Today was the first day that we actually gave Ewen the full 1ML (which is the same as 5MG) of Prozac. He did fantastic in the morning and his anxiety is much better. I am starting to ween him off the propranolol since that is for the anxiety symptoms. Also his hives seem to be better...very minimal but I will watch him closely today.
The problems we are having is that by noon his is exhausted...just completely utterly zonked. And he still is having swallowing problems making it miserable for him to eat. He feels like he has a lump in his throat and it is hard for him to get the food past it and down his throat. The swelling symptoms got better for a few days after acupuncture but are bad again. I just read too that a feeling of having something stuck in your throat can also be a side effect of the Prozac. So I wonder if this kid is ever going to relax and enjoy eating again anytime soon.
This is his daily medication routine now:
9am 2 scoops of inositol and a little less than 5mg of propranolol
12:30pm same
4:30 pm just inositol
7:30 pm same as morning.
I am working on phasing the propranolol out since Ewen's anxiety seems to be getting better, except for this awful swallowing business.
Anyhow...we are on day 2 officially of the CBT 3 week intensive course. We sit in the waiting room for about 10 minutes and this morning Ewen was not sullen but quite smiley and we chatted instead of him looking at his device.
We went back and sat in Dr. Ollie's office and she is small and smart..mid 20's and straight brown ponytail with a fierce look in her eyes. Today we also had Mike with us, another early 20-something...a Grad student who also plays Clash of Clans like Ewen.
They started again with narrowing down a list of things that Ewen is afraid of and it seems to be:
1. Drowning (in the bathtub or a swimming pool)
2. Choking on his food or a liquid
They asked him how he would feel if he went under the water and held his breath for 10 seconds and though about drowning. He gave that an 8 on anxiety levels but I thought to myself, who wouldn't be horrifically anxious doing that?
So tonight his "homework" is to take a small bath. He said he would and he wants to do it in the evening during what used to be the usual bath time. He's not excited about it but he said he knows he is going to be OK. She said that she wanted him to feel his anxiety when he is in there until it goes away. And then if he feels like he has to jump out, to count to 5 first so that he has the final say in it and not "trash", which is the name he gave his anxious thoughts. He calls them trash thoughts and we can't let "trash" win...we have to listen to Ewen thoughts instead.
I worry about his exhaustion and lack of motivation. I hope this is a side effect that goes away and I have to remember that he was like this before the prozac too. It is good that his anxiety is calming down already.
Perhaps we will start taking the Prozac at night instead, but I don't want it to affect his sleep as that is the one thing he has going for him, that through all of this he has still been able to have 10 undisturbed hours of sleep every night and that is a big deal. So we will see.
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