Any thoughts on a very "inconsistent" child (possibly mental illness related) Updated

[Mickey'snewestfan]

My DS8 was adopted at birth -- his birth family history is really loaded for mental illness, specifically affective disorders, thought disorders, and addiction -- his doctor thinks that the odds of him having some kind of major mental illness in the future are about 50/50.

Although I try not to worry too much about this, I can't always help myself, and I find myself watching him and worrying every time he seems moody or upset.

Recently what has been coming up a lot is how "uneven" he is. His teachers comment that there are days when he is so "on" and contributes a lot to the class, makes intelligent comments, and other days when he is very "spacy" and it's hard to get his attention. They say that neither of these is really outside of the norm, but that it's odd what a disrepancy there is. At home I see stretches when he's whiny and irritable, and then stretches when he's either happy and animated or quiet and content. He's actually in the middle of a psychoeducational evaluation because of some minor reading problems he's having, and the psychologist also commented that the child she saw on day 3 of testing was very different than he had been on days one and two.

Thoughts????

 

[terri01p]

I'm not a doctor by any means but this sounds like my youngest dd when she was that age and just about any child that age...my dd is now 23 and works for a bank so I think she turned out ok. Like I said I'm not a doctor but is this that strange . Let's see what everone else says.

 

[CanadianGuy]

Also not a doctor.. but I sometimes play one on message boards.

A close personal friend has a family history of bipolar disorder. What you're describing could in line - symptomatically speaking - with her own childhood. Since her diagnosis, she's been in a proper care regimen and she's been doing really well for over 20 years now. (She was diagnosed at 15)

When her son was born.. she was just terrified he too would be affected by it. He's about 10 now and she still frets over a lot of little things.

Fortunately she has a great doctor who has been working with her and has met her son on several occasions and so far, the doctor hasn't seen anything he considers a red flag. He says you frequently can't make a firm diagnosis on bipolar till after 12 or so.

If it continues much past 10 or 12.. you may want to have a professional evaluation in that area specifically. Until then.. he's a kid. They are ALL moody by times.

J

 

[Mickey'snewestfan]

Like I said I'm not a doctor but is this that strange . Let's see what everone else says.

That's really my question too -- I think the only reason why I'm worried is because

1) Like I said I know I watch and worry too much because of the history.

2) The teachers commenting on it makes me think it's at least a little outside the norm. On the other hand the way it came up is because I'm a little concerned about his reading and when I asked about it they said that some of it could be because of how variable his attention/availability is, and then described what they saw. The director of special ed at his school also made a comment in passing one day. I would definitely be more worried if they called a meeting specifically to talk about this.

3) This is a relatively new things for him -- his preschool teachers never commented on this, and we didn't see it at home until the past couple of years. At first I chalked it up to the transition to elementary school, but you'd think that would be gone by now.

I'm a special ed teacher by training, and I've worked with a lot of bipolar kids. He very clearly doesn't have bipolar now -- what we see is just not on that level. However, I do know that bipolar can show up later in life and I wonder if this is the very beginning of that? If so is there anything I can do to lessen it?

The other pattern I see very clearly is that food frequently makes things better -- does anyone have experience with hypoglycemia -- could that be what's going on? That is blood sugar is falling and making him spacy and irritable? Are there patterns I should look for that would help me figure out whether it's hypoglycemia?

 

[KirstenB]

You may really be onto something with the food/blood sugar issue. When I read your initial post, I hadn't considered that, but it would make a lot of sense.

Our 8 yr old is "spacy" but she's consistently spacy both at home and school, even when we're waiting on her to go someplace fun, like Busch Gardens. We've begun the process for testing for ADD (no hyperactivity at all, quite the opposite). It's hard for me to picture a kiddo who can focus one day, but not the next. Good luck, and I hope it's something like blood sugar.

 

[llp479]

It could also be dyspraxia. My dd has dyspraxia and she has good days and bad. Some days she is able to recall all math facts with no issues, and other days she can't even tell you what 1 + 1 is.

