Drugs Are Not Always The Answer For Autism

It's been a long road with all the drugs my son was on since he was 2 years old. He suffers from severe autism, seizures, bipolar disorder, etc. At one point, at 9 years old, he took 35 pills a day and was institutionalized out-of-state. When there is dual diagnosis, it is very hard to stablize a youth. The seizure drugs caused behavior problems and the behavior drugs caused seizure problems. Each disorder was one worse than the other. His seizures were over 5 hours long and his behavior was absolute 'rage'.

Thousands of miligrams of medication to counteract the seizures did not stop them in the intensive care unit of the Hospitals. He was on a pyramid of drugs. Eventually, the only solution was to go the other way. When the drugs were doing him in, causing comatose ammonium poisoning; putting my son in a coma for 2 weeks, then something else had to be done for him. Withdrawal from most of the medication was what had to be done in my care at home.

Now, many years later he was residentially placed on only 2 pills for seizures/behavior. But, after being placed since 2001, new behaviors emerged that were of the self-abusive type. It broke my heart that a new drug was added 3 times a day. This drug causes other debilitating conditions that are destroying his health and, I believe, was the cause for him to have gland surgery, where he was a 1/4 inch away from a tracheotomy.

But, with a person like this, you are damned if you do and damned if you don't. Without drugs he rips his skin off his body. The drug is not fool proof.....as a matter of fact he is becoming immune to it and it's not even working very well now.

As a parent, all you do is worry. You worry if the phone rings and it's bad news. I can live with myself because I take him home 2-3 months out of the year. I'm glad they let me, too. I'm bonded to him. I know how to read him, even though he has little to no speech. I know how to take care of him and make him better. But, he is a lot of work. All these extreme cases of Autism are overwhelming for anyone.

It is unfortunate that there is no other treatment for this most severe form of Autism. It affects a smaller population of this group. But, drugs are not always the anwer.