shrink or no shrink is the Question

Re: Re: Re: shrink or no shrink is the Question

Submitted by GodivaGirl on Sun, 2006-10-01 - 17:43

Scott, Honest, try taking a step back & focus on letting your daughter just be a kid. She's on some pretty powerful drugs. While I don't know the doses. A) Check out www.epilepsyontario.org -- treatments -- medications -- Lamictal. In there, you'll see warnings that Lamictal is a pretty powerful medication, not recommended for kids under 16 unless seizures are severe OR Lennox Gaut (SP??) Disease is an issue. B) Read up on Keppra (either the banner here, or skim through the "Medication Issues" section in here) I haven't seen many adults who like Keppra. I myself started it about 4 mths ago & go from one day being happy, the next hating life, and have thought of killing myself twice. The seizure control on Keppra can be great, but the side effects are nasty. Lamictal I was on when I was 22. For me it was too expensive for the reward, so I got off it quick, but I remember it impacted concentration just as much as Keppra. Yes, there are important courses for college and university, odds are your daughter will get there. Odds are she's in some sort of phase where the seizure meds, adjusting to high school and life are just getting to her. Be there for her. Tell her no matter what it's ok. There's always summer school, and perhaps correspondence (if that's an option). Also, you say your daughter wants to be a sports medicine trainer. Perhaps get her to volunteer in something relevant to the field get her interested in it. Have her help out the girls basketball team? Even maybe the boys? Find a sports trainer she can shadow or talk to. Get her interested in the future - perhaps the sports trainer will make her see the courses she needs to take. Your daughter sounds like me at 16-22. Basically, I always told my parents I'm fine, leave me the hell alone. At the same time, even though I was always academic I still heard "you can't" and "you'll never" often enough from doctors. Well, I'm stubborn & I prove people wrong. Eventually, at 19 I moved away to university & I was like finally I get to live my own life - did that year one, and half of my second year. That's when I got into drinking heavily, and experimenting with drugs a bit, because well - time to do what I want. While I still got my major/minor & ended up with a decent average, that's why I say, back off & let your kid be a kid that maybe just struggles a bit. She will wake up & see the importance of education. Maybe not as soon as you want her to, but if you force it then your risking a rebellious kid on your hands. Is that what you really want? The more my own parents back off, let me live my life & are just there to support me through the rough times when things don't go as planned, the more they get let in. Even now at 32, my mom worries about certain things, questions decesions, so when I look for input on anything it's not her I ask, it's my dad because I know my dad just listens & says it's all okay, it will work out & as long as your happy & reasonably seizure free, that's all that matters. In the great scheme of things, what do you want - a straight A student who's miserable and a really great actress that shuts you out of her life & resents you later in life for the pressure put on her to excel in school. OR a happy, well adjust reasonably seizure free kid, who lives life as a typical 14 year old where at 14, friends, the mall, movies and your first crush are more important than math, english and science, and by 16 she'll wake up & see it for herself that school is important and perhaps she'll resent you less. Ask about more than school. Ask about friends, movies, etc. There's more to life than education. Put it first too much, and she's going to put it last, just to rebel against you more and more, just a guess. ~ EC