.
She's also been extremely fidgety today, but that's another one of those that comes and goes depending on the day. Maybe today is just a more fidgety on in general.
So, here we go...
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