Hello again everyone……need help

[Anonymous]

Aidansmom79– I certainly didn’t intend on offending anyone with my

comment on OCD if I did offend you I apologize –it wasn’t my intent. That

being said there are many members of both DH and my family that show

OCD tendencies and when we are all gathered together we have all learned

that we have to be light-hearted about it or we’d all drive each other batty.

Again I apologize if I offended you that certainly wasn’t my intent.

[Anonymous]

it’s ok hun, I’m sorry for being touchy…I just get a bit overprotective about that!!! (people where I live have a horrible attitude about it and sometimes I tend to think everyone thinks that way)…good choice on yur sons name btw .

[Anonymous]

Aidansmom- Do you mind if i ask you how they determine if such a little one has OCD? As I mentioned in my other post, my daughter (2 and a half) has several tendencies that we’ve always thought of as quirky, but sometimes they can get quite obsessive. I’m not sure if this is normal toddler behaviour or not. I hope you don’t mind me asking.

[Anonymous]

hey lori, well it IS a bit tricky and even though Austin was tentatively dxd at 2, he was not “really” diagnosed until he was 4. He used to play with toy cars..and even as young as 18 mos, would spend HOURS lining all of them up in a line, now i know lots of little boys do this, but he did it over and over again all day long and freaked out if they moved even tiny bit out of alignment, not a normal tantrum but a really really scary throwdown. still does but now it’s toy soldiers. He would freak out if someone was eating something he deemed yucky, and would not let that person touch him b/c he was afraid of “food germs”. If someone touched him who had been eating yucky food, then he would refuse to eat. At that point the dr’s had no idea what was really wrong ( he was only2) but ocd and autism were tossed around. Autisim was not a possibility b/c although he had (and still has) a few real dx criteria, its not enough to label him autistic. He also developed a “ocd tick” at 3 1/2 where he’d touch something and immeaditly put his hands to his nose and smell them (weird I know) he did this from 3 1/2 -4 when a psychiatrist FINALLY prounced that he does in fact have ocd, and they put him on medication, now the tick only comes back if he is very nervous or anxious. I remember asking him at 3 1/2 why he was doing that when he first started, and it broke my heart to hear him say ” I dunno mama I just have to” ….sorry so long-lol but the dx to treatment process with that is very much like reflux…ohh the person who initially reffered us to a child psychologist was his old ped. It’s really hard to get a “real” when they are so young, Austin just had issues that were WAY more than quirks..he still freaks out about germs sometimes ( but hates to wash his hands, what the heck is that? guess we still don’t get hands HAVE germs not food”)no worries hun I’m sure Sarah is fine!!!! It’s really really rare for little ones to manifest true ocd I mean come on-lol all toddlers are a bit obsessive!!! I have a big history of mental illness in my family and his dad, and my little sister have severe ocd. Most toddlers have a ton of little quirks and obsessions, just write them down to laugh at later ( you’ll be glad you did when she’s 16 and you can reminice about all the cute stuff she did, and embarrass her!!!)

Of course I don’t mind you asking hun!!!

Aidansmom792006-2-20 21:44:22

[Anonymous]

jill—what meds did they put your son on. i have had OCD since i was in the 3rd grade—i remember when it started. i never knew why i did those things until i was in high school —-i had always referred to them as mind games and i remember setting a goal for myself that i was going to quit my mind games. i couldn’t quit them, but i could change them. my kids have a little OCD, too. sometimes we get laughing really hard about the things we do—–however, our OCD is only irritating. i have heard that it can be very crippling to some people. i had never told my mother about it all the years i was growing up. i finally told her several years back. i think she was quite surprised when she heard all of the thoughts i have had and all of the “rituals” that i have done. i know exactly what your son means when he says he doesn’t know why he does something—he just has to. there are times when i have touched something and felt the need to touch it again. i can sometimes feel an actual sensation in my finger that will not go away unless i touch the thing again.

[Anonymous]

He takes trileptal, it’a a mood stabilizer, technically it’s not usually used to treat children, and usually they use anti-depressants as OCD treatment, but we tried those and there was no improvment. Trileptal is actually an anti-seizure med. Austin also has a horrible horrible temper (he used to go into huge rages not able to control his anger at all, etc) trileptal is good for people who have problems with rage. The only reason his psychiatrist was willing to try this med is, I take it for bipolar disorder, and since nothing else was helping him (we tried 3 different meds-lol sounds like a reflux story right??) she decided to give it a go. The idea was since it worked well for me, and Austin’s biological makeup is similar to mine (seeing as he is my son-lol) it might work well for him also, which it has. He is doing so much better although I think some of it has to do with him being older and learning his own ways of coping with his OCD. He knows he has it, he knows more about mental issues (I don’t like to call it mental illness) than most adults, although I’m not really sure how much of it he understands. Austin re-touches things as well, and will sometimes ask ME why he does it, I have yet to come up with a really good answer for that.

