11 year old son diagnosed with depression

[Leeloo46]

My 11 year old son has been diagnosed with depression about a month ago. It came as a complete shock to me and my husband.

He has always been an easy going boy, the peacemaker among his sibling and cousins, and a smart dedicated student.

I am at such a loss on how to help him, he is on Zoloft 50mg a day for over a month upped from 25mg combined with 1x week therapy session. We have seen no improvement, in fact i would say he is worse as he has now begun hitting himself.

I have scheduled follow up appointments with psychiatrist and psychologist. But to be honest I have never felt so lost.

Has anyone else experienced a similar thing?

[fauxartist]

I am sorry your going through this, it's really hard for a parent when their child is sick or needs help and they feel helpless....and you are depending on professionals to help your child. First of all....hopefully they told you it's nobody's fault...it's chemical....and also know, that sadly...it always seems like it's trial and error in finding the right SSRI medication and the right dosage. Some people actually cannot be helped by meds as they are resistant to them. But some such as myself just had to try different meds till I got the right one and right dosage. The hard part is...it takes about two weeks for many meds to kick in, so you have to endure all the cross over effects, and in some cases it seems things are getting worse before they get better. But if your child is physically harming themselves....it's for sure scary and you do need to get immediate help. Stick with it though...eventually and hopefully something is going to help them.

[bantam12]

Has he had blood tests to check for a medical reason, particularly thyroid tests.