Autism-World

Q: I hope today was mainly medication related, but our son who has autism raged from early afternoon until about half an hour ago, so roughly 8-10 hours, until he finally fell asleep after the pedi said to give him some Benadryl. I was truly afraid he was going to hurt himself or one of his younger brothers. He has been more aggressive overall lately, which I attributed to increased seizure activity and probably also related to the disruption in our routine since the baby came home, and while I was back and forth between home and hospital while the baby was in the NICU. But it seems that his aggression has increased, and the emergency meds we have for his seizures are in the same medication family as the ativan that set him off today, so the pharmacist has said if we have to use them we could see the same side effects.

He has never been like this before. His limited receptive language makes reasoning with him impossible. When I put him in his room he was slamming doors, windows, throwing things, tearing things apart, etc. and would then come down stairs and start all over again down here. When I tried to keep him down with us it was the same thing, and he was coming after me even when I was holding the baby. He’s not very big – 42 inches and 39 pounds – but he is very strong when he gets so worked up.

Also, when he gets low blood sugar he has more irritability, is very unsteady on his feet and shaky and also raises his seizure risk, but when I tried to feed him, and I tried both oral and tube, he was throwing everything, smacking the tube out of my hand, kicking and hitting, pushing his chair back so hard he was overturning it backwards and hitting his head on the floor. We were finally able to get a tube feeding in, but I know the morning is going to be difficult since he hasn’t had enough to eat tonight, and the pharmacist said it would be at least 24 hours before the medication is out of his system. Any suggestions or words of wisdom?

Answer:

Without writing paragraphs of details, some basic thoughts:

1. Make a rage safe room with a reversed lock and velcroed window coverings.Remove all furniture but the bed.

2. Neurotransmitters must be balanced on a daily basis according to behaviors.

3. Child may be in neurological or physical pain due to meds, allergies , food . This pain can be addressed with homeopathy and correcting nutritional deficiencies.

4. The child will calm down with supplementing magnesium in the form of magnesium sulfate cream .

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This entry was posted on Monday, December 10th, 2007 at 12:15 pm and is filed under Ask and answer.