Boy oh boy. We have been on quite a little roller coaster with this one over the past few months or so. To be honest, I wasn't sure if we would ever get past it, but I suppose when you're in the midst of struggle, it's hard to see an end, any kind of end. You wonder if your every day, may end up being your life and every single day after that. So basically, that sucks. In all honesty, I'd been running on fumes these past few months. To start, I should explain. Ben has always had a "thing" about putting things into his mouth, and I'm not just talkn' to feel it, but he'd actually prefer to rip off a piece of what it is and then maybe, or most often ingest it. And that's no good. I'm sure I sounded like an over board parent when I would tell folks about Ben's little habit, until they got to see it first hand. And for some reason, over time and I'm not sure for even how long really because the kid had been doing this since forever, but it seemed like over time this little habit became quite obsessive. And to the point of exhaustion for myself. So as a last resort we took him to the doc and asked what our options were. Was there a medication to help him? What could we do? She suggested Prozac to start, suggesting that it was just an OCD behavior he had. That was back in January, January 28th to be exact.
As the months wore on, his behavior changed. Big time! Not only was this medication not helping with the mouthing issue, he seemed to acquire new problematic behaviors. He began to get physical and stopped going to the bathroom at home. He did okay at school with his aide by his side the entire time, they kept him on a tight potty schedule going every half hour. But at home he was so relaxed or whatever it was and decided to stop telling us when he had to go. He would just go. And not even care. We decided to go back to potty training basics (yup, he had been potty trained a year and then...it was gone). But even when we were adamant about taking him potty, he'd go a little and then after he was out he'd go in his pants like 5-10 minutes later. Nice. I grew very tired of washing out underwear, especially since this kid's stool is just like an infant--no joke people, it ain't pretty.
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| Optimist Games 2014 |
So after about 11 weeks on the Prozac, we tried two others after. All of which were not helping or decreasing his new behaviors, I wanted to pull my hair out. I was at my wits end and feeling defeated in this little battle. I was also sad because Mr. B was suffering and I couldn't do anything to help him, my heart hurt. I remember thinking, is there anything to help him? If none of these meds work, I'd rather take my chances with him eating everything as opposed to his behavior now. It had not only effected him, but our family as well. We had to move Lizzie out of the room they shared together, because at night he would scream, and kick and scream and kick the door. He would hit his sister and take her blankets, bothering her when she'd sleep, so we thought it was best to take her out until we figured things out. I began moving furniture out of our living room because he was being destructive. It was terrible. I kept thinking, where is my little boy? I want my Ben back!! What broke the camel's back for us was one Sunday evening he got a hold of his pills from on top of the fridge, yes the fridge. And ingested the remaining pills (there was about 8-10 pills left). We were at the hospital the rest of the night so they could monitor him. And of course what happened??...absolutely nothing!! Nothing. The kid has a steel stomach and was completely fine. We were discharged 6 hours later and back to square one with the doctor.
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| With the high school kids, they were awesome with them! |
When we went back to the doc, we spoke about numerous options and one of them that she suggested sounded right to me. It wasn't for OCD, but for ADHD. Her hope was that it would decrease his hyperactivity and in turn, decrease the need to mouth everything. We have been on this medication for less than a week and let me tell you...we could not be any happier. Big smiles going on over here. He almost feels like my Benny again! He is calmer, he is going potty again in the toilet (and telling us he needs to go!), we haven't had any physical behaviors, and he goes to bed without the screaming or kicking! Hallelujah! Now while it didn't erase his need to mouth everything, the frequency of it has come down immensely. I know he may always feel that need to mouth things since he is highly sensory, it is just much more manageable now.
So for now, the medication is working and we are so grateful for it. I know it is not the end of our journey with medication for Ben, but it feels like we finally hit the jackpot. We will see how the next few months will go, but we are hopeful after seeing the difference from other medications. We are still working on integrating more sensory friendly activities into his daily routine and giving him the input that he so desperately wants. But he is happy and healthy and doing well. A big thanks to everyone for being so patient and understanding, not only with Ben but with me as well.
Love you all!
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| Happy little bugger! |
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