Monday, February 16, 2015

Fluoxe-DONE


We got home from our yearly family waterpark adventure today. WE ARE TIRED. Despite the tiredness, we had probably the most enjoyable/fruitful time ever. This is our fifth year in a row taking this trip.

I'll report MUCH more on this in the next few days! I have photos to edit and memories to sort through..

In the meantime, Dan is cooking me a belated Valentine's dinner that smells delicious! I thought I'd write a quick update regarding medication. Per Dr. M's suggestion, we gave E a super low dose of fluoxetine for three consecutive days last week. His sleep didn't seem to be affected much, but he woke up looking EXHAUSTED. The purple eyelids and droopy/constantly-blinking eyes returned. I had a bad feeling in my gut about it just a few hours in.

Almost immediately after the first dose, I noticed that E had three new tics - super intense eye-blinking, an upward chin jerk and a head jerk to the left followed by eyes shooting straight up (I have never seen any of these tics before starting meds). As the days went on, the tics became more frequent and behavior went downhill. Dan and I quickly made the decision to stop the medication. Dr. M is out of town until Thursday of this week, so at that point we will discuss other options.

He took the smallest dose possible (0.5 mL/day) for only three days and was adversely affected. I am hesitant to try anything else! We feel like we're in a tough spot right now with his anxiety. I'm also looking into finding him an excellent cognitive behavioral therapist. We are continuing with the essential oils, although I am still skeptical. It isn't hurting, so we will press on..

I have so much to share about our fifth annual waterpark adventure! I love my three men so much! Thanks for checking in..

2 comments:

Dogstars said...

I have been curious how the meds worked with Elijah. I am glad you saw the side effects right away and it made it easy for you to decide to discontinue use. I wonder what Dr. M will decide when he finds out? What a tough situation for you all.

The Smith's said...

Hi Megan -

We've been using DoTerra for a year now and have been super pleased. This isn't a sale comment, I promise! What I wanted to share was that we also started Luke on the DoTerra probiotic back in september to try and boost his immunity for the school year. What was so interesting, though, was the possible connection I put together in December. I realized that we hadn't seen any tics from Luke since we started the probiotics. Luke's tics are not constant, but he would come in and out of one (different every time) every several weeks or so. So then I dug into a little research and am finding that probiotics are being linked to lower anxiety levels (we have always noticed Luke's tics coinciding with higher stress times). ANYWAY, just wanted to throw it out there since pharmaceuticals seem to affect E negatively. Hugs!

Jesse