Ok another post- Anxiety and Depression

[BeachyBlue34]

So I just posted about my daughter (9yo) and how she told me she's having problems socially, feeling alone.. etc. And you were all really supportive.

I want to ask some more questions!

Here's our story:

We sought out mental health treatment for her due to her anxiety and depression. We knew she had ADHD but it wasn't effecting her in school at the time so we didn't see a need to treat it.

She's always been very stubborn, defiant, a perfectionist, and explosive when she's angry but sometime around 7 years old it turned inward and she became depressed and anxious and then suicidal.

We got her into therapy and she was put on Zoloft. It worked over the summer- but then this school year started back up and the suicidal thoughts started again.

Tried upping the Zoloft, everything got worse... psych talked about trying mood stabilizers but I said "if we know she has ADHD maybe we should try to treat that first and see if it helps?" maybe that's why things got worse when school started, because of having to be so structured again?? (Its also effecting her schoolwork now)

So here we are just starting the journey on ADHD meds.. she was on a low dose of Ritalin but it didn't seem to do anything. Now we are on day two of concerta. Yesterday seemed like maybe things were better on it but today she seems kind of agitated?

So here's my questions:

How long do you give them being on a medication before you decided it wasn't working?

Does anyone have any experience with Anxiety and Depression and ADHD and what worked?

I'm reading a lot about Atomoxetine.. anyone with a similar situation try that with success?

Any support or advice welcome!

[CillyPutty]

Some similarities with our 9yo daughter, crippling anxiety socially but explosive and irritable at home. Everything we tried, including Zoloft and mood stabilizers made her more spacey or more explosive. So we finally tried very low dose Prozac generic for months, which may have helped, before risking the stimulants. Stimulants are helping a bit, not huge. I encourage you to go slow and patiently, weeks or months, making daily notes, before making a decision on the right medicine fit for your daughter. Their brains are changing daily, monthly, and it's easy to get false negatives and false positives. We also saw school correlating strongly with anxiety, so we pulled her out and put her in a different style of school with way less exclusion and pressure. Good luck!

[SecretAgentIEP in reply to CillyPutty]

Thanks for sharing. Can you also share the name of the school or if it was public or private?

[LAJ12345]

My husband was on Zoloft for depression and it was ok for a while then he became suicidal. The same happened with fluoxetine. I have since had his dna analysis done and it shows his dopamine and seratonin pathways are not functioning properly. He also has problems with levodopa drugs for his Parkinson’s.

Doctors will not take any notice of dna reports and want to keep increasing doses and putting him on these drugs which always end up with him suicidal due to the drugs making him extremely agitated and anxious.

We have found Hardys daily essential nutrients with added vitamers has completely fixed his depression where antidepressants did not.

To get him off the Zoloft he had to reduce extremely slowly particularly to get off the last tiny fraction. I used a jewellers scales to reduce by about 10% every couple of weeks. I repackaged into empty gel caps. The last wee bit I got a compounding pharmacy to dilute it to 10% concentration then kept reducing from there until he was completely off it. It took a year.

Ring Hardys free help line and ask to talk to their product specialist. They are extremely helpful and can talk you through what to do. Ask to talk to Jerry who is a woman. She has suffered herself so has first hand understanding. Another thing they might recommend is inositol.

Some people just can’t cope with antidepressants due to genetic issues. Anxiety is a sign of over medication.

Another thing to try is gaba gummies or depending where you live cbd gummies if they are legal for anxiety.

[AlexaKmom]

We started with the anxiety--Lexapro liquid 0.5 mg. She's now on 1 mg and that helped with her anxiety. Until we started Ritalin. We've been up and back down on that, about a week for each step. But when we got to 20 mg extended, she freaked out--so much anxiety and anger-- and so I went back down immediately after only one day. I think it was all too fast. She can't really self report and she masks so well at school, so it's all up to me and what I see for a few hours each day. We are back to 10 mg (5, 2x a day) and we are staying here for at least 2 weeks until we are sure she needs more.

