Posted by krisz on October 21, 2003, at 17:41:43
I have a young adult son who has autism and cognitive impairment. He can't communicate very well about complex things. He had been on 75 mg. of Effexor since July 98 and was doing well until about six months ago. Then he began to wake up about 30-45 min. after falling asleep. He would be screaming and hysterical. After a few minutes he would go back to sleep. This happened more and more frequently. Then it began to be in the early part of the night and around 5 am. The doctor said it was the Effexor, take him off. We weaned him off over a period of a month. We tried other drugs and the problem continued, specifically Remeron, Trileptal, Klonipin. Currently he is on nothing and has been on nothing for a week. We went to a new psychiatrist and she said put him back on Effexor since it had worked well for his obsessive problems (which are terrible right now) and that Effexor at that dose did not cause the sleeping problem. She suggested that the dose needed to be raised gradually to at least 150 mg. And she said she is having good luck with Geodon in her patients with problems similar to my son's. I am afraid of it. I desperately want him to sleep so I can. Do any of you have ideas of what might be happening and how he might be feeling having had many drugs in his system but only for a week or less.
Thanks,
krisz
poster:krisz
thread:271601
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20031021/msgs/271601.html