Dear Wendy,
has your son ever been screened for epilepsy? EEG? high fever as a kid? (high fevers overheat the brain and can cause epileptogenic changes). any incidents of head injury as a baby, predating the self-harm? reports of "lost" time? unexplained nocturnal injuries? unexplained loss of bowel control, nausea, vomiting? photosensitivity? i am just tossing things out there... if he has not been, your son should be specifically questioned by an expert (neuro) to see if he experiences events that might be seizures, or seizure aftermath. note that a negative EEG does not rule out epilepsy.
untreated epilepsy can produce a plethora psychological and behavioral traits and can be mis-diagnosed as primary mental illness.
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Originally Posted by starling
He was on Respiridone but was getting constant De-ja-vu so had to come off. There was another med that I can't remember the name of, that made his limbs jerk around.
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antipsychotics lower the seizure threshold and can produce seizures; in particular, they will worsen/increase seizures in those who have epilepsy.
i don't know how much you know about seizures but they are not always evident - many people only know about Grand Mal (tonic-clonic) seizure where people thrash around a lot... but there are many types. seizures can be extremely subtle and do not always involve movement. for instance simple partial seizures can be relatively transparent to an observer but, since one retains consciousness, the person going through them might experience anything from mild discomfort to great unpleasantness! now, IF your son had some strange and some very unpleasant experiences that he cannot describe... since he was very little... that could explain why he tries to hurt himself (esp. banging his head) and want to die. btw, some simple partials are experienced as an intense feeling of deja-vu.
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The Ablify dose is only 2ml and he even had a reaction to that after he was ill with vomiting and didn't take it for 10 days. I made the mistake of giving him 2mls straight off instead of building him back up and he started to talk funny and said his tongue was stiff. I had to stop and build it up from 1ml.
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do you see ANY difference, positive OR negative, between him unmedicated, and him on Abilify?
i hope you don't mind that i have given you other-than-bipolar input. Please take it as just that - input - considerations which may or may not be useful - only you can decide if they are or not.
i wish you and your family well.
~ waves ~