Although we held off medication for a long time and tried things like CBT, good diet, good sleep etc, my teen daughter has unmanageable anxiety which leads to regular hallucinations & depression, affecting her ability to manage day to day life. Unfortunately our experience of meds so far is bad - Sertraline provided no benefits and a fair amount of side effects even after many, many months (stomach aches, tiredness, headaches etc), and coming off Sertraline has been horrendous. The anti-psychotic, Aripiprazole, made her hallucinations massively worse so this was also stopped. My question is, has anyone had similar experiences and then started Fluoxetine and has it been successful? I don't want to put her through trying something else if it's got a very limited chance of success, although i'm not sure she can manage without something.
I am no medical expert but there appears to be very little research on these meds with autistic girls. From my limited knowledge, autistic people may have increased levels of serotonine already, then if you are using an SSRI med (like fluoxetine or sertraline) this increases serotonine levels further. There is, I think, research to show that hallucinations can be linked to high levels of serotonine, so is it making things worse, giving these meds to autistic people who are 3 times more likely to experience hallucinations anyway? My understanding could well be completely wrong, i'm just trying to piece lots of info together in the absence of any helpful advice from an overworked NHS psychiatrist with no time for an appointment when you need one.
I'd really value hearing about your experiences.
