Tricyclic Antidepressants

Nathan was always tough to deal with as an infant:

Question:

Nathan – Age 10 Nathan was always tough to deal with as an infant: cried a lot, did not sleep well, and was always sick with chronic ear and sinus infections. Our "roller coaster ride" began when Nathan was age two. We found a wonderful daycare center and I went back to work. This is when our problems began. Nathan would not let the other children play together, he threw fits that escalated when you tried to calm him down, he did a lot of biting and basically kept the room in utter chaos from the moment he walked in. At home he would wake up in the middle of the night and cry. The more we tried to comfort him the worse he would get. Getting him to wear clothes was a nightmare (always too tight; too scratchy, etc.). Loud noises freaked him out. The list goes on and on. We tried every discipline book ever written; new methods would work for a week, if we were lucky. As Nathan grew bigger, we had to turn the lock around on his bedroom door and lock him in his room while he raged for hours at a time. Psychologists, neurologists and psychiatrists counseled us as we looked into various programs for his daytime care. By age three, Nathan was on Clonidine and Imipramine. We did trials of Ritalin and Cylert, which made him worse. Drugs would work for approximately six months and then we would find ourselves leaving work to pick up our raging son on a daily basis. Nathan hit new extremes by age six. The daycare center couldn’t handle him any more. He would run out of the daycare center into the street in a split second. At this time he was admitted into a psychiatric outpatient day program at a local hospital. The final diagnoses were ADHD, Bipolar Disorder and Oppositional Defiant Disorder. The final drug "recipe" consisted of the following: Lithium, Dexedrine, Tenex and Risperdal. Still we had many outbursts and problems to contend with. We were at the point where we felt we had no where to turn when a coworker gave me a tape of a Phil Donahue episode which featured William Walsh from the Pfeiffer Treatment Center. On the tape, my husband and I saw a little boy whose behavior was pretty close to our son. Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde types behavior. Nathan’s look would turn very "dark" and he would have a complete physical change with his fits of rage. It was taking hours to get him under control. This center was our only hope. We were seen in November and Nathan began treatment in January. He had a high histamine level and a copper zinc imbalance. Reading the accompanying diagnosis sheets was like reading Nathan’s life story. We were told that he could get worse before he got better

Filed under: Imipramine