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

When to stop medication

jillbean
jillbean
My daughter is currently taking 15mg of Prozac for anxiety management. She has been on the meds for about a year and a half and has been symptom free for at least 8-9 months. We stopped therapy 5 months ago because she had met all her goals. My husband and I are talking about weaning her off her meds, but are also nervous about the anxiety returning. We would love any advice from others who weaned their children off meds. We see our psychiatrist this week and plan to talk with him about this possibility but certainly have not made any decision yet. One of our concern staying in the meds is that she has gain a significant amount of weight, but the benefits have far outweighed that. How do we know when she is ready to go off the meds?
deleted_user
deleted_user
We are kind of in the same boat as you ( I replied to your other post about weight gain)...on 10mg Celexa about same amount of time and also stopped therapy a while ago. At this time we are not looking to reduce meds because DD still has OCD symptoms going on. (She seems anxiety free and has made massive improvments but she is a compulsive nail/cuticle picker and has some other repetitive behaviors that creep in here and there in times of boredom. We are not feeling ready to pull the meds for her but bemoan that weight gain. For now, we have found her a new sport she seems to love which hopefully she will stick with that involves a lot of intense exercise...fingers crossed!!!!!

My thoughts are you titre back the dose over a period of time..to 10mg, then 5mg, then 0 with a more frequent dr. check in. My 9 yo nephew did this but unfortunately (he also has OCD/tourette's) he had to go right back on meds..so at least the family knew...right away...that it was the meds that were really keeping him stable.

Good luck.
deleted_user
deleted_user
I would be interested to hear how things have gone for you. We are also at the point of tapering off of 20mg Prozac with my 11 year old son. He did so well on meds and we rejoiced at having our funny, confident, outgoing son back. He did fine when we went down to 10mg. But now that we are decreasing to 10mg ever two days, he has again felt over-emotional, quick to anger, irritable, anxious about things that previously didn't bother him anymore. Is this a temporary withdrawal symptom or does he need to stay on meds? That is the question we face. He thinks he is ready to stop meds and, of course, we don't want to medicate if we don't have to. But I don't want him to revert, especially entering into the pre-teen years. He has also had weight gain with Prozac - but for me, that is a small price to pay for him feeling good.