Any experience with Zoloft/SSRI's?

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Thank you all for your replies, especially Esperanza, for taking the time and energy to respond. I was leaning more towards not having my son take this medication and that is what I have decided for now. I am not completely ruling it out though because I think that it can have its benefits depending on the person. Unlike some of the people that have posted that can't seem to find good professional people to help them with their situation and child, we are blessed to have found some good people. We all see a psychologist to help with school and home issues. My son sees an occupational therapist weekly and just got evaluated by a speech/language therapist and will be joining a social skills group of 3 other kids. He has a very suppportive staff/teacher at school and an IEP that I feel is giving him what he needs. We also see a psychiatrist to talk about medication. When this Dr. heard of all the different therapies we had going and would be starting in the future she was excited and gave us the option of waiting on medication and see how he did with the different therapies or to go ahead with medication. I was the one that wanted the medication because I am trying to do what's best for MY child. He is on a GF/Cf diet and takes multivitamins specifically formulated for autistic kids along with cod liver oil. I am trying to do everything "right" but still his anxiety persists which we all feel his anger is coming from. He is so obsessed with video games and computer time that it runs our life, this is literally what I feel he lives and breathes for. He has a nose picking obsession to the point where he makes it bleed and I tell him to stop (knowing that's not going to make it happen) and he cries and tells me "I want to stop but I just can't" he does this at school and in restaurants etc. not caring who is watching him etc. With his obsessions and anxiety which I believe is the root of other issues, I felt like medication was the next step. Believe me I have researched this and know the harmful side effects and what could happen, our psychiatrist was very up front about all this and left it up to my husband and I. I believe we have a good doctor who is not trying to force anything. I talked to my son and told him about possible side effects (suicidal thoughts etc.) and he freaked so that made up my mind. Like I said I am not ruling it out and think that it does help some people and maybe it can help my son someday. I will keep you all posted. Esperanza, I am wondering why you took the medication for 8 years if it was having negative effects on you? thanks again everyone!! !!

Zolft controls my anxiety, but at 1/4 the dose most people take. I believe that Temple Grandin also mentioned the extremely low doses which are effective. Proceed with caution with a child and SSRIs.

I would suggest not looking at his obsessions in a negative light. They are his anxiety relief as you probably know. As long as he does his required work and meets expectations in other areas, he should be allowed his interests.

As far as nose picking, my son also did the same and it became a stim of sorts. I had to get him to see the persepctive of others observing this behavior. What does your teacher think? What do the other kids think about it? And I tried not to do this in a negative light, but by simply saying that is the way people are and we can't change them. I also told him it was fine to pick his nose in the bathroom. I just moved the behavior to a private area and that worked. I don't know if he still picks his nose as it is his business in the bathroom.

Yes, defintely our Dr. was starting us out on an extremely low dose. The nose picking issue - everything you wrote serious girl, I have suggested and said the exact thing to my son but it doesn't help. I think its great that my son has something that he loves (video games)and is great at and can relate to other kids about but the INTENSITY and that he excludes all other activity, I just don't think it's healthy.

I took it for 8 years for two reasons.

First, the drug itself made me very apathetic. At first I simply didn't care that my life was falling apart. Nothing bothered me. It took me quite some time to decide that I had become very apathetic. After that it took me a long time to realize the Paxil was causing the apathy. Once I knew it was having negative effects on me and my life was passing me by, I still didn't care enough or feel motivated to do anything about it. I didn't care that I didn't care.

Second, Paxil is an extremely addictive drug. Even once I had decided that I ought to quit, I wasn't looking forward to being debilitatingly sick for an extended period of time. I had run out of the stuff by accident before and I knew what it felt like to go without it for so much as three days: Very unpleasant. So I put it off, and time kept marching on. When I finally did quit, I was too sick to leave my apartment at all for three weeks, and I couldn't work for a total of about two months. It was an overwhelming experience.

BTW, I've never taken SSRIs for longer than 6 weeks without taking a break from them. Sometimes, I can go for months until I need it again.

I have a nineteen-year-old son who has taken 50mg of Zoloft daily since he was eight years old with positive effects. The best thing to do is have your son tell you how he feels while taking it; nobody knows better than he does. It may take a week or two to fully take effect. Some psychiatrists tend to over medicate (my opinion) so the internet is a wonderful tool if he is prescribed multiple medications. Do not be afraid to say no to a medication you feel is harmful. It was very hard as a parent to put my child on medication but in retrospect, it has been the best thing for my son. By the way, the Zoloft made him sleepy at school so we started giving it to him after school and that worked much better.

My daughter is ADHD and mild Bi-polar. When we found out about the bi-polar the doctor prescribed Zoloft. I only thought I had problems before. She went from not wanting to do home work and chores to skipping school and not even wanting to get out of bed. That was the worst month of my life. We went back to the doctor and we finally have her stable on Concerta and Lithium. Wow what a change. The moods are now typical 13 year old and we are now finally getting along. She is so sweet and doing so much better all the way around.

Rose