SS20's new assessment
DH and I are in the process of getting adult guardianship of SS20. I am going to list a little background because there is a lot that happened as far as diagnosis's go.
- Early elementary he had a lot of behavioral issues and trouble blending with BM2 moving in and her 2 kids, also BM2 was pregnant.
- BM2 took him to the base hospital when he was 6 because he cut the mesh lining in the playpen that YSS was in so he could give him a toy, tried to convince the doctors that he was dangerous.
- Military doctors diagnosed him as Bipolar, ADHD and ODD at age 7
- In middle school he got his Autism diagnosis after BM2 left
- In high school they added General Anxiety disorder.
I have always questioned his bipolar dx, I understand that BM1 and BM1's mother have it but in knowing SS20, it never made sense. For a long time I chalked it up to his meds just being level for him and he was in a good place with it. However lately, I have noticed that he is more irritable, things set him off easier, etc- all typically Autism related. (Too many of us in the living room, too loud, too _____ for him to be able to deal with it).
With the adult guardianship his therapist here suggested we do a full assessment for court so that there is no misconception. She gave me the name of a practice that does them. I spent an hour on the phone yesterday and she thinks, like I do that he was misdiagnosed by the military as a young child. I think a lot of it has to do with BM2 because he was a hard child and she just wanted him to be a medicated zombie and not deal with him. She exaggerated a lot of things to keep the meds flowing.
When I went through all of his meds this doctor was shocked he was on so much. I haven't wanted to rock the boat because he is doing fairly well, but things just never sat right with me. I am so glad we are getting this done. I told DH when we are done with this I think he will only have the Autism and ADHD diagnosis's.
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Yes, that sounds like a great
Yes, that sounds like a great idea. It's really unusual (and usually wrong) to diagnose a 7-year-old with Bipolar unless his behavior is extremely dysregulated and dangerous. ODD is also unusual in a 7-year-old, and when they have it, you know it - they are always argumentative and challenging and defiant. It's sadly not unusual for prescribers to keep adding med after med to address behavioral issues, and sometimes coming off all of them and starting over can be a big help. Not to mention, he's no longer a child, so things like ODD don't apply anymore. Anxiety is common in people with autism and may stick as a diagnosis as well.
Good luck, hope it works out well.
Personally, I think 7 is way
Personally, I think 7 is way too young to diagnose for life. I'm surprised he was diagnosed as bipolar at such a young age. He should have another assessment now that he is 20. Glad it's happening.
At 7??? Bipolar? Omg Could it
At 7??? Bipolar? Omg Could it be BM made it up? That's a different BM right? Or same?
good idea to get proper diagnosis and to get a guardianship.
To add, it's possible that he has a separate diagnosis of ADHD and it could be that it's just something accompanied his ASD
SS20's mom is BM1, BM2 was
SS20's mom is BM1, BM2 was the one pushing for the dx.
I think that 90% of his issues are related to ASD but he definitely has ADHD as well.
Can I take a moment to complain about military medicine?
It's awful. Literally awful, and particularly for kids.
My DH is retired military and his X is AD. Their kids have been seen in the same military clinic their entire lives, and it's all been substandard. Diagnoses are complete BS and based entirely on reports from the mother. BM got SD diagnosed with migraines by telling the doc that the child was seeing auras. SD, who was 14 at the time, disagreed, but quietly because she's afraid of her mother.
SS10 was recently diagnosed as ADHD by an independent assessor. She made all kinds of recommendations, none of which were medication. BM wants meds, so that's all that the docs will discuss. Not the speech, OT, and social skills therapy that were all recommended by the assessor. And DH is the bad guy because he's wanting the other services. Oh, and that's after 5 years of DH asking repeatedly for Speech and OT evals. When the Speech eval was done, he was in the 1% for his age. At 10, almost 11.
Of course, there's the other extreme, too, where the care is just negligent. When I had DD in a military facility (14 years ago), I told the docs that I thought I had an infection after my c section. They literally laughed at me. Sure enough, a week later, an E4 corpsman found my infection and brought in a doc, which wasn't standard practice. Then, when DD was 2 and had constant allergies, ear infections, and strep throat, they didn't want to do anything about any of them. I took her out of Prime and saw a civilian provider and all those issues were addressed within weeks.
ARGH! This is such a hotbutton for me!
I 100% agree!!! My exH is
I 100% agree!!! My exH is Airforce and I was able to be seen in flight medicine (for pilots and aircrew only)-which was supposed to be the best care- not even remotely. They were all so bad. It took becoming a mother to figure a lot of it out though.
I never let my kids see military doctors, I always had us on Standard/select once I had to go through infertility treatments and had my eyes reopened on non military life.
DH "fought" me at first when we got married over having me and SS20 on Select, but I won't go back to military health care, I don't care about $500 in co-pays for the year, I really don't.
I believe your instincts are
I believe your instincts are correct. Some Drs are better than others. Also some Drs do minimal training to keep up to date, and some go above and beyond. - Psychology and Psychiatry has changed dramatically in the past 2 to 5 years even.