Medication for 13 year old - your experiences please

That's really helpful everyone, thank you. It's pretty much confirmed my view that medication should probably be put off until every other possible option has been tried first. She did attend a 10 week anxiety course online, run by CAMHS, but didn't find most of it helped, although she has attempted to practice a few of the tools suggested.  

My limited experience is that Sertraline is manageable in low does with out huge side effects. Most noticeable side effects for me were slightly reduced sense of taste / smell, difficulty getting up in the mornings (more so than usual for a night owl like me) Slightly harder to concentrate but difficult to differentiate that effect from depression which also had that effect. Like most anti anxiaty / anti depresent medication its probably not a long term solution. That will require counciling.

Fluoxetine I never tried but Fluoxetine is just the generic name for prozac who's side effects are well documented on  the internet. according to wikipedia common side effects include abnormal dreams, abnormal ejaculation, anorexia, anxiety, asthenia, diarrhea, dry mouth, dyspepsia, flu syndrome, impotence, insomnia, decreased libido, nausea, nervousness, pharyngitis, rash, sinusitis, somnolence, sweating, tremor, vasodilation, and yawning. The one you hear people complaining about on the internet more than any other though is sexual disfunction.

Of the people I've known who've tried both most say Sertraline was easier to tolerate. But I was told when I was put on it it was primarily a stop gap as I was waiting for therapy and to help me engage with therapy when it started. It was the therapy it self that was put forward as the long term solution.

Dizzy,

I've been on medication for nearly 30 years, not because of Autism but my epilepsy. Melatonin has the side effect of anxiety as do many other medications, make sure to ask your GP to check side effects before prescribing anything.

When consuming multiple medications they sometimes have to be taken at separate times, when I consumed Melotonin with my epilepsy medication the effects of the medications interfered with each other. So ask them what to expect, if something else happens after consumption it may be interference between the medications.

Mindfulness, staying anchored in the moment is a great help for anxiety, anxiety cannot occur while in pure awareness. You could look up or ask for some mindfulness exercises, anxiety is an outcome of predictions, while in the moment we don't make predictions.

That's so frustrating. Straightforward accommodations are not difficult to create, cost nothing and they can make all the difference. It is difficult to impress on many people that unseen disabilities can have just as much impact on people's lives as the more visually obvious ones.

Thanks Martin. Unfortunately her current school have been pretty useless. It took me over 2 years to get them to agree to not ask her questions in front of the whole class! They have half-heartedly implemented some of the interventions requested on her EHCP but they have made so many mistakes, along with my daughter's friendship group all now turning against her because they think she's just lazy or a drama queen and that's why she has so much time off, so my daughter just hates the whole place now and doesn't feel able to set foot through the door. This is why I want her to change school but she is too scared and thinks all schools will be the same (and I can't guarantee that it will be all sunshine & roses somewhere else). She was so anxious when visiting this other school that she was completely mute and is refusing to spend even a day there (even though she came out & said 'why can't my school do simple things to help, just like this school does'). 

Does her present school have useful accommodations for your daughter's ASC? Very simple things can help a lot, being able to sit wherever she wants in classrooms, being able to sit or stand if necessary. Always having the option of leaving a class if overwhelmed, is also useful and the provision of a quiet place, like a library, as a refuge for whenever she needs it can help greatly. The ability to 'time-out' can stop anxiety from escalating to the point where she is in a meltdown or shut-down situation and has to leave school entirely. Also teachers giving her a sort of weekly lesson plan before hand can help with levels of uncertainty, which exacerbate anxiety.

Thanks all. The hallucinations have been looked into and they are definitely due to high anxiety rather than anything else thank goodness. As Martin says, anxiety can cause all sorts of symptoms unfortunately. I do agree that meds need to be approached with caution, so I want to go into the appointment on Friday as clued up as possible. My daughter wants to find a way of being able to handle the school environment but that is currently impossible due to her high anxiety. I would like her to be calm enough to be able to try another school, which I believe would handle her needs better, but she is currently too scared to try anything new.

suppose it depends on frequency. either way its a open door of interpretation of which needs to be investigated incase it is schizophrenia.

either way i heard all the meds have bad side effects such as usually weight gain. i wouldnt touch any of them personally. id totally rather take canabis before any weight gaining toxic pharma meds lol edit; which is probably not appropriate for a 13 year old 

Anxiety can cause physical symptoms, nausea, stomach cramps, vomiting, racing heart, sweating etc., I see no reason why it could not also cause hallucinations. I have hallucinated due to fever.

hallucinates do you say?

is there a possibility of a misdiagnosis here? hallucinations are more schizophrenia, of which schizophrenia does closely resemble ASD but ofcourse with hallucinations and even hearing voices. it could be that they misdiagnosed asd but actually could perhaps be schizophrenia if there is hallucinations?

My only experience is with Sertraline. It did not seem to help much with my mood and it triggered migraines. I can go years without a single migraine, and have never had more than two in any one year. By the tenth day of taking Sertraline I had had five migraines of increasing severity, so I stopped. I then had three more migraines, of decreasing severity, and then not a single one after that. As I have visual aura, migraines are easy for me to differentiate from other headaches. I think any psychoactive medication needs careful monitoring. Personally, I would be wary of introducing more than one drug at a time, as working out what may be causing any positive or adverse effects is made more difficult.