Posted by Karen Curtis on October 19, 2001, at 16:43:24
Hi all- I have posted before concerning my son, Evan (12) and the problems I was having regarding his bipolar 1-psychosis dx and trying to control it with several medications. BTW, we have a wonderful pdoc. Evan is still experiencing some disturbing thoughts along with some psychosis- primarily "thoughts", as he describes it, telling him things- however, he knows this is not real and is "in his imagination". He has some paranoia. Since Evan as been on geodon, this has lessened, but is still bothersome, and my son has not gone back to school for this reason. He also takes depakote, lithium (want to discontinue soon) and started lamictal a few weeks ago, but he is only up to 25mg daily at this point. Though it is hard to distinguish the mood problems from psychosis at times, the underlying paranoia makes me think that the psychosis is still bothersome. AND NOW MY QUESTIONS- I spoke to the pdoc the other day, and he said to up the geodon to 160mg, as he believes that under a certain dosage, the drug simply is not very effective. Evan has been at 160 for three days. That is the max dose. He has been on risperdal (pooped out), seroquel (too weak), and now geodon. The pdoc mentioned clozaril- I would dread putting him on that drug- side effects! I am thinking zyprexa- he was on it once before, but only 5mg a day- that is nothing. But he gained weight!! We want to stop the lithium asap, as that is one of the few drugs he gains weight on- the depakote did not cause weight gain. Does zyprexa ALWAYS cause one to gain allot of weight??
We have tons of support from his school, it is not an issue- we are going to send Evan to a therapeutic day school for a few months. Thanks for some knowledgeable, informative replies please!!! Karen Curtis
poster:Karen Curtis
thread:81696
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20011015/msgs/81696.html