The Miracle of Medication--a Good Doctor-- and a SPECT Scan
by Cynthia Hammer, MSW, Director of ADD Resources
My youngest son Jason has been under a psychiatrist's care (there have been many) since age 11 (he is now 27) whenever he was cooperative. He was initially diagnosed with conduct disorder and put on lithium. Over the years this medicine stopped helping, and his diagnosis was changed to bipolar. But again, over the years, his medicine stopped helping and his prob
lem behaviors changed. When we asked him to leave our house at age 24 because of continued stealing, he was only taking a medicine for anxiety which helped somewhat with his compulsive skin picking which was now his major psychiatric problem. To our surprise, he managed to live on his own, hold a job and take courses at a junior college, but his compulsive skin picking kept interfering with his life. He would quit jobs when his appearance was too embarrassing for him to be in public. He wanted to return to full time college. We told him we would only support him in this if he was under a psychiatrist's care. We wanted to insure that everything was being done for him to be a student without continued interruptions to his academic career. We were told that the psychiatrist at the Amen Clinic here in Tacoma was good. Although our son lived in Portland, Oregon--3 hours away-he drove up here for his appointments. The doctor decided an atypical antipsychotic--Seroquel--should be tried to quiet his overactive frontal lobes. It has been a month now and the picking behaviors have totally stopped. My son leaves in two weeks for college in Texas. I am hopeful.
Addendum: Jason gave permission for me to write about him. He plans to become a social worker and help troubled youth.
~~Cynthia Hammer, MSW, Director
ADD Resources
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