Anxiety Disorders in Children Support Group

Childhood","This community is for parents and caregivers of children who exhibit signs of anxiety. Anxiety refers to a complex combination of negative emotions that includes fear, apprehension and worry, and is often accompanied by physical sensations such as palpitations, nausea, chest pain and/or shortness of breath."

793 Members

387 Posts

0 Online

santda 02/22/2015

Hi guys i'm new to the group, I'm just wondering if anyone can advise; my 9year old has had anxiety since she was 4, we new it wasnt the normal she would grow out of kind BY AGE 7 she started counseling and did well. At 8 or so the counselor said she could take a break from seeing her and if she started to have issues again we would start up therapy again. The anxiety has never stopped but she has been dealing with it, and everything just exploaded at the age of 9 after christmas break she didnt want to go back to school and she began with panic attacks and than the depression set in, which is totally new for us. Its so sad when you see your child in such a state; well to get to the point where I need advise is we had to start her on flouxetine 10mg because now her quality of life was severly being affected. Its been about 23 days on med and I see the depression has lifted thank god but the medicine hasnt touched her anxiety. Her stomach has hurt constantly with this med and she even lost 4lbs in a week bc she isnt eating well, Ive had to pull her out of school bc her main anxiety issue is school and she had missed so many days; I wanted to take the pressure of so i just enrolled her in online school until she gets back to herself, bc ultimately my goal would be for her to stay in a brick and motar school which she does well in, she an excellant student but shes always been anxious about school, We have her first pyschatrist appt coming up in a few days and I'm wondering what to do about the med should I ask them to change it? does it take longer to work on the anxiety part? will her belly feel better? does it need to be uped? please anyone?

Rochelle43 02/25/2015

You will get varying comments here. My daughter was on Prozac for a little while, but she had side effects from it. To be honest, I didn't really see an improvement with her anxiety when she was on it. She is on a low dose of Wellbutrin now, and that seems to help. It doesn't totally take it away, but it is manageable now. Our main problem is sleep problems/insomnia. It had gotten a lot better when put on trazodone, but recently it is starting to be a small problem again. One day at a time:)

You may want to ask about either a different med or maybe a higher dosage of Prozac? If she is getting stomach aches maybe it's sort of a reaction and you need to switch? I'd definitely ask. It's a pain to ween them off and switch meds, but it can definitely be wroth it. Hang in there and let us know how it all goes.

rms519 03/01/2015

This same thing happened to my son right after Christmas break last year. He didn't want to go to school, began having panic attacks, etc. It was awful! We started Zoloft 25mg on February 28th and by mid-April he was almost completely back to normal. It took a while for it to work but, we saw improvements all along the way. We had a bump in the road after Thanksgiving and bumped the med up to 37.5mg. He is completely fine now. We also do counseling since last March. I hope that you find something that works. My heart goes out to you because I know how terrible it makes you feel as a parent. Their mood directly affects our mood. Good luck to you.

redhead2468 03/06/2015

I have a nine year old, he's had anxiety since he was 3. :-( We didn't start meds until he was 7, but we tried so many that had no effect, increased symptoms, or side effects. Prozac is always where they start. Anyway, my son is on a low dose of Abilify, it seems to be working for the anxiety and depression. He also had serious issues at school (look up school refusal, it's a real thing), and after a lot of pushing, I was able to get him a behavioral IEP at another school in the district and it has been the best thing for him. With the abilify and this program, he has had the best four months of school EVER, and my stress over all of this (three years in the running) has decreased significantly.

pumpkinsmom 03/06/2015

HI IM NEW TO THIS TOO, I THINK I ANSWERED ALOT OF YOUR QUESTIONS IN MY JOURNAL I JUST WROTE. PLEASE FEEL FREE TO LOOK AT IT.

santda 03/07/2015

Thank you to all who have responded to my entry, My little one has made improvemrnts thank goodness the depression has lifted but she still has a high degree of anxiety which the medicine hasn't been able to touch, the Dr says we will wait out entire 6 weeks and than up the med if anxiety hasn't shown improvement, she said usually its a higer dose to help the anxiety part. thanks again to you all

Join the Conversation