Risperdal and Clonidine - Autism Spectrum Message Board

micheeta · 07-30-2002, 08:01 PM

I was wondering if anyone else has used that combination. My son who was diagnosed at 2 ad being autistic and ADHD ( Rheuban is 7 now). My son is currently taking .1mg 2x/day of clonidine and .25mg 2x/day of risperdal. He has been on this since December. Our problem now is aggression, although the combination has helped his tantrums and his ablity to focus. My son's aggression when he is "ticking" ( he knocks on his temple area with his fists is what we call it when he is set off) he becomes uncontrolable. It takes both me and my husband to physically pick him up to take him to his room, where another struggle begins to calm him down without hurting me or my husband. Rheuban becomes wild eyed and exhibits unnatural strength. Since he has been on risperdal he has blossomed to 89 lbs from a nice 65 lbs. We were wondering if this is a typical side effect? And if our trying to resist the trend to create him iinto a zombie unfair?

saj · 07-31-2002, 08:04 AM

Unfortunately, weight gain is a common side effect of risperdal. My son is on this medication, too.
We just added the med. mentioned in this article (Galantamine). [url="http://pn.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/36/14/19-a"]http://pn.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/36/14/19-a[/url]
I don't know if it will be helpful, yet, or not but I thought I would pass along the information in case you were interested.
It makes alot more sense to me to target the part of the brain that might be part of the problem then just giving a drug and hoping for the best (that's just my opinion).
saj