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Medications Pharmaceutical medications are a central pillar in the treatment of childhood Bipolar Disorder, along with psychosocial education (to understand the illness and treatment) and environmental interventions. There are alternative treatments available which are useful in some circumstances but in general less widely tested than pharmaceutical medications. Each child is different and responds differently to the meds, making it sometimes a long process to find meds that help enough for the child to return to or begin having a stable or functional life. One way to understand effective treatment for Bipolar is to study treatment guidelines. These guidelines can even be printed out and taken with you to doctor appointments to help you communicate concerns and ideas for treatment planning. The guidelines can also help you know when your child is recieving quality treatment- or not. Three common types of medications commonly used are: Mood Stabilizers, Antipsychotics, and Anti-anxiety. Antidepressants are sometimes used, but much caution must be taken when used to treat Bipolar Disorder as these medications can cause worsening of some symptoms. You will find that the typical use of these medications are broken down by type on available pages in the above links to the "prescribing information". These links will often be offsite links to the actual manufacturer's prescribing information pages; other times you will find a generic page that often addresses a number of medications in a specific class. You can also get this information directly from the pharmacy for your child's specific information. Before starting or changing medications you may want to check all medications plus any over the counter medications on a drug interaction tool like drugstore.com drugchecker to help prevent any possible problems. After you have gotten a prescription from the doctor, there are things you can do to try to avoid prescription errors. By following a few guidelines when working with the pharmacy and giving meds you can eliminate many errors. It's important that as parents, we familiarize ourselves with the possible side effects by reading the prescribing information for our children's medication. Please be sure to familiarize yourself with the serious side effects of many of the medications, as well as information on weight gain with some meds. Mood stabilizers, antipsychotics and anti-anxiety meds are not the only types of medications that are used. Sometimes medications from one class are used to treat symptoms across many categories of illness. For instance, Risperdal, Zyprexa and Seroquel, apart from their antipsychotic action, have significant anti-manic action and are used in acute treatment of mania in many cases. They are also used to address aggression or as a rescue medication at home. A very good book with even more information to help in parental decision making is :
And getting practical, here is an article to help you when Teaching Children How to Swallow a Pill and check out the "3 rules".. Recently a genetic test has been developed to help doctors determine appropriate medication and dosage choices. Learn more in this Medscape article: FDA Approvals: AmpliChip, Stratis ST, QuantiFERON-TB GOLD, and Others. |
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