A Life Apart: Parent Perspective on Living with a Child with Asperger’s

LESSON NINE: Examining Medication as an Option

My own take on the medication is this: If life at home becomes intolerable, you are ready to at least CONSIDER options in medication. Is medication the answer? Absolutely not. It is an aid. It may allow a child to function better day to day. If there were a magic medication, whoever discovered it could retire and live very well.

Some feel that medicating a child is a last resort. I know I did. Not that when my son was young anyone suggested it to me. I thought about it myself but then wondered:

All of the above are valid concerns.

Think about this: If your child had diabetes or another physical ailment, would you hesitate to get him on insulin? Our children have neurological impairment that can interfere dramatically with their wellbeing.

The target is not the disability as a whole. The target is a particular interfering symptom such as anxiety, depression, aggression or mood swings.

I resisted the idea of medication, even as my son approached adolescence. But then there was the day I knew we had come to the edge of a precipice and we were going over. That was the day my son put his head through a doubled-paned window in the family room. My first call was to the psychiatrist, once I determined, with amazement, that he was unhurt.

There are various categories of medicine that will be considered. It is trial and error. There is no exact science. The best way you can assist your child and the physician in the process of finding an effective medication is to keep a log. The best way to know if a particular drug is working is by observation. The evidence is anecdotal. But how can we remember what was different with our child in one week versus last month?

Advice: Keep two logs:
One a daily log, with the name of medicine, the dosage and any observations in the early days, weeks and months of trying a new prescription. The other log is simply a list of each medicine, when started and the dosage and when discontinued and why. Many of our children will go through more than one psychiatrist or pediatrician and one of the first questions to pop up will be what medications has your child been on, when and what dosage. And who can remember?