Off Risperdal now onto Abilify

We were unable to live with Andy's behavior anymore. If he wasn't at school, he was miserable. I had checked every avenue of what might be causing him pain, and there was nothing. I decided it was time to wean him off the Risperdal, and get him onto something new.

The weaning was easy. I cut his doses in half until he got down to .25ml for three days straight once a day. Then I started the Abilify immediately the next day. Initially, doses of 3ml or even 2.5ml were too much for him. He would get very sleepy, and he'd be fighting through the sleepiness with crying. So, he was either sleeping or crying. Then I dropped down to .5ml, twice a day and I felt like I was just giving him water/nothing.

My husband hated it. He wanted to stop giving the new meds. But I knew that it would take a full two weeks to see what the results will be. The first week was hell. I waited until I knew the kids were going to be on spring break to start the new meds. The Abilify was started on Friday, then he was off school for the entire week, and he had the weekend.

I was in his physiatrists office crying to her about Andy's constant crying and telling her how I'll try anything. She suggested that we start an acid reflux medicine as well, just in case he might be feeling a burning in his chest from reflux, and can't tell us. Fine with me. I'm desperate.

It's been almost two weeks now. He takes the reflux meds twice a day, Miralax stool softener once a day, and Abilify twice a day. Right now he is getting 1.25ml in the morning and before dinner. I started out with 1ml twice a day, and am now inching it up slowly to try to get more improvement. When I tried 2ml twice a day, he was way too sleepy.

It does seem as they are on these meds for a few months, they start to need more of them in order to get the same effect. This is my opinion with my son anyway. It is like their body gets used to that dose and now they need more of it to have the same effect. He hasn't been gaining a whole lot of weight, but has been getting taller.

I pray for Andy's brain to develop, and for him to not cry as much. The nurse practitioner at Andy's office said she sees kids like Andy go through crying phases sometimes at age 3 or 4. She said the crying can go on for a year or more. Andy has already been crying a lot for the past two years. One of the moms in my support group said her daughter stopped her constant crying between 5 and 6 years old. She says she rarely hears her cry ever now. Her daughter is immobile/very limited physically and quite cognitively impaired. It helped me look forward to some time in our lives when Andy won't be constantly screaming.