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."

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Children's Mental Health
/ Anxiety Disorders in Children Support Group

Anxiety med adjustments STINK!!!!

cmbarton3
cmbarton3
I found this group by accident and it literally is a gift from God for me. My sweet 11 year old daughter is struggling with her anxiety terribly and of course I am too. She started with major panic attacks complete with vomiting at the age of 9. I took her to counseling and was told the counsellor had never seen a case so severe and she was unable to help my daughter. After dealing w docs I won't even mention we were able to find a practitioner who knew what she was talking about to treat her. She was started on 10mg of Prozac and it worked perfectly and almost immediately!! I had my baby back!! :) Until now. Apparently she has outgrown the 10mg and her anxiety is back full force. In the meantime her doc has abruptly left her practice and we are left starting over. Thankfully our general NP has agreed to step in in the meantime and we have raised her dose of the Prozac by 5 mg. Does anyone have any experience with this? Maybe it's not enough. Its been 3 or 4 days and I'm not seeing a change. When she started the Prozac the change was almost immediate. Maybe she should go up to 20? She is terrified of vomiting (I couldn't believe how common this is when I started reading this forum! Thank God it's not just us!!!) and I think the increased dose of Prozac is making her mildly nauseous. Of course this is making her anxiety worse. We just can't win right now. The NP prescribed Atarax as needed which does help some but really wipes her out which is fine at home but not at school. Can anyone offer any advice? Please. Anything. This is beyond exhausting, for both of us. :(
jillbean
jillbean
Hey there,
Your situation sounds just like mine with my daughter! She has generalized anxiety disorder and emetaphobia (severe fear of vomiting). She was diagnosed at age 9 and is now 11. She was in counseling for one year, which did not do much. She is on 10 mg of Prozac and it has been our wonder drug- giving her her life back. She did have a bad spell and we bumped her up to 15 mg. for a period of time. we also did not see a change as quickly as when she was first put on it. It actually took about two months for her to level off on the increased dose. I was ready to bump her to 20 when our provider left and our appointment kept getting rescheduled later and later while they searched for a replacement. By the time we got in to see someone, her symptoms had started to decrease and she was more stable. Last summer, after over one year of being stable, we tried to wean her off, but very quickly learned that was the wrong choice. Hang in there and give it some time, hopefully you will see some changes. I certainly know how exhausting this can be. I have had many sleepless nights and my own anxieties in dealing with all the challenges this has brought to our life. Daily strength was certainly very helpful getting us through! Best to you and your sweet daughter!
Rochelle43
Rochelle43
I hear ya!

My daughter seemed to be doing better on her new med........bupropion with Trazodone for sleep. Well, recently she's been showing more anxiety again and the Trazodone doesn't seem to be working at bedtime like it did before. I'm going to give it a little longer, but I may need to have her switch meds again which I did not want to have to do. When we did a higher dosage of the bupropion she got even more irritable/anxious at bedtime and couldn't sleep so I really don't want to increase this particular one. I hate weening off medicines and was really hoping this one was it! I also don't like the beginning side effects. Ugh!
cmbarton3
cmbarton3
I hope this doesn't sound crazy but it is soo good to hear from other people who are experiencing the same things that we are. None of my friends children have anything like this and I've learned the hard way that you can't possibly understand anxiety unless you actually experience it. It's horrible. Even my husband struggles to understand. So I do think the small increase in her dosage is helping a little but she's still relying heavily on atarax as needed. She also now has a cold and feels rotten from that. Can't win. I was considering tonight raising her another 5mg but I think I'll wait a few more days. Thanks jillbean for telling me that it took your daughter longer to respond to the increase. It gives me hope. Rochelle43 is bupropion taken regularly every day or as needed? I don't know anything about it.
Rochelle43
Rochelle43
Yes, bupropion is taken every day. It is the generic of Wellbutrin. She is on 75 mg in the morning, and recently the pdoc wanted to put her on another 75 in the afternoon. Well, that was awful! She was so overanxious at bedtime that the Trazodone didn't work at all, and I had to give her Benadryl to get her to go to sleep. I ended up cutting the afternoon dose in half and that worked much better. I do think, though, that she is going to end up going on another medicine altogether. I just feel as if things could be going better by now. My niece is on Zoloft and says she likes that med. If we end up switching I may ask for that one. Not looking forward to the weening off or increasing though.

You are not alone. Dealing with all of this gives me anxiety, and sometimes I'm a mess! I know what you mean about others not understanding. We are careful who we tell about it. It really is not understood at all and no one could possibly understand the types of things we go through unless they have dealt with anxiety first hand.
cmbarton3
cmbarton3
Rochelle43 have you considered Atarax for bedtime? Our regular NP suggested it as an "as needed" anxiety med to go with her Prozac but its actually an antihistamine commonly used to treat hives. One of it's side effects is that it's calming. It works amazingly well and fast for my daughter. The downside is that it of course makes her really tired. Perfect for bedtime. It is inexpensive and has no scary side effects and it is NOT addicting as a lot of the other meds are. It's been God send for us. My only concern right now is that she is needing it during the day which leaves her struggling with fatigue at school. I wish I could find something equally as effective for daytime until we get her Prozac dose figured out.
deleted_user
deleted_user
Has anyone had success with a medicine that is a non-stimulant?
My 8yr old son suffers from anxiety and Prozac as well as Lexapro only seemed to exasperate his symptoms. Please let me know if someone out there has had the same experience and has found something that works. Thank you very much!
Rochelle43
Rochelle43
No, I have not heard of Atarax. Is it something that needs to be prescribed? I used to use Benadryl before the anxiety meds, and she would fall asleep but then wake in the night. It was exhausting,because she would get frustrated and wake me. Now she is having a hard time "settling" down to sleep. I don't know if I should even keep her on the Trazodone, although it does seem to "keep" her asleep, at least until early morning.
cmbarton3
cmbarton3
Atarax is a prescription antihistamine. It's generic name is hydroxyzine. I really think it might work for your daughter at night. Mine sleeps very soundly with it, but like I said she takes it as needed any time of day as well. Here's more info.

