The FDA approved on Friday, October 6, 2006 the use of Risperdal to treat symptoms of autism in children and adolescents. There was no mention of this being used for adults, which I find unusual. This is also the first drug to be given the nod for autism.
The press release - http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20061006/hl_nm/jnj_risperdal_dc_3
Initially Risperdal was approved to treat symptoms of Schizophrenia in adults. For the past few years it has been prescribed to children with autism.
My son who is now ten is non verbal and had PICA symptoms, took forever for him to sleep and had self injurious behaviors. When he was put on Risperdal several years ago the sleeping routine changed significantly, his eating of dirt, tree bark and picking at the walls stopped, he had a solid bowel movement for the first time in years and he stopped hitting himself.
This was wonderful news, plus the fact that this med was available in a clear liquid solution, which made it easy to hide inside his soymilk bottle twice a day.
I suggest and advise anyone who has a child that has been prescribed Risperdal to know the correct spelling of this medication and to print out the side effects to give to school nurse, teacher, aides, therapists and keep posted at home on a bulletin board or on the refrigerator. Also keep track of the dosage amount the child is taking.
When my son started medication I kept him home for two days and kept a log of his eating habits, sleep patterns and bowel movements. This is good to do whenever a medication dosage is changed.
My ex husband, father to my children, who both are on the Autism Spectrum, is Paranoid Schizophrenic. He was on Risperdal years ago before it was suggested for my son. I was able to observe how his personality and behavior changed when on this medication. It was the only time he was able to endure supervised visitation with the kids and comprehend it all, to a degree.
I noticed his weight gain, which I found to be a plus for my son as he was malnourished for awhile due to his limited food intake that was a result of his autism. I researched the medication before making that decision. I was one of those parents who was dead set against medication.
At the time I was on speaking terms wiht my Mother and she would explain how medication is what kept my sister alive. She was born with a brain tumor, had seizures and became blind as a result of the last operation. This was about the age of eight for her and I was a few years older.
I have written an article about the side effects and what I had to do about the teacher and aide who disagreed about the side effects. It is quite normal for people to assume the side effects of Rispderal - known as Tardive Dyskinesia, are autistic behaviors.
I was told my son was just mimicking another child with his hands. This was not the case and they could not decipher between hand flapping and jerking movements of the hand. My son had jerking movements of his legs and was constantly smacking his lips.
This occurred after upping the dosage of the Risperdal. I notified the Developmental Pediatrician and we lowered the dosage back to the initial dose and then had to change to another medication as the side effects continued.
Our experience with Rispderal - know the side effects
http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art33907.asp
Tardive Dyskinesia - Make sure you know the spelling of this.
http://www.autism.org/tardiv.html
A parent on one of the autism groups I belong to mentioned that her daughter has pubic hair and has been on Rispderal. This is a girl that is seven years old. I wonder if this is why my son has lots of hair on his legs.
Please do research on the medication that you place on your child and keep them home for a day so you can monitor your child's behaviors and be there for them while they go through changes a medication can do to their bodies and systems.
My son has been on Geodon for a few years now and all is well. It is a capsule and I open it up and break half into one bottle and the other in the night bottle.
The FDA approving this is for the symtoms of self injurious behaviors, aggression, temper tantrums and irritability. They do not state that there is significant weight gain with this, but that might not be the case if your child is on other meds. The other side effect I find rewarding is the ease in putting your child to sleep. My son is still going to sleep by 7 pm and gets up at 6 am.
The time change is when he gets up around 3 am, for a few days before the clocks change twice a year. I met a parent at the SSI office a week ago who was just getting SSI for her child. She mentioned he had ADHD and was on Rispderdal. That was the first I heard of SSI paying for ADHD and Risperdal being used for it.
I hear of many parents on the OCD group putting their kids on Rispderal along with other medications. I also read of many kids on the Autism Spectrum that weigh a lot.
Good luck with the decision to medicate your child and do research, observe your child and teach those that work with your child about the side effects.
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Comments: 15
I am always fascinated to learn anything new about the chemistry of body and mind.
I would like to comment on an important point. Technically. tardive dyskenesia is a disorder (predominantly irreversible) that develops late in treatment, nearly always in adults and after long exposure to the drug(s). That is NOT what you see as a side effect in early treatment with antipsychotic drugs. The adverse drug effects (a better term than 'side effects') that you see concommitant with the relatively early stages of drug therapy are psuedo-parkinsonian dyskinesias that are, generally, both treatable and reversible. Once (if) tardive dyskinesia sets in (no more than 15% of long term antipsychotic therapy patients) it is a chronic problem. But the important point is that what you see that develops early in drug treatment is not irreversible and usually relatively easily controlled.
