Cautiously Optimistic

There have been a few changes for GameTeen lately, and they may be the right ones.

He'd been having a LOT of problems in school and they (and we) were at the end of their rope. Acting out in class, sleeping, refusing to do work, and the straw that broke the camel's back, he'd begun to throw stuff or spit at people when he was not happy.

Just prior to Spring break, we were offered an alternative setting: he'd come to school for half days, and he'd complete his work in the principal's office where it'd just be him and her. A quiet setting with few distractions was the only thing we could come up with.

It has worked marvelously. The amazing success of it makes me wonder if the Sensory Processing issues are far worse than we'd realized, that even five other students on the spectrum being just as loud as GameTeen tends to be was just too much for him. It also made me contemplate all the times we try to take him into a store, with GameTeen insisting that he doesn't want to go. Pleading, in fact, to stay in the car instead of going to get an item he wants from a big box or market.

Hmmm.

At the same time, three weeks ago he saw a new psychiatrist at the practice we visit. I brought GameTeen and summaries of his issue at home and one from school, too. The doctor contemplated the information and prescribed a new OCD medication. Tomorrow we go back to report on his progress.

There have been changes. Positive changes. For one, he's had such a dramatic improvement at school that he's been returned to a regular classroom and appears to be doing well. He's articulating his obsessions, something he's never done before. We know some, but not all of them. For instance, he has a hard time with eating proteins and I'll give him five pieces of whatever meat we're eating, figuring it's not too much. I never noticed that if he wasn't ravenously hungry, he left two pieces behind. Now, he says "I shall eat three pieces," no matter what food it is.

Ed opined that it's been a little easier to diffuse the meltdowns. This is true. While he still melts down and freaks out at bedtime so loud that you can hear him up the block, he calms down a lot quicker.

The game plan was to start at a small dose and if it went well, to increase it at tomorrow's appointment. I'm hoping that it helps him quell those obsessions more, but the fact that he's articulating them and snapping out of perseverating that much quicker? It's nothing short of amazing to me.

When asked three weeks ago, I told the psychiatrist that if we had to attack anything, the OCD had to be treated first, because everything else would fall into place. She checked with the attending psychiatrist, who agreed. I never thought that he'd prove this theory right so soon.

This is one of those times that I'm really happy to be right about my kid.


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