[Anonymous]

Thank you so much for sharing this with me. Sometimes Sarah’s obsessions can be quite extreme- she needs to have things done the same way all the time or she has a meltdown. She likes to carry 2 crackers to school each day (I have no idea why)- she just likes to hold little things in her hands. Today one of the crackers broke and she started screaming like crazy that she likes a whole one not a broken one. I know, it’s bizzarre.

[Anonymous]

Hey lori!

I don’t think anyone would have looked twice at Austin’s little anal retentive teddancies if there was not a bnig history of OCD in both sides of his family. Most toddlers are very controlling (like little teenagers) then want to be independent but don’t know how so a lot of the time they pick REALLY odd things to assret their control over!! Keep a little journal and write in it from time to time about what she is having issues with, that way, if for some reason in the future yu decide to get her evaluated by someone , you can pull it out and say ok here’s how she acted from 2. Trying t o get dr’s to listen to a parent on something like this makes getting reflux dxd and treated look like a cakewalk!!!! When we were referred to the psychiatrist when he was 2, she thought I was nuts, and since I had given her permission to converse with my doctor (due to my mood disorder, I figured anything that would help, I’d do) She called him , told him I was paranoid and delousional and then my dr tried to put ME on more medication!!!! I told him uhh no thank you. After it turned out I was right, to their credit, both dr’s apologized to me…..

[hellbennt]

wow jill! I always feel silly typing things like “thanks for sharing” but REALLY I do thank you for telling us about your son & yourself! this is so interesting to me and I’m sure it’s interesting as well as helpful to others…it’s information like this that I tend to store away for a later date and then when the topic comes up again, I have a little knowledge…I’m an elementary school guidance counselor, but aside from being ‘professionally’ interested I am personally interested as well…

~laura

[Anonymous]

aww ty laura, and if you ever have an ?’s about anything I wrote or are interested to know more, I’d be happy to talk about it, it’s kind of like reflux in people don’t really get it as he looks normal (well he is normal but you know what i mean!), and I often wonder if he didn’t have un dxd reflux b/c of all his respiratory issues!!!

[Anonymous]

HI Not to be an alarmist but have you considered having him evaluated for Autism. My degree is in speech pathology and he sounds as if he could be mildly autistic. Is there a center near you that deals with autism or would you be open to having him checked? I could at least ask a few questions that would point in the right direction. Let me know

Nicole

[Anonymous]

Nicole,

Forgive me if this is harsh, but you are in NO WAY qualified to put that out there. Just because you have a degree in Speech Pathology does not qualify you as a DEVELOPMENTAL PEDIATRICIAN with and MD DEGREE to make that assumption. I have had too many people like you with your EI degrees make MEDICAL DIAGNOSIS on my child that were COMPLETELY WRONG. You have the right to say that certain behaviors would concern you but to put a DIAGNOSIS out there is completely unprofessional. I will warn you that and EI person did this to us, is now being investigated by our state and her license is being revoked by ASHA and by the State of CT.

I think that it is heartless to alarm a parent, when you have never even met a child.

Again, sorry if this is harsh, but you should think about the impact of what you are saying may have. Many autistic alarms are many other things than autism. Autism is this catch-all phrase for children who have certain quirks, that people are not willing to investigate further and a label makes things easier.

[Anonymous]

I have to agree with Ann Marie…we were just discussing this on another thread (of course, can’t remember exactly which one) and what I advised that mom to do was to RUN AWAY from any non-medical doctor (OT, PT, speech therapist, teacher, whatever) or even a medical doctor who doesn’t specialize in autistic spectrum disorders who makes a suggestion like that. It happens all the time, and serves only to scare the cr*p out of people…please, if you are ever concerned about a child simply make a suggestion about the best way for the parent to proceed – who to call for a referall, etc. Never suggest a diagnosis, even as a possibility. I’m sure you meant well, but it does a lot of emotional damage.

[Anonymous]

..Aidansmom792006-2-23 14:4:15

[Anonymous]

I was not in any way diagnosing the child I was simply saying make sure you ask all the right questions and look at all the options. there are a lot of children who are miss diagnosed with a lot of things including my childs reflux because I didn’t know what to ask and who to ask, and I have had a lot of MD screw my 3 year old old up. so yes it was harsh, and mean to imply otherwise. Don’t assume someone’s intentions its not nice. I thought this was a forum where everyone could give and recieve help. Thanks to the original poster I am glad you were a smart parent and condsidered all the possibilities and I am thrilled that they ruled out autism!!! Good luck finding the true root of the problem!!!!Fry46192006-2-23 14:6:30

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