CurlyGirl has only been taking Ritalin for 3.5 days. It is much too early to draw conclusions, however, things are looking promising. She is still starting to have meltdowns, but she can actually be brought back to reality before it turns into an hour-long event.
We have been doing a behavior chart on which we make tally marks for behaviors like aggression and name-calling; if a block for a certain time period has under a certain number of marks, she gets a star. Looking only at the number of stars she's earned, there isn't much difference from before. But the individual blocks used to have 15-20 tally marks before I gave up writing them down; since Wednesday, she may not get the star, but there are only 3 marks in the box. I already have lost the feeling of wanting to avoid being around her and I don't feel like I am one breath away from her having a tantrum. We still need to get an appointment with a psychiatrist (our primary care doctor got us started on a trial run, but would feel better with a specialist overseeing the case) and we are having trouble finding a local one that both accepts our insurance and returns our calls. Still, I feel more hopeful than I have in a long time.
Added a few hours later: Today was her first full day on the med-- she's not taking for school hours. We were out this afternoon, and I noticed that she was getting "wilder," when I saw that it was 3:00 and about time for her second dose. Within 10 minutes after taking it, she was calm again. I've seen this before, so why am I so amazed? I guess seeing it professionally is not the same as personally.
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1 comment:
Excellent news that it is working. I hope that the psychiatrist appointment comes soon.
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