A word of warning, PLEASE. Just finding sites about drugs on the internet is a very, very misleading occupation. The search engines find twenty sponsored or inexpert sites for every accurate one. There are excellent professional sites but they must be subscribed to as a professional (although that's easy to defeat and get around). If you are interested, I will give you links to some of them but, individually, not in a comment.
Incidentally, as I suppose you are aware, autism is not a unitary disorder and schizophrenia is far from a unitary disorder. This makes accurate diagnosis and treatment very difficult.
There is a guidebook on schizophrenia - I reviewed it on epinions and this website has a link to my review posted on their site. This book talks about childhood schizophrenia and autism and the correlations. It was quite fascinating to read.
I agree about getting information on the internet about meds. It is best to find professional sites and I don't like how parents dispense information on supplements to take etc so freely on yahoo groups and parents take that as advice instead of consulting a Dr.
Kathy - I really cannot give you any advice on meds, but it does sound like your son needs some feeding therapy. Two therapists we saw a few years ago told the Pediatrician my son needed a G tube. We went to childrens hospital in LA and saw a GI dr who agreed with me and the Dr. So we got a prescription for ensure plus - I had researched pediasure and felt ensure was better for my son and tested them on him. He drank two cans a day and that helped, but then the PICA started, probably due to the casein in the milk, so we went to Rispderal and he gained the weight and was no longer severely anemic.
Read my site for our experiences -
http://autismspectrumdisorders.bellaonline.com
At the time he had a limited diet, now he likes chicken and turkey franks, chicken nuggets, tomato soup, soy yogurt, string cheese, bacon, and some other things.
It is a very slow process working with an OT, dietitian and dev pediatrician and child dev specialist, all part of the feeding team. They introduce new foods, and start with kissing it, or cutiting it or touching it and weeks before he is actually eating it without issues.
He now has a juice box of soymilk we get a whole foods and has that at school or camp for lunch. Cannot get him to drink it at home. I joined a yahoo group called feeding years ago to get some ideas for him. We had to see Dr all the time for the finger prick since he was severely anemic. He was hospitalized three times for dehydration - this happened when he was sick and would not drink bottle. He took iron meds and now his numbers are higher than his brothers.
The remaining problem besides removing the bottle is no solid bowel movements. I just started adding oatmeal to his soymilk carton and some gets into the bottle for him. The behavior is what will be a problem once the bottle is gone since it is such a comfort item.
Treasure your son, autistic or not. I lost mine to cancer at 23. he was the kindest, gentlest, brightest (and, inexplicably handsome) person I have ever known.
it is very difficult going to the doctor for things because of having a history like this. every doctor has to try something until they find out that what i tell them is true. i have heard that more aspies than not have reactions like this.
bk
After developing an obsessive cheek and lip chewing habit - causing him much distress and discomfort - my 8 year old son (autism, severe learning difficulties, ADHD) has been prescribed Risperdal.
I have always considered myself anti medication, despite my son's often challenging behaviour, because merely drugging away a behaviour doesn't address its root cause or message. Risperdal has a list of contra indications and side effects literally as long as my arm(!), and to tell the truth I'm a bit scared what it might do to him in the long term.
Last week I gave him his first dose (0.5ml) and he was incredibly dozy for about 4 hours, which I HATED; the only time he's ever that still and quiet is when he's really ill. I gave him the medication again on the following two days and by the third day the only effect was a slight calming - in other words, a dosage increase was already looming. As his mouth is now looking much better I've decided to stop treatment. I have discussed this with my Paediatrician and she is happy for me to use the medication on an as-and-when basis for when he is particularly anxious / sleeping badly / aggressive.
Do you (or anyone reading this) have any experience of using low dose Riperdal in this way?
Thanks for the great info. My 8 yr old daughter is a high functioning autistic who has been taking Risperdal for about 3 years now. It does a good job helping with her aggression and opposition but she has gained a tremendous amount of weight. I have been hearing about Geodon (not yet approved in Canada) and that there is not as much of a weight problem associated with it. Has this been anyone's experience? How can you keep an eye on the possible heart problems? Does it work in the same way as Risperdal? Thanks for any info.