#103 Saturday 27 November 2010

Did you read page 27 of this morning's West Australian? It was about the use of anti-psychotic drugs in our community. The article was mainly about one person who years ago did some questionable research ... but the article also touched on the movement to control "over use" of the drugs. For the first time in my life I was moved to put pen to paper in response to such an article.

I said:
"Hi Colleen

As a parent using several anti-psychotics (under close medical supervision) for my severely autistic six year old daughter I was very interested to read your article.

It is very easy to jump on the populist bandwagon and decry the over prescription of these drugs ...... however ....

Consider the other viewpoint.

For many children, these drugs offer their only realistic hope of gaining enough control over their behaviours that they can begin to learn and think.

The ability to think is something that most people take as a completely basic ability ... yet I have watched my daughter so lost in her self-stimulation behaviours (stimming) that thinking cannot even begin.
And I have seen the stimming brought under control by  Risperdone.  I have verified this by carefully regulating of the amount of Risperdone administered daily ... and I can see that drug is having the right effect for her.

I have watched helplessly as she is racked by anxiety attacks that mean that she is unable to function .... and I know that I can control the onset and severity of these attacks by use of a different drug.  Just a day without it and she sinks back into huge anxiety.

The combination of several different anti-psychotics in carefully monitored amounts has meant that our daughter has successfully completed Year One in a mainstream class!  And this is a girl  who was non-verbal to the point where she could not even say YES or NO correctly a year ago!  She can now use sentences to communicate!

The road to finding the correct drug combination is hard and it's painstaking ...... and from the outside it could well appear that drugs were being thrown at her!  Over-prescription!! Horror!

The process is of finding a drug that her body will react to in the right way ... and hence many drugs have to be tried.  There is no way to predict what reaction an individual person might have to a particular drug ..... so they have to be tried in minute doses till the right one is found.

Please lend your support to all the autistic children in our community. One day an answer to their nightmare will be found ... but till it is found, these drugs are our best hope.  Don't let a mis-guided popular crusade destroy that hope."