Angry, lashing out and violent.. could medication help? What sort? [Edited by MNHQ at OP's request]

[wheretostart18]

DN is autistic and suffers from global development delay. Late teens.

Over the last few years, there have been phases of having massive out bursts, anger, lashing out etc. We were told this was probably puberty/ hormone issues and it would settle down. It mostly did but this past year or so has been tough. The behaviour is getting worse, violence as well and he's been kicked out of work. Social services are saying he may need to be taken into care as he is a danger to society.

We are absolutely distraught. We have no idea how to manage this and we don't want him taken off us. GP has referred to mental health services but that isn't going to be anytime soon.

Is there anything we can do? Should we ask to try some medication to calm these episodes down? We are happy to go private but have no idea where to start. We just don't know what to do and the situation is very worrying for everyone involved.

Been through similar. Ds has asd,ocd,epilepsy, odd, pad and id. he's now on a combination of abilify and risperadone.(topamax for epilepsy, melatonin for sleep)This has helped him. He's had no violent outbursts in about six months. Maybe talking to your gp might help. My ds child psychiatrist prescribed his meds.

Ok thanks and did the GP refer you to psychiatrist?

He did. Tried different combination of meds before found ones that worked. Abilify on its own made things worse for ds. risperadone led to weight gain. But the combination stopped the aggression. Pm me if you want.

Every health area seems to have a slightly different system to access psychiatric help for older disabled children and teens. In our area there is a layer above CAMHS, to help with extremely challenging behaviour. Ds ( who was getting very upset and aggressive with it) has been less panicky since being prescribed a low dose of Respiridone.. He is a much happier person now, and less likel to go over the top.
Is there a challenging behaviour team for you locally -?

I'm not sure but I will check. Thanks very much for responding both

I share your pain. DD does similar, ed are going to have to escalate, no matter how much we don't want to

My son has a few autistic traits, verified by a specialist from the council including anger issues. However those traits were much worse when he was consuming food and drink with aspartame in. It might be worth checking food and drink labels and cutting out aspartame for at least 2 weeks to see if it makes a difference.

Is your child angry/ violent/ upset/depressed/ lacking concentration in school? It could be a reaction to aspartame (one artificial sweetener) that is making the situation worse. My kid had real issues, the school asked me to get the GP to refer him to the mental health team. Then I remembered a program I saw which said kids with ADHD are worse on artificial sweeteners. Just try cutting out aspartame - the other sweeteners are OK- for at least 2 weeks and see if it makes a difference. It certainly did for us. My son didn't even have ADHD, just a few things on the autistic spectrum which weren't that obvious and he hadn't been diagnosed.