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Please help!!! 5 year uncontrollable behavior on depakote

Fri, 08/11/2017 - 13:45
I am in dire need of help or advice. My 5 year old has been on depakote for about 5 months now after taking him off and on other different meds. (Trileptal, keppra). While it seems to be helping his seizures his behavior is outrageous. He won't listen and if you tell him not to do something he will scream on the top of his lungs like your killing him. He will run away if you try and grab him. At school he will bully kids by pushing hitting kicking. Won't listen to the teachers. I get countless calls from them everyday and have to go pick him up most of the time because nobody can control him. Long story short no one wants to babysit him, nor can I take him out the house because he is bound to throw a huge tantrum and I can't calm him at all. I feel like a prisoner in my home and just at a complete loss of what to do. The teachers look at me and feel sorry for me. The neurologist doesn't want to change meds nor prescribe something to maybe help with the behavior issues. They just say yea I can see he is super hyperactive. They don't see or care what I am going through. I sometimes think of putting him in foster care because I feel helpless to help him and I'm really struggling with keeping it together. I feel like a failure as a mother and don't know where to turn anymore. Please Help!!

Comments

Something you have to realize

Submitted by zacksdad on Fri, 2017-08-11 - 16:31
Something you have to realize... the neurologist is only concerned with controlling the seizures (unless you get really lucky).  They just don't understand or, at worst, don't care.  All the other stuff (I've been through the bad behaviors too) is secondary or tertiary to them.  My boy was on a high dose of Keppra and Depakote a few years ago and his behavior was almost intolerable.  We were asked to remove him from daycare due to his hitting and kicking the caregivers and other students, running around during rest times and generally disrupting everything.  Perhaps if you could film these behaviors on a phone and show it to the neurologist he would understand how horrible it really is.  In our case, Keppra was/is the main culprit.  Depakote was just an aggravating factor.  After a few months, the Depakote was discontinued (mostly because it didn't help with the seizures) and the behaviors decreased significantly.  About a year ago, we got his Keppra dosage below 1000 mg and most of the behaviors disappeared... almost overnight!  See if you can get your child's care transferred to a pediatric epileptologist.  A regular pedriatic neurologist deals with many types of brain and neurological dysfunctions.  An epileptologist specializes in epilepsy and is likely to be more knowledgeable about side effects and how to counter them or other medications that might be less disruptive. Please forget about foster care.  If you're having trouble dealing with the side effects, why would you think strangers will be better about it.  Having these feelings does NOT mean you're a bad mother.  It means you're very, very concerned and the professionals that are supposed to be helping the both of you are behaving ignorantly.How is he at taking pills?  We give my son 100 mg of vitamin B-6 every day.  It doesn't eliminate bad behaviors, but it does help reduce them a little.  Nothing special, just over the counter vitamins.  Be sure you tell your son's neurologist about it though.P.S.:  A screaming, cursing, throwing things against the wall hissy fit in your doctor's office would probably make you feel better, but I wouldn't recommend it!

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