Mood problems triggerd by getting sick; 6yo AS

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My 6yo son has Asperger's. Over the last year, we've noticed that when he gets sick (colds, other viruses...) he suffers through WEEKS (sometimes months) of chronic irritability. We'll have a few wonderful weeks when he's happy, then he gets sick and it's weeks of torture. Every moment is a meltdown.

Any one else see this with their kiddos? Anyone figure out a way to deal with it?

not really (i know it's stupid to answer you only to tell you that i don't share the same problem but...) my son gets totally apathetic and i usually stop demanding anything from him the minute i notice he might be sick. That's because i know he will not notice himself and probaby start getting in those "moods" too if i let him carry on as normal. So i put him to bed, wait on him hand and foot (i've been known to bring home made hamburgers in MY bed for him as he lies there playing the DS, half comatose...) and don't let him do anything until he is better.
Advantages: he rests, i don't have to deal with the mood, he gets better quicker. Not many inconvenients...

That's what I would do before school, but now that he's in Kindergarten, he has to get up and go to school. He's not sick now, had a cold over the weekend, but the mood stuff goes on forever. It has lasted months on the past.

This morning I went to get him up and when I sat on the side of his bed he shrieked at me to get off his bed and out of his room. (He'd been straightening his bed up and thought I was messing it up. I was careful not to, but he perceived that I was)

Ever single interaction was like that, I would gently tell him things like "time to brush your teeth" and he would scream and cry as if he had been asked to cut off one of his own fingers.

I don't know how to handle him when he's like this. He shrieks, screams, hits... it's heartbreaking to watch him so miserable.

Yeah, he sounds exhausted ... there's nothing i can think of, if there is no way he can spend a week in bed...vitamin C? i want to add "coffee " but i know people on here don't like jokes... trouble is, if you won't let him rest and still want him to be in a good mood, you might have to use drugs.

This sounds familiar to me. Any virus really knocks one of my sons out. He initially gets very ill, and then it takes a very long time for him to slowly get back to full strength. It affects his mood as well, because he is simply too exhausted to deal with the smallest stress, and because he has been pulled out of his regular routine by the illness he feels dysregulated and upset, and then when it is time to go back to school it is really, really hard to get him back into the regular routine.

If at all possible, extra time recuperating is likely what he needs. Even when he seems well, he may need an additional couple of days off school to recover his strength.

Also whatever you can do to provide him with sensory stimulation during his illness may help. For my son having his back scratched gently, or his head and face massaged, chewing on straws and sucking his liquids through small straws, being wrapped in a heavy blanket, being read to etc. help him to stay well from a sensory point of view.

As far as the frequent meltdowns lasting for months that may require a different approach. Investigating stresses at school and at home, adopting a different routine, teaching strategies for more appropriate behavior when upset etc. There are many excellent books to give more specifics on these things (check out the recommended reading thread above). And "Congratulations Your Child is Strange" written by WP member Tracker is a great starting place. http://www.asdstuff.com/

Good luck.

sickness seems to make the autistic traits more severe, at least in my house. that means more rigid thinking, more emotional distress, more resistant to change, more issues with transitions, more sensory overload, etc. i dont know that i'd call it a mood problem, but more likely a decreased ability to self regulate, which results in more sensory overload and meltdowns.

unfortunately, the worst one at my house is my SO. i try to be sympathetic, really, but the cuteness of a 39 yr old man stumbling around the house slack jawed and heavy lidded, clutching at his chest and acting like his next breath will be his last, because he's got a cold... well it wears off really fast =P our whole house had chest colds in november, his actually escalated into pneumonia in december and we didnt know it until january when he was on his second round of antibiotics, because his reaction is the same to a simple cold or pneumonia; he acts like hes dying.

when my youngest gets sick, he gets a little more stimmy and needs more sensory input, stops eating and bouncing, and gets real quiet. he also sleeps a lot. he does tend to get more irritable, or rather annoyed at others, but it doesnt last for an extended period.

best thing i have found to do is just to acknowledge that this is the usual course, and adjust my expectations accordingly.

I'm 51, and the most reliable way I can tell that I'm coming down with something is when I have a sudden, inexplicable meltdown. I'll be wondering "where did that come from?", realise I'm probably getting sick, and, every time, within a day or two... hack, cough, sniffle, sneeze, fever, whatever. Over time, as he learns to understand this and to control meltdowns in general, it may get a bit better. But when I am sick, my ability to control meltdowns is cut to perhaps ten percent of its normal level - and that's with a mild illness. Bad flu? Unless I'm so sick I can't move, it forces me into a continual state of low-grade meltdown.

I have mostly reactions to these things.

If nose is blocked I have a obsession to clear it
out so I am forced to blow it to death until it
bleeds or clears out. I can be heard all over
the building going SNEED SNEED SNEED!!
until it lets me breathe. I canot make it stop
until it is clear.

Pain is just caus eme to OUUUGGGHH!! !
untikl pain goes away.

The rest, coffing makes me swear,
hocking loogies is more fun and makes
it not so miserable, because I can spit
in 7 different directions and try to hit
the 7 different spitcans I have placed
about the bed, and going HOCCCKKK!! !
is fun too so by the time the hockers come
I feel better.

YES...I know what you are talking about but my nearly 6 year old Autie gets this way only after illness. While she is sick she is very sweet, quiet, cuddly (she is rarely cuddly, only sometimes with me, rarely anyone else), and will sleep and stay in bed most of the time. Once she is better, there is heck to pay! I think it just a regulation thing. It takes them a lot longer to recover than most people. My daughter is angry and prone to serious meltdowns after illness plus she is also like a tightly wound spring and she literally bounces of the walls (Im not kidding I should video that some time). She runs from one end of the hall to the other and smacks into the walls (she doesnt only do this after being sick but it is more often).

Our son was not diagnosed with Asperger's (rather high functioning autism), however he recently had a chest infection and we had the worst few weeks of his little life. He was so grumpy, irritable, had no patience -- frequent meltdowns... Once the infection was cleared he returned to his normal self. Whew, it was a tough few weeks!

I wish I had some helpful suggestions... But for me just knowing there's a correlation between feeling unwell and meltdowns helps me cope -- it's also helpful to know that it's temporary!

You know, it sounds very much to me as though his system is still fighting off the sickness, or recovering from the effects of it. You might want to try anything safe which might boost his immune system or help him recover. Example: I know sometimes when I'm sick, I need to drink a lot of Emergen-C to replace electrolytes before I can settle back down to normal.