Published on 12, July, 2020
My son is 17 and has not been prescribed anything for his autisic symptoms other than dietary supplements.
We love him to bits. He is profoundly autistic, non-verbal with profound learning difficulties and very much in a world of his own.
He has bouts of anxiety, not every day but frequent enough for it to become a challenge outside the home. OCD has gone from 'quirky' to making our lives very limited. He has now started with teenage tantrums that are happening more and more when we are out and about (shop is closed, things in a store have moved, train is late, bus takes a wrong route etc). As well as tantrums he will also refuse to move and can literally stay in the same spot for hours. We are struggling to get him to school too as he refuses to come out of his room in a morning - his school is the best school for autism in the area and we all have a great relationship with the staff and they are fantastic with him.
Now - I think he would benefit from some mild medication to help him stay calm with life's disappointments my husband thinks differently. I know literally nothing about anti-anxiety drugs so please feel free to give your opinion.
Can anyone share experiences or offer advice?
Thank you
Hello and welcome to the forums.
I'm not a parent. I hope you get answers from other parents and you might find similar questions in the Parents and Carers forum and in the 'related' bar to the right. By the way, you may also want to change your username (currently NAS3xxxx something) or profile so you can be recognised by other members of the forum - to do this, click on the round button up the top right of the page, and choose 'Profile', then 'Edit Profile', then click on the name.
I'm not a doctor and have no idea about your son. Roughly they may consider non-pharmacological interventions first, and then maybe think about anti-anxiety medication, antidepressants or antipsychotics. It's not surprising nothing is prescribed for autistic symptoms, since they aren't usefully treated by medication: see NICE guideline 170: https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/cg170/chapter/1-Recommendations
Anti-anxiety medication if taken regularly of course leads to 'tolerance' and decreasing effects. It was often claimed that there wasn't tolerance for antidepressants, but many disagree, and antipsychotics have various long-term or permanent side-effects like tardive dyskinesia.
Here's a link I keep posting about PDA that some parents have found interesting: https://autisticmotherland.com/2018/05/23/pda/
What relationship to you have with your local CAMHS service? Surely they would be the best people to advise?
Thanks for your reply. I have no relationship with CAMHS, I had to google it! We have had various agencies attempt to help us in the past, and although well-meaning, mainly ineffective, they tend to give up on us before we give up on them.
Because of his level of learning difficulties and with only very basic communication talking therapy is pretty much ruled out. He has developed self-soothing skills which his school were really impressed with, but to be honest they have slowly developed into OCD symptoms that make it difficult to leave the house at time. Its like our world revolves around his moods.
I will make an appointment on Monday and talk to GP and will ask about side effects etc.