• ADD,  Body and Mind

    Progress, I think

    I haven’t written all that much about Game Fanatic lately. All things considered, I think he’s doing pretty well. But his anxiety levels remain high and this continues to disable him in many areas of his life. We’ve been plodding along with medications and therapy over the past six or seven months. He sees a psychiatrist every four to six weeks, mainly with regard to medication. Until recently, he hardly spoke at these appointments but he’s been able to have a reasonable conversation the last two visits. Due to his inability to speak, I’ve been speaking to the psychologist about him over most of this year. I find it incredibly exhausting and I started to feel like it wasn’t very productive because the only effect seemed to be that my own anxiety levels have increased over the year. Game Fanatic did start back with his own appointments recently and I think there is some progress in communication there.

    Socially, he chose recently to rejoin his fortnightly Sunday Dungeons and Dragons group after being away for over a year. They no longer meet at the original location so this involved going to a new place.  Although I know it was overwhelming for him, I think he managed it really well and should improve in the future. He’s not been satisfied with the progress of his weekly D&D group for a while because it moves too slowly. But the Sunday group was ripping along over the three and a half hours they played. It’s also a more mature group and I think this is also beneficial for him.

    He’s been on medication for most of this year. There have been two constants throughout this time, one which apparently can take a long time to show obvious effects. The other medication is for attention issues and should have shown effect some time ago. The only thing we’ve worked out, though, is that it decreases  his appetite. I think he finally is having some good feelings about some of the positive changes from that now, even though he’d be unlikely to admit it yet. So we will continue to plod along and hopefully progress will continue even though it may be very slow to occur.

  • ADD,  Asperger's and Autism,  Body and Mind

    Melatonin wonders

    There have been ongoing sleep problems with both the boys for years now. Lego Lover started on a prescription medication to help his sleep a couple years ago. We had some success but the effect seemed to wear off after some time and he had maxed out on the dosage for his age and weight. He takes another medication to help with irritability and anxiety that is supposed to cause sleepiness. Not with our Lego Lover though. It keeps him awake and we had to change the timing of doses to accomodate that. Lately it has been a struggle to get him to sleep before midnight. Game Fanatic more recently tried the same medication for sleep and has had mixed success so far.

    I’d heard about melatonin and its sedative effect. But it’s not available for sale in Australia, except by prescription. A month’s supply will easily cost $60-70 for one child. Through the grapevine I’d heard several parents had ordered it from the US quite successfully, even in large amounts. I finally made an order for eight bottles of tablets, which worked out very cheaply. The shipping was another matter but altogether it cost about the same as a month supply on prescription here in Australia. The package arrived about two weeks ago and I started both boys on it.

    The effect for Lego Lover has been incredible. We were able to eliminate his prescription medication completely. He’s been asleep before midnight most nights and I’ve even managed to get him to sleep before 11pm a few times. I’m hoping to eventually shift the time to around 10pm. The effect hasn’t been so great for Game Fanatic but he did say it made him feel sleepy a few times, which is far more than he’s said about anything else. In my view, it has been very much a success for Lego Lover, so the risk of such a large order was very much worth it.