http://www.webmd.boots.com/anxiety-panic/anxiety-hydroxyzine
cmbarton3
cmbarton3
Tippyb the Atarax may be helpful for your son as well..
Rochelle43
Rochelle43
Thanks cmbarton3. I will ask about it the next time we go in. Do you know if it can be taken every night? She has sleep issues every single night. That's why we were prescribed Trazodone to begin with. Reading about this Atarax makes me think I'd maybe rather have her on that. I'd really like to get her off everything else and just have a sleep aid, but I'm not sure that would go very well.

Another thought I had as to why the Trazodone may not be working at this point may be that she is on a second dose of anxiety medicine in the afternoon. When we first started this "second" dose she was completely wired at night and couldn't sleep, had bad dreams, etc. That's when I asked if I could at least cut the pill in half. Well, that worked much better, although now we are having issues with the sleep. So maybe this half pill needs to be cut out. I just don't know.

Thanks for posting. Anything is worth a shot at this point!
jbj1001
jbj1001
Interesting about the Atarax. I didn't recognize the name of it, but looked it up and realized I took that when I had anxiety attacks when I was pregnant - it was definitely considered safe for that.

My daughter (13) also started on 10mg of fluoxetine, then after about a year had to bump up to 15, and about 9 months later she went up to 20 (this past December). She also takes buspirone. My understanding is that is often used as an accompaniment to prozac. I think as kids grow/gain weight, it is normal to need to increase or change their meds. I don't think we saw as marked a difference over a short time period when we increased her dose as we did when she first started on it, so I would give it time if you can. Hang in there! As you said, med adjustments are hard!
cmbarton3
cmbarton3
Yes Atarax can be taken every single night. Several times a day every day in fact. Our NP and the doc we saw before she left the practice also say that the effects of the Atarax should not lessen over time as some meds do. It is literally what is gettimg my daughter through each day right now. She was having horrible anxiety before school this morning saying she was afraid of getting a stomach ache. She didn't want to eat breakfast, kept running to the bathroom, was worried about music lesson etc... One half of an Atarax later (5mg of a 10mg pill) and she was belting out the Frozen soundtrack in the car on the way to school. Phew. One more morning down... :)
cmbarton3
cmbarton3
Hi again! I need some advice today if anyone can help me. Today is the 13th day of my daughter being on 15mg of the Prozac. (we moved her up from 10) She is still not settled. She has shown some improvement over the course of the 2 weeks but she's still struggling. Has it been enough time to raise her again to 20mg? I'm doing this all on my own as I haven't gotten a call back from our NP. I hate seeing her this way. It's Saturday and she will not do anything, won't leave the house at all. It's awful. She just asked me if I would yell at her if she threw up. She constantly worries that she will. Any advice would be more appreciated than you know.
Rochelle43
Rochelle43
Boy, I don't know. I would think you would've started to see a difference by now, but I'm certainly no expert. That's such a terrible state to be in. My daughter was like that all summer.........not wanting to go anywhere or do anything with friends, crying in her room and she didn't know why, etc., etc. I hated seeing her that way. She isn't as bad now with that. She'll go places, see friends, her constipation issues are under control..................but she still refuses to do sleepovers with friends and has bad anxiety about time and not getting enough sleep. She will get really over anxious at times and still has insomnia.

Right now we are waiting for a call back from the pdoc about taking her off her "half dose" of afternoon med because of her insomnia acting up again. Don't know if that's it or not, but it sure seems like it got worse since this. We are still keeping the Atarax in mind for when we have our next visit.

Anyway, do hang in there. I'm sorry I don't have much advice. My thought would be that maybe she does need a little higher dosage, but I just don't know. It's hard to see them so depressed at their ages. Hopefully someone can jump in and give you more sound advice!

Hugs to you and hang in there!
cmbarton3
cmbarton3
Rochelle43 thank you so much for your reply. I so badly needed to hear someone else say that she may need a bit of a higher dose. Today has been awful for her. I just don't understand why. Yesterday was good, it's a constant up and down. So I gave her the 20mg w dinner. Time will tell. You're right, it's so hard to see them this way. I wish our daughters could meet and talk so that they could see that other kids have these issues too. My daughter feels like she's the only one.
I'm so sorry you're still struggling with insomnia. That's horrible. I have insomnia myself at times so I know what it's like. For a while I took Hylands calms forte. Have you heard of it? It's homeopathic and I felt like it did help me. Just an idea. Let me know how you make out when you hear back from the doctor. Hugs to you too.