Aggression

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Hi, I am new to this website & in desperate need of advice. My son is 20 yrs old & nonverbal autistic. He was on Risperdal for at least 12-15 yrs for aggressive behavior & it seemed to work well. This past Nov, on a routine check of liver enzymes, they were elevated & he was also diagnosed diabetic due to elevated Hemoglobin A1c. We weaned him off the Risperdal, modified his diet (which is limited, but mainly we cut out soft drinks completely & cut out sugar, started using Splenda). He lost weight quickly & dramatically (11 lb in 1st 2 weeks). Then in Jan he got sick with nausea, vomiting & liver enzymes were in the 600-700 range (they were in the 200 range in Nov). He was hospitalized, and luckily the enzymes slowly came down to now, in normal range. Also now the HgbA1c is normal so he is no longer considered in diabetic range! The problem is now, his aggression & irritability is at unbearable levels. He is lashing out at us, trying to hurt us and himself multiple times a day. We are unable to leave the house due to his behavior. He will sit in his room & scream, hit himself, etc. It is awful. His internal medicine dr put him on Valium 5mg 3times a day but it didn't touch him so we stopped it. Now we have just started seroquel & so far have not seen improvements. We have increased it to 25mg in am & 50 mg at bedtime, but he is still having completely unmanageable behavior. We are at the end or our rope. I have tried so many ways to communicate with him but cannot reach him to find out what is setting him off. We are keeping logs of his behavior & we cannot find what is triggering it. I don't know if the Risperdal is what caused the liver issues or not, but there is a risk of that with all the antipsychotics. I wonder if we should try the Risperdal again & just monitor the enzymes more closely. Before, blood draws were so traumatic for him that we didn't monitor them as closely as we should have, I think, and now, since being in the hospital, he is good with blood draws. Sometimes, I wonder if it is purely a behavioral thing, but other times, I don't think so. If anyone has any ideas, please let me know. We are desperate to find a solution! We stopped using Splenda, thinking maybe that was a trigger, but still no results.
Thanks
Vicki

hi vicky,
if are interested will pm the link to a good autism forum am a currently innactive member of where will probably find it a lot more useful for this topic because there arent many parents with severely or profoundly autistic children here.

it is possible he might have an infection going on at the moment,or a pain such as tooth pain or migraines.
get his pee checked for a pee infection,they might want to give him anti biotics as a 'just in case' thing as that is what they do with mine.
with pee in fections [and teeth] from own experience as a severe autist with severe challenging behavior,and the years of living around others in the same or worse category;its one of the worst triggers of severe challenging behaviors.
make sure to get him an EEG done as well whilst showing those behaviors as its possible he coud be having epileptic activity it coud be a coincidence with the tablets being removed,or perhaps a side effect.

he probably doesnt understand all the feelings he is getting from coming off his medication.
they may be making him feel like crap.
feeling distressed without having a clue how to understand and channel this causes even worse distress for us ,this is exactly what its like in own experience as am unable to understand actual feelings nor know when am sick or injured but sub conciously it communicates itself to support staff via behaviors.

as for medication, there are other meds besides anti pyschs for behavior, anti pyschotics woud not be own first choice because they are very sedating,woud rather be on anti epileptics,has he ever been on any for his behavior before?
am on the maximum amount possible of tegretol SR and it fits perfectly because am also severely epileptic to,am also on propanalol which has helped with rages though woud not recommend as a main behavioral medication.

the fact he isnt sleeping well coud be part of the medication withdrawals,as well as the new one being introduced,
when was put on a sixty mg dose of cymbalta had suffered from even more extreme super + insomnia,it went on for two weeks until it settled,and now am on hundred and twenty mg of it and have not had any side effects since.
so it is possible,the effexor is adding to his sleeping issues.

what about trying the feingold diet to see what causes issues?

what country are in?
woud it help if he had a respite break away? am asking about the country because the uk has various funds available from different grants and woud also have a search if it was somewhere else.

Maybe try lithium. It will take about a month to notice if it works though.

Thanks, kingdom. I would love to get the link you have for the other forum. Through some of my reading here, I did get an idea that people here are a bit higher functioning than in our situation. I am in the US. I would give anything to be able to communicate with my son in even the smallest way & sometimes hearing what some autistic people say, gives me insight into how he may be feeling. He did have an EEG as a child & it didn't show anything but that could have changed since it was so long ago. Diets seem so difficult given his limited food choices but I may look into it again. Thanks so much for all your info!

I've read many stories like these over the past couple of years. It certainly helps me with sensory sensitivity, anxiety, pain, anger, fixation, etc etc.

http://www.autismsupportnetwork.com/news/autism-treatment-marijuana-madness-8763721

My symptoms change from mild to severe autism depending on how I handle stress, as a child soft music was the only thing that calmed me down. As an adult I have learnt to lie down for hours just staring into the distance, this seems to help my mind function normal again (normal as in aspergers).

KingdomOfRats has given great advice. It must be difficult when your son can’t express what’s wrong with him. I became verbal after the age of five, unfortunately stress can trigger my mind so that I become nonverbal again.