Progress with Lamictal

Jacob was prescribed Lamictal by Dr. Miranda during our last phone consult. Although Brian and I are reluctant to give Jacob meds, we had agreed to give this a chance. The protocol that Dr. Miranda suggested sounded pretty extreme (50 mg/twice per day) but we felt we had to at least give it a chance. After the first few days on lamictal we started to notice that his 'wired and hyper' personality was, and still is, calming down. Being around Jacob was like watching an extreme version of an ADHD child. He has a dual diagnosis of ADHD and autism and the symptoms of impulsivity and lack of focus are extremely hard for him to get a handle on.

It has been a month now and we are seeing some great results from lamictal. For instance, he asked me tonight who I loved more, him or Lauren. This is really big for Jacob as he does not usually ask personal questions or reflect verbally on his thoughts. I was very impressed! Also, he is asking about using the computer in his room. Usually this would be something that I would have to bring up to him (promot). He is aware of it being there but doesn't usually stray from his familiar toys or games to play with.

In researching lamictal I came across a study using this medication and children with autism. The study stated that no real improvements were noticed while the children were on lamictal. I personally believe that all our kids are different and they are suffering from many different types of dysfunction in the brain and body. It would be nearly impossible, in my view, for one thing to help everyone in the spectrum because all of them are different and have different problems.

I will keep you all up on our progress with lamictal. We should also be receiving the chamber soon and I will let you know how that goes as well. Happy Remembrance Day everyone!

Ordered The Chamber

Well, we ordered the chamber from Performance Hyperbarics (PH) and will have to wait until the visa payments go through before they can ship it. We have been told by Spencer at PH that they cannot charge for the full amount all at once so it will take some time before the amount can be put through in total. We have ordered the double bag chamber with the oxygen connections. The oxygen concentrator will be ordered last as I am still investigating the best model for us. From what I have been told by 'experts' in the field, there are two types of concentrators used to take room air and make it into 90-98% oxygen. The types that we are looking at are the OG brand and the AirSep brand. Both of these models are created to work best with hyperbaric chambers - again, so we are told...

Today I will calling around to find out more about this equipment and the mask that goes with it.
We are extremely excited to be in this position and can't thank everyone enough for helping us obtain this dream for Jacob's future. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts.

Phone consult with Dr. Miranda

As some of the readers may already know, Jacob has been a patient of Dr. Fernando Miranda of the BrightMinds Institute for over a year now. Dr. Miranda is going to call us tomorrow (Monday, August 31st) so we can go over Jacob's MRI that was completed in July.

The last time we spoke to Dr. Miranda was in December/08 after he looked over the first MRI. His findings were very positive and he focused mainly on a space in the right hemisphere in which he said he noticed a 'lack of growth'. He suggested using a medication called Trileptal that is usually used for seizures and that after time this lack of growth would start to catch up. The features shown by someone with a right-brain defect are those consistent with Jacob's symptoms; very literal, lack of self-control, weak decision making, emotional liability, etc. Unfortunately, when we tried the medication back in the winter it did not help much and we had to go back to the tried-and-true Strattera for Jacob. Now that we have him out of school we started him back on Trileptal at the end of July. After making several dosage 'tweaks' we have found that he is responding very well to 1ml twice per day. His moods are stabilizing, he is much more 'socially aware' and is asking for play dates more every day. He does still hum and flick (stims) but not as much and is remembering things and is aware of things that he was not only a few weeks before. He is less aggressive towards Lauren and is telling jokes and having a lot fun.

Dr. Miranda is calling tomorrow at 3 pm and I will update as soon as I can. Thank you for reading and letting us into your lives.