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."
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. :(
Yes, I wish our daughters could talk too! My daughter has felt for some time that she was alone in all of this. She does have a cousin who is in college who experienced a lot of what she is going through. They have talked here and there, but it's hard, because family is always around. I have thought about looking for an online support group for children/teens where they can talk to each other like we are doing now. I will let you know if I see something that seems safe for them.
It is definitely ups and downs with all of this. I have to remember when I get down about it that she has come a long way compared to where she was. The end of last school year and last summer was just horrible. That's when I didn't know what was going on yet. I was embarrassed to tell friends' moms that she "didn't want to do anything with their daughters" and didn't want to go anywhere. She had severe constipation issues at the time and refused to go places in case she may have to "go." She was very focused on "time" and not getting enough sleep........................she still has this problem to some extent, although she is more relaxed than she was.
I sure hope all of this tapers off for all of us in time!