Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Medication Failure

I had to take Sam off the Adderall. It was working in many ways. Sam was stimming less - he was making fewer noises, he was paying attention a little better and he wasn't throwing things at the ceiling compulsively. Unfortunately he was spending about 50% of his day crying or having intense tantrums. My mother drove down one day last week to try to give me a chance to go into my classroom for an hour but as soon as I got there I had to turn around and come home because Sam was freaking her out by crying and being aggressive. It stunk. The only upside was that my mom got a chance the worst of his behavior. I think sometimes other people think I am over protective about leaving him. I suppose I am a little bit but only because I know how he can be. I don't want to plan to be half an hour or more away doing something important only to get a call that Sam is scaring the pants off a sitter.

Sam has had these types of tantrums before but never so many at once and for such a long stretch of time. I suspected the Adderall might be to blame. I took him off (after talking to the doc) and he was happy again. Unfortunately, he is back to climbing the walls and throwing things at the ceiling all day long.

So, it seems we can't live with it and we can't live without it. (btw, he has been on behavior plans for the throwing for the past 2 years. Nothing helps. I am just waiting for him to smash a light bulb in his or someone else's face)

3 comments:

AutisticWisdom said...

Hi Emma, I know nothing about Sam but what you are posting, but has anyone done a functional assessment on Sam's behaviours to see if there is a function behind them?

Emma said...

Yes, at school and at home. The behavior is, for the most part, self-stimulatory which makes it very hard to change. THanks for the suggestion - always appreciated!

Stranded said...

I am sorry to hear that Emma, I know from your previous posts you guys were hoping this would work.