I am my kids mom.
I'm also the one who said "Sure, lets try it!" and put him on a medicine without questioning it, that turned out to lead him, to lead all of us, down a dark tunnel.
Over the past nine months I have thought that my kid was at times an awful kid. That flyboy and I were awful parents. There were times I hated being a mom.
And now I cry just thinking about it.
I've been known to blog about pregnant cows who have cankles {and I mean the farm animals}, elmo underpants being flushed down the loo, and my long lasting love affair with baking soda. But now I sit here, staring at my computer debating how much of this ugly story do I tell.
It's hard to ever admit that your child isn't perfect.
It's one thing to tell stories of the funny ways they disobey us, the time dash-2 stripped down naked in the hallway and stared down flyboy for a good solid 5 mins is a classic family tale, but to tell people, be they strangers or friends, that your five year old battled with rage and aggression is hard.
To tell the world that he told his prek teacher when he got angry one day that he wanted to kill himself, has to be the hardest thing yet I've written.
But I'm going to. I'm going to tell the whole ugly tale so that everyone knows, the more people know the more people will make the connection should it happen to them.
And I don't want it to happen to anyone else.
Dash-1 is my delightfuly inqusitive 5 yr old. He has bright blue eyes, a smile that reveals his missing front tooth, and blond hair that is almost always in a high and tight. He is brilliant, but then again I'm his mom, he is obsessed with space, he runs around the house at least 3 times a week in his astronaut suite ratteling off his knowledge of space and planets.
But he also has that pesky little thing called asthma. And reflux and allergies, both seasonal and food. Since birth he's been on
something, and really, nothing's ever really caused any problems. The prevacid was a life saver and goodness knows the Allegra is oh so necessary.
He was diagnoised with Asthma in late 2008, it took quite a while to get it all under control. In case you've never really dealt with it, Asthma is a bitch. Really, its like the house guest who comes, stinks up your bathroom, eats all the good food, and then never wants to leave.
After a while we got it under control but he had this constant barking cough. It. Never. Went. Away. It sounded like a really bad croup cough. Once at walmart he got into a coughing attack and everyone in line moved away {as if they weren't already going to catch something in walmart}.
His pediatrician {new to us at the time, its the military when isn't your doctor new to you?} suggested Singulair. She said to keep an eye on any "hyper" behavior.
I was prepared to watch for him running around the room in circles, not for rage and paranoia.
Oh and in case you're wondering what the possible adverse side effects are take these in:
agitation, aggressive behavior or hostility, anxiousness, depression, dream abnormalities, hallucinations, insomnia, irritability, restlessness, somnambulism, suicidal thinking and behavior (including suicide), and tremorTo say that I didn't know what I was getting into would be the understatement of the year.
It took the cough away. He was silent. He wasn't waking up at night in a fit of coughs. He didn't sound like a barking seal. People weren't giving us nasty looks for taking a sick kid out. He was quiet.
I thought it was perfect.
I'm not really even sure when the side effects started. I wish I could say "on this day such and such started". I certainly wouldn't have let it drag on for nine months if I could have pin point it now would I?
But I can't. We thought it was a stage, maybe this is the terrible five's! Maybe its the school, it never seemed like a great fit. Maybe this is just him. Maybe we've done this to him someway, we've been too hard or not hard enough.
As if parenting isn't hard enough toxic side effects can be a real doozy.
Over time we were noticing some things, he was starting to cry. About everything. Asking him to do something and you would end up with a whiny litany of how he had to do everything. Never mind that all we asked of him was to show up at dinner, not back talk, and get the pee IN the toilet and not the toilet seat. And really, even the later we were flexible on.
If we forced an issue, as in "take in your own bookbag" or if he had to be corrected for something, what we could expect was a 30 minute breakdown. I'm not proud but we had been known to say to him "Dash-1 you cry more than your two younger brothers put together.".
