He takes Depakote, Risperdal, Tenex, and Trazadone. His severe moods and violent outbursts are still not consistantly controlled and just today he tried to stab the neighbor's child with a stick in the neck. When I asked him if he understood what would happen to her if he did that his response was "Yeah, she'll bleed and die!" I then asked him if he knew what would happen to him if he killed the neighbor child. His answer was "I'll go to jail and I don't care!"

I guess what I'm looking for in coming here is hope. I would love to hear from some of you that have been successful managing your children's behavior with medication. I'm beginning to think that it's not possible for us.

Thanks!

Dawn

Also, my son was so disregulated last summer that we had to hospitalize him. It wasn't like that fixed everything, but I think it put a lot in perspective to our doctors and our family and even ourselves. My son came out of the inpatient and went into an outpatient program. There they monitored his medications, and taught him coping skills. He was/is very receptive to therapy.

He started out on Thorazine, then we added Lithium. Then we took him off the thorazine and things turned for the worse, so we put Abilify in it's place. Now we're working with an anti-depressant starting with Zoloft. But I won't be starting that new med until next friday. As the previous poster said, it doesn't fix it. We still have good days and bad days. But now that most of his moods are stable (he still has some depression, which is why the zoloft, though the spring/summer months might help too) he is doing much better using all of those coping skills he was taught last summer/fall.

I think the best thing you can do is educate and arm yourself. The more you understand this disease, the easier it is to cope with the day to day drama. And us parents have to learn our own coping skills too!

Anon

The medications used to treat these things are VERY serious and you should be asking a LOT of questions about the child being put on medications when you dont feel the diagnosis is appropriate!

Second opions are always a good idea anways, heck thrid and fourth and fifth opinions are even better.

I've found that it is always a good idea to not only seek the help of a VERY QUALIFIED psychiatrist but also a psychologist. They have VERY different methods of collecting the data they use to make a diagnosis!

That having been said, it is EXTREMELY common for doctors to give the diagnosis of "Mood Disorder/NOS" (NOS=not otherwise specified) with young children in place of giving them the Bipolar diagnosis. This is actually a very good thing and very smart! The reason is this: Often times in children (especially as young as yours) it is very difficult to appropriately diagnose them with certain disorders (namely Bipolar) as many times the certain criteria for such a diagnosis is either not applicable to a child so young or not currently present but many of the other traditional hallmarks are outwardly apparent (Many children who experience the early onset of Bipolar do not greatly display the depressive side of the disorder even through apparent mood swings are in place and states of mania are notable). The diagnosis of "Mood Disorder/NOS" allows doctors to assign the most accurate and correct diagnosis to the child and it allows other professionals who use the DSM (other doctors, teachers, school staff, ect) to identify that the child has a specific mood disorder. Your child would still recieve all treatment and so-forth necessary for their condition with this diagnosis and it in no way means that later on down the road that diagnosis might not be changed to Bipolar.

Where this is comming from: I have a 5 year old daughter who started displaying signs at about 9 mos old. She was diagnosed in December, her diagnosis reads: Mood Disorder/NOS, ADHD, R/O Bipolar Disorder

The R/O Bipolar stands for "with a Rule out of Bipolar Disorder". This simply lets other professionals know that there is a possiblity that there is Bipolar disorder. (it's kind of confusing).

Feel free to contact me if you need some help, or comfort. I'm in your same shoes and am more than willing to share what I've come to learn the hard way.