Psycho-Babble Medication | about biological treatments | Framed
This thread | Show all | Post follow-up | Start new thread | List of forums | Search | FAQ

Medication decision for child » SalArmy4me

Posted by Jane D on June 16, 2001, at 16:45:04

In reply to Re: ssris...the tip of the iceburg gilbert, posted by SalArmy4me on June 16, 2001, at 0:08:17

> If she shows any signs of mania, she needs to be on a mood-stabilizer. Any doctor will tell you that. If a doctor recommends this, and you say no, you will be impeding your own child's recovery--thus making her suffer needlessly.


Hi Jason (Sal),
I'm very disturbed by your response to AMenz. I cringed when I first read her post - I don't like to imagine having to make these kinds of decisions for any body other than myself. I didn't respond, figuring that another parent who had been through this themselves would.

You make a lot of assumptions in your short post that just aren't justified. The first would be assuming that anything a doctor says is correct and that a parent who disagrees is negligent. You're ignoring the fact that all of these treatment recommendations are just the best GUESS available TODAY. That guess is based on what seems to work for the most people in a large heterogeneous (mixed) group. None of these treatments work for everyone and nobody yet knows why. Your omniscient doctor has no idea whether his recommendations will work for YOUR child. All he knows it what seems to be best for 2 out of 3 people perhaps. This means he'll be right more often than not but what if you think your child is number 3 in that group? You need to be right this time not 2 times out of 3.

Amenz gave some very good reasons for not wanting her daugher on a mood stabilizer. So far as I know there is no research yet on whether bad responses to a drug are inherited but it certainly seems reasonable. Actually, it seems inevitable. I know that we make the reverse assumption often - that a drug will work well if it has worked for a relative.

It also seems like she has good reason for wanting this child off an SSRI but I haven't seen anybody addressing this or coming up with alternatives. How about it? Something that won't trigger mania and doesn't work through the same mechanism as the mood stabilizers that produced such a bad result?

A final cautionary footnote. Thirty years ago these same doctors were telling parents that retarded children should be institutionalized to prevent "needless suffering". Parents who refused were accused of being selfish. We now know that the parents were right and it was the children that were sent away that suffered. Ideas change and you have no way of knowing now whether any choice will cause or prevent suffering in ANY GIVEN case.

Jane


Share
Tweet  

Thread

 

Post a new follow-up

Your message only Include above post


Notify the administrators

They will then review this post with the posting guidelines in mind.

To contact them about something other than this post, please use this form instead.

 

Start a new thread

 
Google
dr-bob.org www
Search options and examples
[amazon] for
in

This thread | Show all | Post follow-up | Start new thread | FAQ
Psycho-Babble Medication | Framed

poster:Jane D thread:66340
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20010612/msgs/66754.html