BellaOnline Forums Health and Fitness Autism Spectrum Disorders What med is anyone using to help with self stim?

My son has very high self stim. One Doctor believes it is anxiety but another believes it is obsessive compulsive. We've tried respirdal and halidol{SP?}. The only thing we saw were the side effects-weight gain and droziness. The second neurologist thinks prozac might be a good drug. Anyone try this? It is hard to find research used on autisic children. My son is very bright but the stim is starting to effect the amount of time he can focus and learn at school.

I never heard about giving medications for stims. I belong to a parenting ocd yahoo group and many have their kids on meds, so maybe it is more an obsessive compulsive.

My son was on risperdal and now on Geodon, they are anti-psychotics. Haldol is the drug that the mother in Texas was on when she drowned her kids. My ex was on that and it is a heavy duty med - I thought many that were on Haldol went to Risperdal when it came out.

Karen what kind of stims is your son having that is causing him to lose focus at school?

I'm sorry I mis-spoke. The doctor wanted Brett on halidol-I choose resperdol. Then we went to paxil{that was the one that he was agressive with]. We are now trying prozac which in the readings I'm finding is one used to help with ocd. Brett has to have small objcet in his hands and visually stims. If he can't get soomething he resorts to his hands. Brett can stop the stim-he knows he's not supposed to- as he will hand it to you when you say"Brett". It just seems like he HAS to stim. He can go long periods without doing it. He does it in any circumstance-nervous-relaxed-happy-the least is when he is sick or tired.

He ended up being allergic to Prozac. Week 2 of Med he had early awakenings-ie 3-4am He usually sleeps till 6:30. week 3 he got a rash. His DR suggested zoloft. Coming off the prozac was hard he was happy-focused and a lot less stim and behaviors at school{they didn't know he was on and reports were good}. He's doing great on Zoloft but we're on week 2 1/2 so I'm holding my breath. Again we are seeing less stim-more eyecontact-happy-less aggressive behavior{scratching-biting}Seems more calm and less OBSESSED!

I have heard of parents not informing school their child is on meds. Do you really think that is advisable considering all the side effects possible?

I print out the side effects for the teacher and nurse and make sure everyone knew when my son changed meds. I also keep him home for about 2-3 days to make observations with new meds.