I think we have a Diagnosis!

[Sooze2]

We saw the Consultant on Tuesday, she said she hadn't read the notes because she fitted us in quickly due to getting a letter from my new Doctors about DS's sleep problems. She thought it was only about sleep at first. She has prescribed Menatonin for a month to see how it affects him! Hoorah! I may actually be able to enjoy my camping holiday this year if it works.

 

She asked loads of questions about behaviour and from talking to him and us she said she agreed with the CHAMs lady we have been seeing that he has ADHD/ASD. She said he is very oppositional and could see that he will argue for arguing sake after I told her a few things including about the other day when I bought him a green bubble wand and his sisters pinks ones, he went mental saying he wanted pink as it was his favourite colour etc, it was so bad he had to go in his room for an hour before he was calm and then was still angry for the rest of the evening. She asked him if he had all pink stuff in his room - have you a pink duvet cover, pink toys, pink light shade then! - he just looked at her and said no grinning! She looked up and said yes he is very opositional and basically he will swear black is white so he's got an excuse to kick off! She had him worked out straight away.

 

Anyway I could carry on but I won't bore you. He has an appointment with her on his own and 22nd July to do some tests and she will go from there. He is seeing the other CHAMs lady next friday for a handwritting test and the Consultant wants her to also carry out a fine motor skills test too.

 

The ball is finally rolling. Its only taken 6.5 years. Feeling a mixture of releif and anger at the moment, if the doctors had listened to me years ago help would have been put in place sooner. She asked who did the initial referral and and was a bit shoked that my old Doctor after years of telling them about my difficulties with DS said "we don't deal with mental health". Ive have changed Doc's and she said the one I'm with now is a good one so we'll be ok. So nice.

 

Thanks for listening

[JsMum]

Hi, from reading your post, there is possiblity of a diagnosis of ADHD but I am wondering if they are also looking at labling him as ODD too, J has this too, it has not helped in any way, it has hindered mostly and made proffessionals judge and misinterprit Js moods, behaviour and acts, It hasnt given him access to any services and he hasnt had any interventions or medical help to help is so called ODD, personally I feel that Js oppositional behaviour is related to his primal fear, and his ASDs that then cause Anxieties, he has many sensory difficulties and so his triggers are often, but a lot of it is displayed in behaviour that is in many very similair to ODD symptoms, but I feel strongly that ODD is the forefront of behaviours but the deeper layer is fear/anxiety.

 

Be very careful and I would really advice you not to accept this lable because when ever anything has happened and someone needs to be blamed, they go straight to the kid with ODD/ADHD, even though it may of been totally preventable and managed, ODD also refers to the child been in complete control of their actions, which contridicts the diagnosis of ADHD, of which J has severely in Impulsivity and destractabilty, I personally dont like the lable of ODD as it blames the child and parenting style rather than looking at interventions and treatments.

 

Good luck, would you let me know your overall diagnosis.

 

JsMum

[Sooze2]

Thanks JsMum, I think she is going with Aspergers and ADHD with him being oppositional as a symptom of these rather than him being able to controll it. She knows a lot of his behaviours have been present since birth - I gave her a typed copy of his history.

 

His school are being very helpful and he seems to be liked by the teachers because they are really noticing since he's been in year 3 that he can't help acting the way he does because he gets so upset about things rather than just lashing out. The anger he feels is taken out on himself at school. He is a perfectionist and rips up his own work because he thinks it's rubbish even if it's ok, he is now refusing to do any written work because he thinks his writing his rubbish. His teacher is pushing for him to have his own TA at school because at the moment he is sharing another boys TA and even that isn't enough support for him according to the teacher. I think the fact that he keeps breaking himself made her take notice too - he was proudly telling her of all the injuries he's had! Sports injuried he called them!!!

 

I don't know, its early days for us and I'm still learning. Time and more meetings will tell I suppose

[bikemad]

Blimey thats worse than my lad it took from age 3-8 to finally get help with him!!!!! Glad they are finally helping you!!!