[ASLCODATerp]

We have children with ADHD, depression, anxiety, sensory processing disorder, and Aspergers. Our 19 year-old went undiagnosed with ADHD until he was 16, because he has inattentive type and we were always focused on his Aspergers diagnosis. He was always anxious, but it got really bad in 7th grade. We transferred him to an online school and that helped some. In 9th grade he wanted to try brick n mortar school again and did just fine the fall semester. After winter break however he spiraled into suicidal depression. Back to online schooling he went! We put him on a mood stabilizer and an antidepressant. His first time on medication! It took us 3 years to find the right balance of diagnoses and medication. We learned that when untreated, adhd can lead to anxiety and severe depression. But it is multi-faceted. Our family history involves mental health challenges like depression. So I feel things are triple-stacked against him. We couldnt solve everything with one pill. He needed therapy and exercise and connection. There seem to be sensory issues at play also. But I do believe that the ADHD diagnosis and treatment set us on the right path. Each medicine we gave a good shot-about two to three months. In the meantime, lots of understanding and connection will go a long way for your child. And do get yourself set-up with some respite time, doing something that helps you disconnect from all of it for a while. Therapy helped me, too. It is an arduous road! Some helpful resources for me have been Tilt Parenting podcasts, Lives in The Balance website by Ross Green(love him!) and several free webinar conferences on Executive Function. (look up Seth Perler and also Happily Family).

[SanityCoaching]

My daughter is 14 and has Anxiety, Depression, ADHD plus a few other letter diagnosis. Unfortunately we have not found any 1 medication that can do the trick. We have her on Prozac for the depression, Buspar for stabilizing her moods and Trileptal for her explosive behavior (r may its the other way around?) Anyway, we have tried stimulants for the ADHD to no avail. The Buspar seems to help, I don't think the Prozac is helping - she is still really depressed even after upping the dosage, Trileptal helps a little, but I feel that if we are able to treat her ADHD effectively, then the explosions may subside (I belive they are linked). I don't like that she has to be on so many meds, but as I said, we have not found any 1 medication that can help all her diagnosis.

I am also sorry to say that as they start going through puberty and enter their teens, meds can stop working or will work differently - their hormonal changes can be a game changer and you may find yourself back at square 1 with medications - at least that has been our experience.

[Aspen797]

This may be completely not at all relevant, but I wanted to share just in case. Our son struggles at times with anxiety and has difficulty maintaining focus at school. He can also be impulsive at times. We found that while stimulants helped with impulsivity, they didn’t address the anxious/irritable piece. Guanfacine really helped with that piece. The two medications together work great. As another parent mentioned, we also found out through Genesight testing that our son was not processing certain nutrients as expected. With broad spectrum micronutrients on board for 4 months we saw a big difference that has only gotten better with time. If you try it, you should know within 4-6 months if it’s worth continuing.

I also want to note that girls with autism present much, much differently than boys. Because many of the tests for autism were developed through studies on boys, many girls go undiagnosed until adolescence or later. More on that here: childmind.org/article/autis.... If you have any concerns, a speech therapist with experience in ASD or a developmental behavioral pediatrician (see healthychildren.org/English... should be able to assess. Many women report their diagnosis as freeing as they didn’t know why things were so hard for them socially. This may not at all be the case, but I thought I’d put it out there as the therapy options are quite different and can lead to big improvements that are not available through a strictly ADHD lens driven set of therapy options.

[Smfdaisy]

my daughter is 10 and has ADHD and anxiety. We started by treating her anxiety— with therapy and Zoloft, which didn’t work for her so we switched to Prozac. Then we added Guanfacine, because I was concerned about stimulants. After several months, during which time I saw a lot of improvement, we added Focalin, which is a stimulant. She has some side effects with Focalin ( trouble winding down for sleep is the main one), but it is SO worth it. She’s finally happy and making friends and is so much more enjoyable to be around.

[dubstepMaul]

Hi BeachyBlue. Regarding the atomoxetine, my son was in the clinical trial for it before it was released as Strattera. That was many moons ago as he was 9 then and he's 31 now! But anyhow it really helped his mood and he was very relaxed, upbeat and not at all anxious while on it. Unfortunately for his particular case it did not help much in the way of focus and executive function. Might be worth discussing this med with your child's doctor.