zoloft, miracle drug?

I had this feeling . . . just a hunch, just intuition, Mother's intuition, maybe, but I had this nagging sense that we should try an anti-depressant again for Nik. I knew we had to be careful, since anything "up" can send this kid into screaming, lunatic mania-land quicker than you'd believe. Actually, he doesn't even need a stim or anti-depressant to end up there. But we'd only tried ONE dose of Prozac ONCE, about three years or so ago, and since he became very agitated and aggressive just a couple of hours later, we thought maybe we shouldn't try the ad route, again. Many kids along the Bipolar spectrum can't take anti-depressants for exactly this reason. The lift in mood sends them into mania, increased agitation, anxiety, etc .

So, to sum up, I asked his p-doc if we could try another anti-depressant. Just seemed like sloppy thinking to rule out an entire class of very helpful meds based on one small dose, one time. So she suggested Zoloft. Lately, we'd been hearing more of the morbid, "kill me," "I deserve to be shot" kind of talk, and beyond sympathizing with him for feeling so low, I'm beginning to wonder about the effect on Anna of hearing this ultra-violent, morbid, wacko, very disturbed talk all day long. So the doc agreed, said Zoloft might be less activating than Prozac.

We started off at a very small dose, 12.5 mg. once a day. And yes, he did become more manic-like, and yes, things went south at school. He became even more difficult, swiped at a teacher with his open hand, opened a door into another teacher's body so it was a contact type of thing, definitely aggressive, went back to level 1 on their level system (he had been at four or five), and I started getting the phone calls throughout the day again. But I didn't want to blame it on the Zoloft (though it probably was due to this) too quickly, said let's hold tight and just wait a few more days, weather this storm. Sometimes, the initial reaction to a med doesn't last.

I had a talk with him about the word "assault" and informed him that teachers have been known to press charges against bigger kids who attack them. He sobered up. He lost his lunchtime stuff, and had to spend a morning in the time-out room. And---Matt gave him Tenex and put him back on Risperdal, and I know that helped. The next day was better.

And most encouraging of all, the kid is noticeably HAPPIER, and his mood is brighter--most def. Matt and I agree. It's one of those things you can't quite put your finger on, but it's different. He's talking purposefully about the future, talking less about death and killing and being devil's spawn. He is really, really happier. God BLESS the evil pharmaceutical industry. More later.