My daughter is 14 and was diagnosed bipolar in June when she was hospitalized for suicidal thoughts, she was started on depakote and zoloft, and now shes back in the hosp. for depression and suicidal tendencies once again.

Her dr. has increased her zoloft from 50mg a day to 100 but its having no affect, so hes thinking of changing her to prozac, which we havent given our consent for yet.

I would like to know of anyone who has a child on an anti depressant or anyone at all, who has experienced and knows of a anti depressant that might help her, shes also on trazadone because of sleep problems, which now leave her tired and drug out all the time

Dear Lildove:

To answer your question, whether anyone has a young child in the family etc... that has depression? I have to say yes. My 16 year old niece suffers from depression and has had several suicidal thoughts. Presently she takes 20mg. of Prozac and it seems to be doing the trick, with few or no side-effects. I am very familiar with depression and bi-polar manic depression, because I have two members of the family with depression. Depakote is a good medication for depression, however it can have a tendency to put weight on, and also your daughter should have a liver function test each month to make sure that the depakote levels are not too high for her age weight etc... I am sure the doctor probably told you these things however. Also Trazadone, yes can make you sleepy. My father seems a little spaced out on it. He takes it before he goes to sleep along with Ativan. He currently is on Zyprexa and Lexapro. He takes the Zyprexa for manic depression. The Lexapro so far has not taken effect yet, but he has only been on it a week or so. He was on zoloft for a year and was taking up to 400mg. and between you and me I thinki it did more harm than good. Now he is off of it.

I do have a great deal of background when it comes to depression and pharmacology. Between my niece, wife and father who has been battling chronic depression for years; I feel like I sometimes play the doctor or therapist between them all, if you know what I mean?. If you would like my advice, talk to her physician about perscribing prozac 20mg.; it seems to be doing the trick for my niece. And it has been around for a while, and has very few side effects. Hope I have been helpfull. If you need any more feedback please feel free to write me. Take care.

JIMMY

Dear Lildove:

To answer your question, whether anyone has a young child in the family etc... that has depression? I have to say yes. My 16 year old niece suffers from depression and has had several suicidal thoughts. Presently she takes 20mg. of Prozac and it seems to be doing the trick, with few or no side-effects. I am very familiar with depression and bi-polar manic depression, because I have two members of the family with depression. Depakote is a good medication for depression, however it can have a tendency to put weight on, and also your daughter should have a liver function test each month to make sure that the depakote levels are not too high for her age weight etc... I am sure the doctor probably told you these things however. Also Trazadone, yes can make you sleepy. My father seems a little spaced out on it. He takes it before he goes to sleep along with Ativan. He currently is on Zyprexa and Lexapro. He takes the Zyprexa for manic depression. The Lexapro so far has not taken effect yet, but he has only been on it a week or so. He was on zoloft for a year and was taking up to 400mg. and between you and me I thinki it did more harm than good. Now he is off of it.

I do have a great deal of background when it comes to depression and pharmacology. Between my niece, wife and father who has been battling chronic depression for years; I feel like I sometimes play the doctor or therapist between them all, if you know what I mean?. If you would like my advice, talk to her physician about perscribing prozac 20mg.; it seems to be doing the trick for my niece. And it has been around for a while, and has very few side effects. Hope I have been helpfull. If you need any more feedback please feel free to write me. Take care.

JIMMY

Dear Lildove:

To answer your question, whether anyone has a young child in the family etc... that has depression? I have to say yes. My 16 year old niece suffers from depression and has had several suicidal thoughts. Presently she takes 20mg. of Prozac and it seems to be doing the trick, with few or no side-effects. I am very familiar with depression and bi-polar manic depression, because I have two members of the family with depression. Depakote is a good medication for depression, however it can have a tendency to put weight on, and also your daughter should have a liver function test each month to make sure that the depakote levels are not too high for her age weight etc... I am sure the doctor probably told you these things however. Also Trazadone, yes can make you sleepy. My father seems a little spaced out on it. He takes it before he goes to sleep along with Ativan. He currently is on Zyprexa and Lexapro. He takes the Zyprexa for manic depression. The Lexapro so far has not taken effect yet, but he has only been on it a week or so. He was on zoloft for a year and was taking up to 400mg. and between you and me I thinki it did more harm than good. Now he is off of it.

I do have a great deal of background when it comes to depression and pharmacology. Between my niece, wife and father who has been battling chronic depression for years; I feel like I sometimes play the doctor or therapist between them all, if you know what I mean?. If you would like my advice, talk to her physician about perscribing prozac 20mg.; it seems to be doing the trick for my niece. And it has been around for a while, and has very few side effects. Hope I have been helpfull. If you need any more feedback please feel free to write me. Take care.

