Furious Seasons

March 01, 2007

Bipolar Child Paradigm Under Attack In Virginia

Charlottesville, VA TV station WCAV-TV just started rolling out a series on kiddos with various disorders, including bipolar disorder. One kid in the series was diagnosed with bipolar disorder at three-years-old. Guess how that worked out?

"At just three-years-old, Matthew Moorefield was diagnosed as having serious behavioral concerns such as aggression, extreme impulsivity, lack of awareness of danger, and even a mood disorder, which is commonly known as bi-polar.
"I started asking questions, and everybody was telling me, I guess you could say, social problems. Didn't get along with kids as well as he needed to," Matthew’s mother Carolyn Moorefield said. So, the county school system sent Carolyn to a child psychologist who prescribed Risperdal, a drug that's recently been linked to brain damage in children and teens.

"When I went to get it filled at the pharmacy, five of them wouldn't fill it," Carolyn said. The prescribing doctor finally convinced a pharmacist to fill that prescription, but, by this point, Carolyn and her husband, Harold, realized the danger of the drug. "I would get up at all times of the night and go over there to make sure he was still breathing. I hurt, my heart hurt. I cried just about every night before I'd go to bed," Carolyn said.

"And, despite the dangers, Risperdal didn't seem to be working. In fact, it was enhancing Matthew's aggression. "He took an empty 2-liter bottle and was beating his brother on top of the head, he had him down on the ground. I stopped it right then and there. I did not give him the next dose,” Carolyn told us."

It gets more fun from there.

I suppose I might have more patience with the bipolar child paradigm if the diagnoses weren't so sketchy (the kid above is later diagnosed with ADHD, then depression), if there were an actual research base upon which to base the diagnosis and if the meds handed out to kids actually worked instead of fucking them up. OK, here come the angry comments. Sigh.

Speaking of kids and psychiatry, AHRP's Vera Sharav is handing out yet another ass-whooping, this time to Thomas F. Anders, president of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. The subject is ADHD drugs. Enjoy.

Posted by Philip Dawdy at March 1, 2007 12:03 AM

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Comments

..."if the diagnoses weren't so sketchy .."

.." if there were an actual research base upon which to base the diagnosis and if the meds handed out to kids actually worked instead of fucking them up.."

Well if you get angry comments for saying what I've been saying for quite a long time; then I am toast.

What you said right there is in fact what needs to be said. Thanks.

Basing diagnosis on adult criteria and basing treatment on adult medications is just plain quackery. Kids suffer as a result of this reckless practice.

3 months before my family member turned 18 years old; and after a complete med-wash-removal that "went south"; the psych doc in the hospital trialed 11 psych meds on her in 13 weeks.

"First do no harm". (yeah, right.)

Posted by: Stephany at March 1, 2007 08:10 AM

Risperdal was trialed in my 11 year old before the Zyprexa. I can totally relate to this:

...""I would get up at all times of the night and go over there to make sure he was still breathing. I hurt, my heart hurt. I cried just about every night before I'd go to bed," Carolyn said."

As my 11 year old lay in the psych bed, her eyes rolled straight up in her head, she was white as a ghost, had hand tremors, and I looked at the doctor and said 'I think she is going to die'. They removed the risperdal and replaced it with Zyprexa.

That time in the hospital, on risperdal was one of the times I truly felt she was going to die there. I would go home and cry my eyes out.

Posted by: Stephany at March 1, 2007 08:39 AM

I have a 3 year old niece. She throws herself in the floor when she has to put on her shoes. She even wets her pants from time to time. Now, if she were doing that at age 25 then we would have a problem. But, she's not. She's 3. What behaviors in a 3 year old suggest mental illness? Because I would really, really like to know. I think a physician who would diagnose mental illness in a 3 year old needs to have her own head examined.

Posted by: Lisa at March 2, 2007 06:30 AM

"the psych doc in the hospital trialed 11 psych meds on her in 13 weeks"

Stephany: That is so crazy! Did they finally cut it down and let her be human? Sometimes I think that the docs think of us as rats in an experiment...they forget the humanity.

Posted by: Priscilla at March 2, 2007 09:48 PM

Priscilla,

Unfortunately, inpatient psych discharged her on 5 new psych medications; she was over-medicated,unstable and ended up in the adult psychiatric mental health system as a result of turning age 18 ,just two months after that 11 week/13 med drug trial.(age age 17.10 months).When a patient is loaded up on heavy medications (which included Haldol)they cannot advocate for themselves. I was basically in the face of these doctors, and it took me months and months to get her out of the adult mental health system. She came very close to having a permanent address at the state psychiatric institution.

Again, I must say the phrase "First do no harm" should mean much more than what was represented in the case of my child.

Posted by: Stephany at March 3, 2007 11:45 AM