? about medication for my child

Hi. I have two kids with special needs and I wasn't sure if this is where I should post this but I did't see a forum specific for parents of kids with special needs. My son is 4 almost 5 and has been dx with ADHD, anxiety disorder, sleep disturbance, disorder of central nervous system NOS. The last dx is due to the fact that he has some symptoms of high functioning autism and some bipolar and not enough to definitively at this time say he is one or the other and because of his age they don't want to rush and misdiagnosis. He is seeing a therapist weekly and is under evaluation by Kennedy Krieger and they are doing all the testing so far he has had speech and language testing and also the ADOS test and is scheduled for psychological and iq testing. So far it is looking more like rapid cycling bipolar disorder. I have been charting everything for the last few weeks such as when he wakes up, how long he naps, behaviors, when he goes to bed, and general disposition. It seems 4-5 days of the week he doesn't sleep very much and is very hyperactivity and extremely impulsive and has multiple meltdowns and generally misbehaves. This is followed by 2 or 3 days of increased sleep, more pleasant disposition, not as hyper and not quite as impulsive. Problem is the extreme mood swings and aggression. Currently he takes guanfacine for the ADHD, and abilify for the aggression but recently the mood swings and aggression is getting worse and I am afraid for when he has to go to school all day in august. Currently he is in pre k and he does pretty well but he is only there for 2.5 hours a day and its first thing in the morning. Even now due to the fact that for most of the week he gets up very early he is sleepy at school to the point that they call me and he so far hasn't had any major meltdowns but he has pushed a child and drew on a child and kicked some of the other kids stuff around when he was mad. I am afraid if we can't get his moods stable and anger under control we are going to have some major problems and I am afraid he could hurt someone. We are thinking about switching his abilify to risperdal. I have heard some good things about risperdal helping children with extreme mood swings and aggression. I do realize he will have to have blood work done periodically and I am ok with that because he has to do that now for the abilify. I just really want him to do well at school especially because he is very very smart and things come very easy to him. He is already starting to read and memorize sight words and he is also starting to add small numbers and memorize math facts and I would hate that have his behavior hold him back. I am just curious if any other parents have any experience with risperdal and their children.

I wrote a long responds that got erased.

My son has mood disorder nos, adhd & aspergers. ADHD medication was horrible for him before his mood was stabilized on lamictal. The ADHD meds made his meltdowns worse because of its crash. It wasn't until the daytrana patch that he had a stable amount of ADHD medication. It would ware out around diner so he takes his abilify at dinner. The abilify is the only medication he needs to swallow. I personally think the seroquel worked so much better then the abilify but my husband changed him to abilify. Resparadal did nothing for my son or husband.

We home school our son to be able to deal with med changes and the ability to opt out of activities on bad days w/o getting an absence.

Went to the doctor today to discuss the medication situation with my son. With the current medications going to school all day was not going to work out. So since we have a few months to figure this out we are starting to change the meds now. With recommendations from the therapist and speaking with other moms who children are similar to mine and a lot of research, I decided to wean him of the celexa , which never seemed to do anything anyway, and start the risperdal. In 14 days he should be completely off the celexa and then I will begin taking him off the abilify and go up on the risperdal. I pray to God that this works and I don't have to mess with his medications again. I mean bumping up or down a dosage is fine but coming off of medications and starting new ones I just don't want to have to keep putting him through all this. I ultimately hope he will end up where he doesn't need medications at all.

I know what you mean. The ADHD meds may counteract the weight gain of resperidal.