Dealing with chronic depression, anxiety and irritability...

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Hello,
Does anyone out there have a successful means of dealing with depression and it's side kicks anxiety and irritability? Our son is 13. He was diagnosed as HFA at age 6. He's been in therapy since then, weekly, now biweekly. We tried SSRI's, he became extremely suicidal, so the doctor took him off of those at age 6. We've been trying to eat right and sleep right and so forth since then. Lots of therapy, but he's 13 now and hormones are kicking in. He's feeling extra despondent in the afternoons lately. I have been able to snap him out of it, but I want to find something that may work better, without resorting to SSRI"s.

Does anyone have any suggestions? His therapist is in the loop, but he's in the camp that wants to send him back to the psychiatrist who prescribed the SSRI's. That doc told us that he doesn't tolerate the SSRi's well and wanted to push something harder like Risperdahl? Anyway, we've made it through these many years without the heavy meds, he got himself into a place where he is very verbal, able to self- advocate. He's now telling us how miserable he is and has been all these years. He wants me to research alternative means of curing depression. I thought I would go to other parents who work with this same thing for your advice on what works?

Thanks!

Hello. I am a 22 year old male with aspergers, who throught my teen years has struggled with depression and anxiety. The best way I have found of coping with it ( besides medication) is through a healthy diet and plenty of exercise. I eat right ( more or less) and run daily, as well as bike, and weight lift. This has been a major mood booster. I doubt I would have graduate college in 4 years and gotten accepted into two law schools if I did not do this. Perhaps too much medication may not be good for your son's condition... perhaps more natural ways are better way of managing it. Also cut out sugar when you can.

Aspertastic424.

Have you seen a naturopath? We don't have the depression but we certainly have the anxiety (big time) and irritability. We just started seeing a naturopathic doc and I am hopeful that we can get a grip on the anxiety. Too soon to report anything though. So sorry to hear the pain your son is going through. (((HUGS))) to you both.

Many things I have read support Apertastic's suggestion about exercise and a balanced diet. Regular vigorous exercise may counteract some of the imbalance in his brain.

Risperidone is an anti-psychotic, not an anti-depressant although there is a lot of middle room.

Exercise is a good thing; it releases endorphines which are pretty powerful.

I think also working to identify some of the causes of the depression might be good (although it sounds like you are). I realized that anti-depressents were pointless for me because there were specific reasons I was depressed.

Thank you all. He is miserable tonight. He has agreed to go see a naturopath with me. He had been very active in lacrosse this past year, but he has given up. I am not able to get him to eat right now either, this is part of the crisis. Unfortunately he is convinced that his only path is to get a prescription for medical marijuana. I want to exhaust all possibilities, has anyone tried tryptophan?

Thank you again.

Well I do see cannabis as a possible drug for depression, and its not as damaging on the body as I imagine some of the others you mentioned are. Most damage comes from smoking but there are alternatives like edibles. However at least in my state I think one typically has to be 18 to get a MMJ card, if its like that there maybe you could encourage other methods until then...Though they make some exceptions I doubt they would for just depression though.

I looked up tryptophan, basically it helps the brain create seretonin, but sometimes depression can go a little deeper than simple lack of seretonin. I tried prozac a couple years ago and it made me more anxious and some of the other side effects where quite unpleasant.....I hear that drug can be dangerous for kids though because it's more likely to contribute to suicidal feelings in them than adults but it also works well for some with minimal side effects so there is that to.

Thank you, I have explained that to him about the 18 thing. He's just so sad, and I don't want to turn him in where he will be medicated into zombieland. Sigh.

I would advocte the drug proposed by aspiewife. You will likely find that the side effects to that are far less than of the other drugs you have tried or might try. I would not advocate naturopathy myself. Most of it is a scam and none has been tested for long term sideeffects or sideeffects at all. Or efficacy period. Mj has been investigated out the whazoo and there have been studies on the side effects etc.

When you say he has been in therapy, what type of therapy are you referring to? Based on your post, I would assume you mean psychotherapy. However, even in that field there are many approaches. If the therapist he has been working with is not making any progress, then it is time to find something new. There are many types of psychotherapy (CBT, humanistic, person centered, psychdynamic, dialectical behavior therapy, mindfullness, solution-focused, etc.) What works for one person may not work for another, so its important to find a good fit.

There are lots of books to help children and their parents with childhood depression.

Also, I wonder if the issue is something else, and the depression is a secondary result of that first issue...

For example if a child is struggling with adapting to middle school, social issues, academic issues, identity development, and sensory issues all while looking through the lens of Asperger's while the rest of the world appears to be looking through the NT lens so feeling very alone, and vulnerable. In many cases, then you throw in the issues of a learning disability and/or bullying. Then to sum it all up, you have the recipe for mood issues including anxiety, depression, and anger. When this is the case, then each of those issues must be dissected and an appropriate support provided for each issue. This takes time and patience and often makes the middle school years so very difficult.

