To tell my son he can't take citalopram?

[PomBearArmy]

DS is 16 and has suffered with depression and anxiety since childhood. About five years ago I took him to CAMHS and spoke to a doctor who said that the only sensible option would be to put him on citalopram, that his anxiety was so deeply ingrained in his personality it would be the only thing to work. I chose to pursue diet changes, sport therapy, counselling, etc instead. There has been improvement, but he can and has gone right back to square one for any reason. It feels like the anxiety is just there inside him looking for things to fix onto. He can get as agitated about a small thing as he can about a genuine crisis!

He starts college in September and is very frightened, not really eating, not wanting to go out. He wants to go on medication now.

But I'm afraid of putting him on drugs at the age of 16. There is a history of mental illness in my family, and I feel like this is a 50/50 bet. Maybe medication would make him happier and prevent worse problems down the road, or maybe he would become reliant on medication for life, or react badly to it and end up on a slippery slope downwards like other members of my family. I have read about people becoming suicidal/psychotic on these pills.

Any opinions or personal experiences welcome, I just want to do the right thing by him, and I don't trust our local GP, he seems too 'scrip' happy.

Ah i see that he has had long term intervention from CAHMs, with that and the assumption he will be closely monitored in the first few weeks then I would say go for it! I have been on citalopram twice, once for anxiety alone and i didn't really experience any side effects, i did however become suicidal this time but i was pretty much heading that way anyway.

Definately let him start on it now though so that it will be kicking in when he starts college.

I totally understand your concerns, you sound like a great mum

I too have always felt anxious and had a tendency to depression since being a child.

During a bad episode caused by a bereavement I started on citalopram.
I very quickly felt better and totally different and able to cope.

I'm not concerned about being on them for life as I see it that some chemistry in my brain was wrong and this has levelled it out, allowing me to feel "normal"

I think he needs the medication alongside therapy.

My dd was put on fluoxetine when she turned 15, after 2 years of weekly counselling and CBT for severe anxiety (and many years of on and off counselling). Like your son the anxiety was always lurking and would seize on the slightest excuse.

With medication, the anxiety hasn't gone away, but it took the edge off it to the extent where she has been able to take the counselling on board and actually apply the CBT techniques. And has found the confidence to get back into education and develop a good social life- all of which helps her to become more confident, making it less likely that she will slip back into anxiety.

In fact, she has now made progress to the point where her doctor reckons she will be able to come off the medication next spring- by which time she will only be 17. Noone thinks she will be on them for life: dd doesn't think so, the doctor doesn't think so, we don't think so.

To me, it's like taking painkillers while you are doing the physio that will get your broken leg back to normal again: it's not a substitute for the physio but sometimes it is a prerequisite because you just couldn't do those exercises if you were in that much pain.

As it happens, I was also very negative towards dd taking painkillers which she needs for her joint condition, but since she started on those she has been able to be so much more active and her joints have got so much stronger; again, the doctor reckons she might be able to come off them within the next year or two. Before she started taking them, dd was regularly using a wheelchair: now she is dancing.

The AD's do very much the same thing: they enable her to do things that then make her stronger and less anxious.

But I really don't believe that doctors hand out medication to children willy nilly, or that they are more prone to handing out medication now than they were 20 years ago: my experience is that they are very cautious in this country and that any teen who gets given AD's will be closely monitored. Very often, it seems to me, the scare stories actually come from the US, which is a very different culture.

Are you in the UK? If he has been assessed but the doctor as being Gillick competent he can make his own decisions I'm afraid.

I was on ADs at 16. Frankly I would have liked them years earlier, when my mental illness really started, but no one would prescribe them.

If this was any other illness, and any other medication, that you'd tried alternative treatment for, it hadn't worked - you probably wouldn't be as hesitant to say yes to a doctor.

You're worried about him being on them for life; he's not going to have much of a life if he doesn't have something to help him right now, to be blunt. Medications aren't a magic fix it, but they give you enough head space to deal with things logically, and the amount of difference that can make is unbelievable.

Let him try them. Citalopram tends to be the first one they try out because it is for depression and anxiety.

I started antidepressants at 15, and whilst they now found that I am bipolar and antidepressants makes me worse, it was just part of the process of getting better. I think you are being unreasonable for not trying it, as it could very well have a great effect on your son. Mind; I never believe in using medication without also professional counselling. Not talking about a wellnesscoach or anything, but proper counselling. If he can beat whatever bothers him now, it could save a lot of grief at a later date.