Anxiety and medication - Autism Spectrum Message Board

Joey'smom · 02-01-2005, 05:08 PM

Joey is in a full day kindergarten program and is doing very well academically.
He has made huge improvements with his speech. He now speaks in five or six word sentences. Last year he was tested and had the speech level equilvalent of a 26 month old. He will be retested in a couple of months. He is not on any medications. For the last few weeks he has been exhibiting signs of anxiety at school. He begs me to let him stay home from school. I finally got out of him that he does not like eating lunch in the lunchroom. Too much noise. He is also afraid of going to the bathroom by himself. His teacher has let him pick a friend to go with him and this has alleviated his fear a little. I guess my question is when do you decide it is time to medicate? He has made so many gains this year. It breaks my heart that he seems so stressed.

BetsyAnn · 02-01-2005, 10:17 PM

My only advise is to trust your mother's instincts. If you decide that you want to try medication you can always stop if it doesn't help or produces undesirable side-effects. My non-autistic son was put on Concerta last year while he was in kindergarted. He has adhd and all of the effort he put into being good, listening, and staying on task (all of which he managed to do much to our suprise at the time) was sending his anxiety levels through the roof. He had always been such a happy boy and it broke my heart to see him so anxiety ridden. The medication has worked well for him. And I have my happy boy back.