JIMMY

Dear Lildove:

To answer your question, whether anyone has a young child in the family etc... that has depression? I have to say yes. My 16 year old niece suffers from depression and has had several suicidal thoughts. Presently she takes 20mg. of Prozac and it seems to be doing the trick, with few or no side-effects. I am very familiar with depression and bi-polar manic depression, because I have two members of the family with depression. Depakote is a good medication for depression, however it can have a tendency to put weight on, and also your daughter should have a liver function test each month to make sure that the depakote levels are not too high for her age weight etc... I am sure the doctor probably told you these things however. Also Trazadone, yes can make you sleepy. My father seems a little spaced out on it. He takes it before he goes to sleep along with Ativan. He currently is on Zyprexa and Lexapro. He takes the Zyprexa for manic depression. The Lexapro so far has not taken effect yet, but he has only been on it a week or so. He was on zoloft for a year and was taking up to 400mg. and between you and me I thinki it did more harm than good. Now he is off of it.

I do have a great deal of background when it comes to depression and pharmacology. Between my niece, wife and father who has been battling chronic depression for years; I feel like I sometimes play the doctor or therapist between them all, if you know what I mean?. If you would like my advice, talk to her physician about perscribing prozac 20mg.; it seems to be doing the trick for my niece. And it has been around for a while, and has very few side effects. Hope I have been helpfull. If you need any more feedback please feel free to write me. Take care.

JIMMY

Dear Lildove:

I have had alot of experience with depression, because I have two family members who presently suffer from it, including a 16 year old niece; whom like your daughter has had several suicidal tendencies. Currently she is taking 20mg of Prozac and is doing fairly well, and is also seeing a therapist a few times a week. If you want my advice...talk to the doctor and ask him to place your daughter on prozac. It has been around for awhile, and virtually has very few side effects if any. And it usually works in two to four weeks.

As far as Depakote goes. Usually that medication is used for bipolar manic depressive persons. People who are depressed for several weeks than escalate into a manic state for three days or more. Also it has a tendency to put weight on some individuals. My father was on up to 400mg of Zoloft after about a year, and between you and me, I think it did more harm than good. I hope I have helped you out somewhat here, with your questions and concerns. If there is anything else that I can help you out with in terms of feedback, please feel free to write me. Take care, and good luck with everything. (:

lildove

I really feel for your daughter. I worked with a teenage girl with bipolar before and it was a disturbing experience. What I want to suggest is getting your daughter into a type of therapy. To have bipolar is like having a flue but is constant. It really feels yucky to the victim all the time but they don't know how to express it. I suggest trying therapy for several years. A person must grow and progress even if they stay on drugs. A person MUST grow and progress. Just like most parents encourage there children to go from 1st grade to 2nd grade on up to senior year in high school, parents are encouraging intelligence, education and learning and discipline. But what about emotional/mental/psychological growth?? Help your child achieve that, it is not wrong it is the right thing to do.

Hi... I am currently a 15 year old girl who has started antidepressents since I was 14. I started on Wellbutrin which mainly helped me concentrate in school, lose a TEENY bit of weight, but no depression help. I then started on 25-50 mg of Zoloft.. which I think did the trick, but caused a massive amount of weight gain for me. After 4 months I had to quit because I was gaining too much weight. I have had friends be successful with Prozac. 20 mg is a good dosage and I hope everything goes well.

Thank you for your replies. My daughter sees a child psych. once a month, a therapist twice a month, and group therapy once a week. I also have a son, who is 24 and bipolar, and 2 other children who are fine.

The zoloft did not help my daughter, and she is now being weaned off that and the wellbutrin started, and also is on a mood stabilizer, which we know she will have to be on for the rest of her life.

This is all very difficult for us, especially having 2 children with this, but we try to think positive and know that someday they both could lead very productive and hopefully happy lives.

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Hi,
I would just like to say that you sound like a wonderful mother to realize something was off about your daugther. I have just resently turned 18 years old and only with in the last year i was finally put on medication to help me with my problems. My mother thought it was a phaze and that I would grow out of it but I had bouts of depression since i was 11. Both my shrink and doctor's say that I'm like a boder line bi-polar. Mental illness runs thru my family on my mother AND fathers side. So it wasnt a huge discovery, or so much of an issue in my family. No one had ever tried to get help. I was finally taken to the doctor when i refused to leave my room, because i was parioned and said people were out to get me yet i didnt know who those people where. And for suicidal thoughts thats not fun either. But I have gotten better... some what.. I just kind of think part of it is my personality. I might just be a sadistic twisted bitter person. And yet i do have friends now, am able to hold a job, and attend college. Having people around me that supported me helped so much. I grew as a person with more contact and communication with particular people. I just wish you good luck with your daugther and the rest of your family.