Posted by HappyGirl on February 10, 2004, at 16:46:31
In reply to Re: 14 yr old boy withdrawals from Zoloft, posted by Janis on February 10, 2004, at 13:42:31
Hi:
Risperdal is one of potent Anti-Psycho. meds. using for Shizophrenia and Bipolar. In Bipolar, Riperdal controls/helps mood-swings and enormous irritability/rage working with mood-stabilizer, such as Lithium, Depakote and other mood-stabilizers to name. Then, in my guess, the son of your friend's diagnose sounds to me like NOT traditional(regular form) depression, ... more likely Bipolar Disorder(old name is 'manic depression.) In that case, this AP med., Risperdal helps control manic side along with small property of anti-depressant. However, he still needs some form of anti-depressant, because as I said the above, Risperdal has rather manic side effect, ... with little effect to the depressive side of his Bipolar(guessing he has Bipolar in looking at his med., anti-psycho. med. Risperdal). As your concern/worry about Risperdal, normally most of pdocs. might NOT rx this form of powerful med. to the children, esp. under 18, ... but probably, he has started to develop Bipolar after a long use of Zoloft, ... or his pdoc. suspecting on this. However, if his pdoc. is fairly a good pdoc. on whom the 14 yr old has relied for awhile, then it might be just 'case by case.'
However, on the otherhand, his withdrawal along with a lack of anti-dep. in his system is quite bothersome/worrisome, as you mentioned here, above.
In my suggestion, tell your friend that her son, the 14 yr old. needs to visit his pdoc. and talk his developing/withdrawal situation face to face. From there, hopefully your friend and her son would find a good solution to get him well.
H.G.
poster:HappyGirl
thread:311348
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20040210/msgs/311794.html