Day 27 and 28 - THE TRIAL CONTINUES

Ok, I've tried for days to upload video of Day 27, and it isn't happening. So you will just get a lot of words :0)

Day 27 -

Day two of the medication trial. We are supposed to stay at 5mg for the first 7 days, then bump up to 10mg to see if there is any difference. It took Frog a little longer to take the medication today. I saved the extra in case the first dose got dumped or spit out onto the floor.

I spent the morning working on legal documents and let Frog have some free time in the playroom. He seemed calmer and less prone to get into things. When I finished my drafting, I suggested it was time to get dressed warm and go outside to work in the garden. Today's lesson plan centered on Dirt and Worms.

I went upstairs and got dressed. When I came back, Frog was on the kitchen counter near the refrigerator helping himself to cookies from the cupboard. I got him down and tried to entice him to go outside. We did some dancing and jumping around, but he showed no interest in getting dressed. I decided to fix lunch first to see if some protein, along with all those cookies, would make him feel more receptive. He ate very little and threw the rest around.

He still did not want to get dressed - no pants, socks or shoes, thank you very much! I told him we were not going outside without more clothes on. He was angry, but still did not want to get dressed. I cleaned up the mess from lunch and Frog wrapped up in a blanket and settled into his favorite wing back chair. He was none to happy when I got out the composition book. He was able to identify the word Worm when given the choice between Dirt and Worm on the page. We worked on using a good pointing finger to identify the shovel and the bucket from a page of stickers. And he did a good job, under protest, with his letters.



This was followed by a scream, at me, and a bite to his wrist before he took off upstairs with his blanket. He went to my room and fell asleep in front of a blowing fan.

When he woke he was very out of sorts. He needed to be alone and would move from room to room to get away from everyone. He did a lot of rocking and singing. He could not tolerate listening to us talk. He did manage to tell us that his head hurt. Then he went back to bed. Frog's Dad feared he was getting sick - he's been very sniffly and stuffed up the last few days. I thought it was strange that he was fine earlier in the day. I had a hunch and went downstairs to locate the cup with the extra medicine. I'd put it away on the top of the refrigerator - pushed way back and behind everything else that is up there. Sure enough, Frog had finished off the other 15mg of the medicine with his cookie before lunch!

We dropped the rest of our plans for the day and monitored Frog. His breathing and heart rate seemed normal. He was agitated, but not more so than we've seen at times in the past. After an hour or so, he got up and sat on the landing to the stairs, rocking and singing. Then he came downstairs and sat in his chair. This is what Frog looks like on 20mg of the medication (video should have gone here - Frog sat Still in the chair for 10 minutes or so. He did very little vocalizing and moved his head and eye gaze very slowly. He looked out the window, he tracked his Dad's movements, and he spotted the fire burning in the wood stove and stared at that. After leaving the chair and eating a little dinner, he seemed a little less spacey. He watched TV by himself and seemed quite calm and happy. As the night wore on, he got more energy and began to run and vocalize more like himself. He went to bed around 10:30 and got some sleep before waking again around 2am. He had a hard time getting up the next day.

Day 28 -

Day three of the medication trial. We learned from yesterday and locked the extra medication in the refrigerator until we were certain he had taken his dose. Then I dumped the extra down the drain. Although he had a hard time getting up and going, he was happy.

After taking his medication and eating some breakfast, he was happily playing downstairs, but came quickly when I started singing the Let's go get in Mommy's car song. He was receptive to Floortime type play especially swinging, wrestling and tickling. He was not as happy about putting on clothes, but agreed to them in order to get a ride in the car before going to his Speech/OT appointment at school.

He became more agitated at school cycling between happy jumping, requesting, and referencing to wails and the need to lay flat and press his body against a resistant surface. He responded well to deep pressure until it pushed him over the edge the other way. When he wasn't in this agitated state, he was happy to be with the therapists, made lots of eye contact, threw the ball, took the monkey, asked for the trampoline, complained when the swing was moved - but we felt that trying to direct him to the board to write or the vantage to talk would push him back over the edge.

This is the pattern I am seeing at home with the medication. He cycles between regulation and disregulation more often than usual; when he is in the regulated part of the cycle, he is calmer and more focused than usual, but the focus can only be used for things he initiates or comes to on his own - it does not extend to other-directed activities. His OT suggested that the medication may be changing his perception of sensory input so much, that he is in a period of readjustment and it may take some time before he can attend to some of the activities he was doing before.

We spent the rest of the afternoon in Floortime play, and then Frog took a nap. I was kind of hoping the medication would put an end to the afternoon naps, but he still seems to need them. Maybe this is part of the readjustment too.