5 Year Old put on Zoloft, things got WORSE!

[TinyTreasures]

Hello, I was wondering if anyone had any knowledge or experience with having their child on Zoloft. After a year of his play therapist and psychiatrist recommending Zoloft we finally got to the point where we were desperate enough to try it.

 

My son is 5 and has had PANS since he was 2.5. He was put on a mere 12.5 MG one time a day. The first couple days things were great - he seemed happier, less anxious. But by day three he was MANIC. Asking 10+ questions a minute, talking literally nonstop, energy to burn, OCD was worse - he woke up in the morning NEEDING to go on an adventure to look for rattlesnakes to catch and sell and would not give that idea up for anything. Doing risky things like climbing up too high or running off in public, he stopped fearing consequences and thus stopped listening to anything we said. He became very aggressive and violent, constantly trying to hurt us and his little brother, even in PUBLIC which he has never done before. He started swearing hundreds of times a day calling us all stupid and f******.

 

I lowered his dose to 1/4 a tablet - so not even 6 MG and put a call into his psychiatrist. She still wanted to raise his dose to 25MG a day, despite his symptoms, and give it a month to see what happened. I was scared to go even higher seeing how he was on half a tablet, so I stayed at 1/4 tablet and quit altogether today. His hyper manic mood disappeared when I went to 1/4 tablet, but everything else is horrible still. Things are SO bad, he is really out of control.

I do need to mention he was sick soon before we started Zoloft, and then sick again during it for a few days with a high fever. That always sends him into a flare but antibiotics usually helps after a few days and doesn't seem to be helping now.

 

Were we right to cut back and then stop the Zoloft because his symptoms were worse? Or should we have given it more time? I read up so much on Zoloft before finally trying it and nearly everything I read was that it helped immensely very quickly, I don't remember anything saying it made things unbearable. Thank you in advance.

[lovemylittleguy]

At six my son was put on Zyloft 12.5 mg, at first things did seem to get better, he was able to go to school without crying, seemed happier and his complete control of laundry went away. At exactly 30 days he was a mess. Manic, out of control, spinning objects for 8 hrs a day, and crying jags. Psychiatrist told me to take him off which we did, within a week he was back to where he was before Zyloft. We tried again, same thing happened but quicker this time, Psychiatrist said to increase to 25mg, that lasted maybe 1 week, it was unbelievable every (pans) symptom went through the roof and he had a lot of symptoms. This was long before I had ever heard of pandas/pans. We moved on to Luvox, really bad, then prozac all at low starting dose, ALL created huge problems. Prozac start with 5 mg, when I reduced it to 2mg behaviours leveled off. That is what got me down the road of pans/ pandas (the atypical reaction to SSRIs). Swedo says 1/4 or 1/10 of regular starting dose for pandas kids is a good place to start. I agree. Some can do more but my son (who is not on SSRIs anymore) is not one of them.

[MaryAW]

What else is your child taking? Antibiotics, Ibuprofen, vitamin D, omega 3's? Are you seeing a PANS/PANDAS doctor? I'm including a link to the new PANS/PANDAS website created by the top doctors to help with diagnosis and treatment.

 

https://www.pandasppn.org/

[nicklemama]

At 6, my son was put on Celexa. He became suicidal in 6 weeks time.

[TinyTreasures]

Thank you SO MUCH for your replies! I ended up taking my son completely off Zoloft about a week ago. Within the last couple days he is finally nearly back to himself. He went from swear words hundreds of times a day to 1 bad word and a few not-so-great words today. This morning he went on and on for 10 minutes about how much he loves me!!??!! Last week he was literally pointing toy guns at me saying they were real and he was going to kill me, and talking about how my red shirt was because he hurt me and I had blood all over. Complete 100% incredible turnaround, a totally different child. I believe he had serotonin toxicity and SSRI's are something we should absolutely avoid.

He is currently on Augmentin, and before the Zoloft I did Omega-3 (but just a low dose, I think I will increase it), Probiotics, Zinc, Folate, and Dr Rob Keller Original Glutathione Formula. I had quit most of those things because I was worried about bad interactions with the Zoloft.

I want to find a homeopathic Dr in AZ to start going to. His diet is absolutely horrible - he has food neophobia since 10 months old and is terrified of trying most foods. He does like fruit, but mostly lives on protein bars.

[kim]

Tiny Treasures,

 

So glad to hear things are better.

 

I was waiting to hear if others had any good things to say about increasing a dose of a drug that was having negative reactions too. It always makes me shudder when that rec. is made. I have read stories of children doing horrible criminal things and drug companies stepping in to assist attorneys in "why the drug," couldn't have been responsible when it clearly was. That's scarey business.

 

I wanted to ask you if you have every visited this site (or any of the linked groups/books etc)

in regards to the food neophobia? That seems to be an area that there is just no help or understanding of in main stream med.

 

http://mealtimehostage.com/2012/11/28/food-neophobia-scale-and-category/