[MyTwoAs]

I know last year when I looked into Risperdal for my son there were several mommas here who were using Risperdal for their child. I haven't been around much lately so I'm not sure if they still read/post but hoping someone does.

Has anyone used Risperdal for their child (with success) and then have everything fall apart when stopping the medication? We stopped it about a month ago as my son's physical and verbal aggression seemed to be under control. The last month has been pretty much a nightmare of aggression.

This morning he was screaming at the top of his lungs that the clocks were wrong and it wasn't 8:12 but 7:50 and that I must have changed all the clocks in the house. This was pretty much out of nowhere.

I've been yelled at and physically attacked repeatedly and it just seems to be getting worse. He's also not eating and has lost 10% of his weight in the past month and is cutting out once loved foods (I could always count on cheese sticks for protein, not anymore.)

The thing is, I don't know if this is because of the Risperdal (he was on .25 mg and we tapered it off over 2 weeks) or because he hit his head in early November and gave himself a severe concussion (based on the MRI results). His fall kind of put a dent in his right frontal lobe and I know that the frontal lobe helps in controlling aggression.

Any ideas? Oh and because I know it will come up - no dietary changes, the only schedule change is that we're getting ready for holiday break (starts today) and he's only had one seizure in three weeks.

 

[mykdsmomy]

Hi! Boo is on Risperdal (he's 4). We are hoping to wean him off soon as it doesn't seem to have helped much. A few weeks ago I tried giving it to him 1x a day instead of 2. His aggression was much worse so we had to go back up (for now).
Can I ask why you would take him off if you noticed his aggression had decreased? Maybe the Risperdal was helping and taking him off brought back his aggression?
I'm not happy about Risperdal as Boo has gained tons of weight on it and it hasn't helped in the way we had hoped. Right now we're increasing his Lexapro and added Clonidine. I'm hoping we can get off the Risperdal if we can get the other meds to work.

 

[MyTwoAs]

Thanks. We stopped it as he's seven and on four different medications and I was hoping we could cut down. Plus at seven I was hoping that he'd "matured" a bit and would be able to use the coping techniques he's learned in the past year. Perhaps it was just wishful thinking on my part.

 

[harpertrance]

yes... we were on it, then we had stopped it since November 21st and within 2 weeks he was back to being very unmanagable. His Dr put us back on it since wednesday

 

[mamaof5boys]

Hello!

My 10 y/o is on risperdal. We've found that it's the main med that helps- immensely!! We hate the weight gain too, but it sure beats the negative behaviors.

I really wanted to try to take a vacation from the risperdal and talked to our psychiatrist about it. Our DS is doing SO well, I was wondering like you all if he really needed it anymore... the doctor informed me that there's a good chance we could take him off of it after he gets through puberty- maybe around age 15. He's seen a lot of kids mature and need it less at that age. He also informed me that if we take him off of it now, we may actually have a harder time getting him stabilized to the level he's at now. It may take more med to get him stabilized- if that makes sense.

OP- 2 weeks seems like a rather fast decrease for your DS. We've never done it with Risperdal, but I know with other meds when we've changed rapidly life is miserable for us all.

Good luck. Thanks for the post!

 

[LynnS6]

Not direct experience, but a good friend of mine had her son on Risperdal for about a year (maybe more) and then took him off, and while some aggression returned, it was manageable.

Several things to note:
1. He was older when he went on (8, I believe) and that might have been a factor in making cognitive strategies work for him.
2. They took him out of school and began homeschooling him because school simply wasn't working for him (as in the best they could do for behavior management was to decorate the behavior charts differently, rather than actually do something different).

I'm not sure which of the 2 actually had more impact on his aggression.

 

[MyTwoAs]

Thanks for all of your feedback.

mamaof5boys - he was only on one .25 mg pill so week one was 1/2 pill and week two was 1/4 pill. The pills are itty bitty so it was hard to get those in quarters. I asked the psychiatrist and neurologist (he also has seizures so sees both) about it affecting the efficacy of the drug in the future and they told me at his dosage and size, we'd be fine. Of course, everyone is different though.

We went to the doc on Friday and because there are some transition issues going on, we're going to restart the Risperdal for about a month. My husband was out-of-state working the first two weeks of December (he was home on weekends) which is not usual for him. Plus we were coming up on winter break which is a difficult transition for my son. My doc said he may have aggression because he could still benefit from the Risperdal or perhaps he's having anxiety about the transitions. Once we're two weeks into school after the break, we're going to wean off again.