Like I said, I'm not proud of that, but we were at our wits end.
And then there was the rage. And the aggression. And the headaches. And the pins and needles in his arms and legs. And his sleeplessness. And his blaming us for everything. And some odd ocd behavior. And self-loathing talk.
Oh and the whole I wanna kill myself in prek.
That was fun.
These certainly weren't the whole of him, he was still a bright eyed little boy underneath it all it was just starting to be more and more about breakdowns, crying, yelling, hitting, fighting and less of the old him. He was losing his spark. His spark was being replaced with rage and aggression. If you corrected him his eyes would become slits, his fist would ball up, his whole body would go tense.
We were starting to catch on to something. Hey it only took us nine months, he is our oldest, we'll have this parenting thing down for sure by the time dash-3 is 5.
My days were spent walking on eggshells. I was tired of the up and downs of our days. The good times were great but the downs were so down. There were days I didn't know how I could go on. If this is what parenting was I wasn't sure I was cut out for it. And how awful that I felt like that.
I remembered somewhere hearing something or reading something about the nasty side effects of Singulair can have on kids. Thanks to google I got my search on and was shocked. Reading about other parent's experiences on it was like reading something I had written about my own son.
In that moment I decided this wasn't going on one moment longer. I took him off the meds before I even heard back from the doctor.
When the doctor did call back she asked what side effects I was seeing, there was the obvious rage and aggression, who could miss all the crying, but there was also self-loathing talk when he was corrected, "I'm the worst, I hate myself".
Oh and the paranoia, that was fun, if he tripped over a rock, he would flip out because surely, surely, flyboy or I, or clueless dash-2, we put that rock there to get him, we did it.
Some others:
-He complained of headaches and pins and needles in his arms and legs.
-He couldn't fall asleep. Forget going to be well at 7:30, he would be up till 9 or 10 and then up for the day at 6:30 or 7. Ever see a 5 yr old with anger issues who doesn't get a lot of sleep?
-He seemed to need to have total control over things, he wasn't able to go with the flow or adjust midstream at all.
-He became even pickier about food, what he would eat before he started picking them apart eating them in a weird precise manner, he had collections of everything stashed under his bed, random things that he just had to have, everything had to be kept.
It's been two weeks. Two weeks to the day since Singulair was taken out of his pill box {yes he has a pill box} and the old dash-1 is back.
His spark is back. His eyes are clear again, rather then dark and angry. Now he helps me bring in the groceries rather then yell about how I make him do everything. Time out is a rarity rather then his place in the house. Best of all, I know that this is the real him.
I'm all for being honest on my blog. Life isn't always sunshine and roses, but I also think that somethings needn't be put out for all to see. I debated when I wrote this, but ultimately I wanted as many moms and at some point to be moms or just people who may know someone on Singulair to be aware of these potential side effects.
From talking to pharmacist, doctors, and reading the FDA sites, they say reactions like this are rare, but I wonder how rare it really is. It seems like there are a lot of parents out there with stories JUST LIKE this one. The more awareness out there the more people who will connect the dots.
If you think that your child is having problems with Singular this is a great site, http://www.parentsforsafety.org/ and it is very important to contact the FDA and file a MedWatch report so that they are aware of the side effects click here. I wish I had been told more by the doctor. I wish this pill came with informed consent, I wish its dangers were spelled out very clearly. The school year would have been different, our home life would have been different, the past nine months would have most certainly been different. But it didn't come with any of that.
All the bottle said was
chew before swallowing. At least they were concerned with his choking, never mind his depression.
If your kids aren't on Singulair this post can still apply to you, its taught me a very valuable lesson. I am the one responsible for what my child takes. I read those little papers they give you but it takes being more vigilant then that. More questions need to be asked of the doctors and pharmacist, more reading needs to be done.
Take an active role!If anyone has any questions about Singulair and it's side effects please feel free to email me at tryingourbest {at} yahoo.com
