About our Daughter

I am mother to four wonderful daughters, ages 17, 19, 21, and 23, and wife to the greatest husband on earth. God has given us a special child to raise one who was diagnosed with early-onset bipolar disorder at the age of seven, though she showed signs of it from the age of fifteen months. She also has ADHD, Sensory Integration Disorder (sensory seeking), Dyslexia, and Non-Verbal Learning Disorder-NOS, all typical comorbidities for a bipolar child. In spite of the trials, she enjoys lacrosse, running (finished her first marathon in October of 2014!), and reading and writing her own books. I will share with you the many joys and sorrows we have faced and will face in the future with the hope that you may find better understanding about this mental illness caused by both chemical and structural abnormalities in the brain. I desire that you will be encouraged by this blog if you are also dealing with a bipolar child. Thank you for reading and sharing in our journey.

How Did You Know She Was Bipolar So Young?

I wrote a long explanation of how we came to this bipolar diagnosis in a child so young under my post of March 19th of 2009. If your child or a child you know bears similarities, please seek out a good psychiatrist and don't wait for "things to get better." Often they will simply get worse, and the longer a child is unmedicated, the more damage their brain can accrue. Early diagnoses and treatment are key to providing these children with a chance at a successful life later as a teen and an adult.
Never change, start or stop a medication without the approval of your child's physician!

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Mania, Again, Self-Diagnosed

Caroline just told me that she has been feeling manic the last several days, having inappropriate thoughts, not sleeping well. This might explain the definite OCD-like attitude with the book she has been writing, her loquaciousness, and her sassiness the last few days. I am so proud that she decided to tell me that she was feeling this way without a big crisis making it obvious. Yay! She is growing in maturity all the time. I don't know which med we should increase, the Lamictal, the Trileptal, or the Seroquel. I will call her psychiatrist for an appointment and also see if I can get advice while we are waiting. She is on a high dose of all of those, so I am not sure what would come next medication-wise. Spring is such a hard time, as the body clock has to adjust to more daylight and then the DST ends too. Maybe she is on too much Lamictal now.

9 comments:

Anna said...

I too think it is very encouraging to see that she has the insight to recognize her mania. There is lots of hope for her.

Bev said...

That's something I still have problems with seeing in myself, so that's great that she can 'see' it!

CC said...

Oh, boy. Mania is really tough to deal with. For some reason Seraquil made my daughter manic after being on it for a few months and having good results. That is nice that Caroline can recognize her mania. Did she ever have help identifying it herself? When my daughter is manic she thinks she's fine and very defensive about her behavior. (I'M FINE! I DON'T NEED ANY HELP! LEAVE ME ALONE! I HATE YOU! etc.) She hasn't been manic for 2 months... and it's been such a blessing! Our world is not perfect, but I've learned to take it one day at a time... sometimes one minute at a time. Hope you all find a fix and find some peace soon.

Megan said...

Camille, Caroline was defensive last night about her state, the whole I'm just happy stuff. But she was scaring us with her out-of-control chattiness, and she was literally bouncing up and down and couldn't stop--way too happy!

Pickel said...

does OCD come with mania? We are still trying to figure out how our son works and it's driving me batty.

He gets obsessive about books or something he wants and if he can't have it he gets aggressive and violent. He told me tonight his new medicine (intuniv) makes him sad.

And, he is only just turning 7.

Found you tonight and will be visiting often, BTW

Megan said...

Pickel--has your son been diagnosed as bipolar or ADHD? Mania is definitely only a part of bipolar disorder and OCD behavior absolutely is a part of early onset bipolar disorder. Tunnel vision, can't be swayed from thinking about one obsession is a symptom of OCD all by itself, of course. Is Intuniv the only med he is on? Intuniv lowers their blood pressure so the sadness he is feeling might be a sense of low energy.

Pickel said...

Megan,
My son has fetal alcohol syndrome, SPD, bipolar, and ADHD. He also has PTSD, anxiety, and OCD tendencies that increase depending upon which medications he is on.

He takes abilify, risperdal, intuniv, and clonidine. I;m not liking the intuniv because it makes him really aggressive and angry with us at home but he is very focused and on target at school. It's also helped his tics so I LOVE that.

Megan said...

Hi PIckel (BTW) again! That's interesting about the Intuniv helping with your son's tics. Mae has a stuttering problem and I noticed that the Intuniv improved it. I think it is relaxing to their brains. Are you going to work up to 2mg of Intuniv or 3 before you quit? I am so sorry about the fetal alcohol diagnosis, because I am sure that his other issues probably were caused or greatly exacerbated by it, as you know. Doesn't seem fair.

Pickel said...

We have him on 2mg right now. He's from Russia and the FAS was originally the primary diagnosis but as he gets older we see more and more of the bipolar taking over. I wrote a post last night on it over on my site...http://www.growninmyheart.com/and-he-rages

We're not sure about his family history but we guess that one or both of his birth parents were also bipolar. It's very common.