If you ask many of the adults on the spectrum when life was most difficult, I would guess many of them would say this very life stage your son is passing through. Many of them found their niche, and were able to build coping skills... so the saying... this too shall pass. In the meanwhile, it can be very painful to watch your child hurt so much and to feel so helpless. so {{{{{{hugs}}}}}}

Has your psych considered the norepinephrine (sp?) or dopamine reuptake inhibitors? Seratonin isn't the only thing that can go out of whack. This is anecdotal evidence, but it seems to me that SSRIs space out a lot of people, but the norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors can sharpen concentration for some people. Just a thought.

Anti depressants were recommended for my son this past March. He is 12yo. We wanted to try anything else that we could first. We looked at sleep, diet and exercise first, tried some supplements and then moved on to some quality of life measures. By "quality of life" I mean, we looked carefully at the things causing him stress vs. the things bringing him joy and tried to actively increase the latter while decreasing the first. We narrowed in on a couple of trouble areas -him feeling like he had all of this school in front of him to get through with no good things to look forward to, and a lack of friends. We made a "Things to Look Forward To" list and put every day off school, every special occasion, every video game or movie release he is looking forward to, our upcoming vacation and any other positive thing we could think of on there for the next 6 months, including very small things, just anything positive. We also started actively supporting him in making friends in any way that we could. I started a biweekly D&D group here at home, and helped them to start a D&D club at school. I helped him set up a Minecraft server. We enrolled him in a local ASD games club. Anything we could think of, that he would agree to, to grease those social wheels. I am happy to report that we are almost at summer vacation and he has had some of his happiest, calmest few months ever.

I am sure that the areas of trouble and methods to improve them would be different for your son, but maybe really looking at his quality of life and helping him to either add more or focus on the good things and to decrease the stressful things would help with his feelings of depression. Obviously this is no replacement for the need to bring the brain back into balance in a true clinical depression, and meds are sometimes unavoidable, but sometimes just having more positive feelings about your life and more fun to look forward to can work wonders.

THIS.

My son's anxiety and depression lifted somewhat when we shared his diagnosis with him and he began to understand that the interventions were a way to learn to compensate for his deficits - and had some success with that. We're still working on it, but his outlook right now is pretty positive - I'm concerned that middle school will cause a nose dive, because I'm just not sure he has the resources to deal with all the stuff there. We're taking a wait and see approach for right now, but my plan B is half-day homeschool, and my plan C is full-day. I hope it doesn't come to that.

My own severe depression needed medication - I was medicated back in the dark ages, before SSRI (I was on a tricyclic) and it helped me remember what it felt like not to be depressed. I stopped on my own (with a doctor's approval) after about a year and a half, but I needed the meds to give me a sense of what I was shooting for. I was very, very angry (I had a less-than-ideal upbringing) and turned it inward towards myself.

I still have bouts of depression, mostly related to my inability to understand what's going on socially - but I'm now understanding that it's because of a real deficit and not that I am stupid, mean, lazy or all the other negative self-talk. I'm learning. Slow but sure.

This is a wildly inappropriate blanket generalization. If by "advocate the drug proposed by aspiewife" you are referring to tryptophan then you are advocating one of the options that our naturopath has proposed that we try.

And to answer the OPs question, tryptophan has been recommended to us but we haven't tried it yet. We are going to start a regular dose of GABA for his anxiety. The doc says this is short acting but she believes it will help with his anxiety without any drowsiness side effects.

Bombaloo keep us posted if that works. My daughter is extremely anxious. I am sad to say we basically work around it and deal with it the best we can. My daughter also has bouts of depression but she comes out of it in time. I dread the teenage years.

For bouts of extreme anxiety we use vistaril. A safe antihistamine that calms and reduces the panic. So far it has worked well. But we only use it when she cannot come out of the panic state.

For irratibility, we had great results with dietary changes. We initially went on a fail safe diet, now we avoid preservatives, dyes, artificial flavors (difficult to avoid) and salicilates. Certain preservatives create extreme irritability with my daughter (bha and bht). We try to eat as all natural as possible. It's getting easier as there is a trend toward reducing these additives in foods.

Thank you all. Does anyone happen to have a naturopath they can recommend in the Seattle/WA area? I tried calling one today, but after asking me a bunch of questions about my son, the assistant said the doctor would think about whether she can help my son or not. She never called back.

We'll keep up the regular therapy sessions with his psychologist, get him focused on positive activities, get a diet plan implemented and hopefully try some supplements.
You have all been so encouraging. He;s come so far, and he;s done amazing things, I just wish that he could realize how amazing he is.

Have you asked your psychologist for a recommendation on a good naturopath? The one we are seeing was recommended to us by the OT that my son also sees. Because I have such a high level of confidence in our OT, I was very comfortable with following his recommendation.