Friday night thread

[SallyBear]

I would just like to say that my week, though emotionally hard has been nothing like darling Cup's.

It's half term, I have got a pigging clue what to do with the brood! Madagascar 3? That's a start. DD has a SALT workshop Tuesday and Thursday that I have to go to. Groan. It's obviously beneficial but I do hate SALT and practicing sounds ad infinitum! Wine to get me though that I think!

hello ladies. so awfully sad about Bea.

sorry that you have had a worry time this week as well hazey, and have further rounds of referrals to deal with.

Hello Justa and Light, good news on the ritalin front, bad news on the stomach bug.

We came back form holiday today, aahh I love home...

In amongst the big stack of post there was a letter for ds, that I thought was going to be the details of the study, only to open it and see the big heading,

'Do you have any concerns about your 2yr olds development?? Speech? Walking? Behaviour? - the Health Visitor would love to see your son for a 2yr check'

Oh yes, the health visitor, who has been absolutely invisible over the last few months, despite promising support at ds's TAC meeting, and who when I called about getting ds weighed and measured, just said, well if you could pop in to baby clinic over half term....

Would it be wrong to write a big Fuck Off in red marker and send it back?

I told my HV in no uncertain terms that she was not going to assess DD or DS4, as I had a paed who was very ably qualified for the job. Also she was a patronising old trout who had a very caring attitude that used to drive me up the fucking wall. It felt good to decline her kind invitation.

I get the impression with Ritalin you can tell pretty quickly if it's working so fingers crossed thats good news justa!

Hothead - v v interesting re:fluvoxamine, was only aware of fluoxetine being recommended for children of the SSRIs. For OCD think they would tend to prefer trying some form of CBT as first line of treatment before meds.

sally . One of my HV's tactfully let slip that the constant turnover was due to how dreadful the local caseload was, we must have dealt with at least ten, and I only have one child!

yes, IME as an adult and OCD, CBT didn't work until I had prozac anyway, as I needed my mood/depression to improve. Don't know if the timescale for children is different, but bear in mind that the SSRIs typically take between 2 and 6 weeks to kick in. btw I am mentioning CBT not in a - you must do this before resorting to meds way, but to flag up that you may encounter this attitude iyswim.

yy I think a lot would depend on level of insight the child has, in terms of being able to work through what fears are real, and who a mind can play tricks on you. anyway, sorry to barge in and derail the convo, seeing as you weren't even asking the original question directly to me Hothead

Hothead my Ds has severe OCD as well as AS. He was on sertaline for some time and is now taking fluoxetine. He is also having CBT but finds it very difficult to engage in and it is mainly B rather than CB. This is although he is 16 and very HF.

I think that it has probably worked best when he has meds and CBT together. Each seperately was pretty hopeless. The meds do settle things down and keep things stable but are by no means a cure. Actually I wasn't sure they were doing anything until we had a period without anything when he changed over and then boy did we know - anger, distress, worsening of already very bad OCD.

For the last 6 months or so he has been taking a low dose of aripriprazole which is an updated version of respiridone. Even on 2mg he had side effects (usual minimum dose for schizophrenia etc. is 10mg) but he is fine on 1mg. Again it is not a miracle cure but he has been stable albeit with still quite severe symptoms for about 4 months - longest ever. He has had OCD since he was 9.

Must be really difficult at 6.

Ds can understand the mechanisms intellectually he just can't talk about them and finds it very difficult to put insights into action.

He does generally have difficulty talking or even understanding I think his own feelings although he is not oblivious to others' feelings.

His psychologist who is very good says in her experience even NT adults with
OCD find it extremely frightening to think or speak about the thoughts in their heads. She has also said that once OCD has been there for a long time you also have to combat the ingrained habit which is more difficult in ASD.

Bearing that in mind, I would urge you to push for help sooner rather than later. The psychologist needs to be aware of or willing to learn about ASD.

Don't let them tell you that ASD makes him too difficult to treat. I swallowed that for too long which is partly why DS is in the mess he is.