She also has sensory integration disorder which doesn't help. I've noticed that low blood sugar levels and lack of sleep, or "good" sleep can affect her as well.

 

[Poohnatic]

You may really be onto something with the food/blood sugar issue. When I read your initial post, I hadn't considered that, but it would make a lot of sense.

Our 8 yr old is "spacy" but she's consistently spacy both at home and school, even when we're waiting on her to go someplace fun, like Busch Gardens. We've begun the process for testing for ADD (no hyperactivity at all, quite the opposite). It's hard for me to picture a kiddo who can focus one day, but not the next. Good luck, and I hope it's something like blood sugar.

Kirsten brought up what I was going to after reading the OP. My son had rough days and other days where he'd be on task and do well. By process of elimination, we quickly determined that he has a much more severe allergy to dyes than what my family already has. For him, it exacerbates emotional outbursts.

In addition to that, there is evidence to support a gluten/casein free diet in many kids with autism/aspergers disorders helps to minimize the severity of their issues.

I'm not saying that your DS has these disorders, rather, I'd like to point out that diet can affect many kids. My sister is a newly graduated nurse, and she asked for my input on the dye allergies-that this has come up in conversation in several of her classes.

What I'd suggest, but level of complexity involved:

1. keep a food diary for your DS and note the good and bad days along with what food is consumed.
2. Try a dye challenge first-as it's probably the easiest to spot. If you need a list of what has dye and what doesn't, feel free to PM me-I have a list here somewhere that I made for my sister.
3. Next thing I'd try is a dairy challenge. Our allergist told us that this is most effective with a 10 day, but we did for 7 and discovered that my son has a sensitivity. This one is harder than you'd think-milk and milk byproducts hide in EVERYTHING. So far, we haven't felt the need to eliminate it from his diet, but that could change.

If you can't find any other rhyme or reason for on and off days, diet is what I'd look to. Currently, either my son snuck a forbidden treat (rarely) or he didn't sleep well (more likely) when he has a rough day at school. He gets a telltale rash on the back of his arms-just like his mom. When I see he's having a hard day, I usually give him a hug and check those arms. Then we figure out together what he's consumed-and 95% of the time, something got by us. It can be as simple as him getting an ice cream treat at school (of ice cream that had m&m's in it)

Good luck. I know it's hard not knowing what's going on, hopefully you'll get this figured out.

Suzanne

 

[zumbergc]

Keeping a food journal of his food could help figure out his moods, if some of it is hypoglycemia. You might see if the teacher can help for a couple weeks and mark down which days he has a better day than others?

I've got it and I know I had it when i was in elementary school.
The sweats you get when you sugar drops, you get moody, and impatient, and can have a short temper, harder time focusing, tired. Plus, sometimes i can tell if my hand starts to shake some. I always noticed it on the way home on the bus, my body was wanting a snack.

Diet is a huge factor for me.
White flour products which are in everything convert to sugar very quickly, so if you can get your kid to eat whole grain, multi-grain items instead of white flour products things may go better. I don't know if kids will eat whole grain?

What the intake of sugar, candies, sauces (ketchup, mustard, bbq, etc) lots of sugar in that.
Like the food pyramid, its great to eat fruit. Especially substituting processed candy, chips, for fruit is great. However, you can eat too much fruit and cause sugar issues.
Fruit however is way better than sugary snacks.

From years and years of this stuff, I've been told repeatly to have some protein in all my meals and high protein snacks at snack time.
Its important to eat the 3 meal plus have a late morning snack and an afternoon snack, to keep the blood sugar levels ok.

Its really important to read food labels. For an example if you eat raison bran cereal. Many different companies have raison bran however they don't all have the same amount of sugar, some have way more than others. So, start reading labels and pick brands with less sugar.

Good Luck

 

[barkley]

is there any chance the birth mom was drinking during the pregnancy? if so fetal alcohol syndrome may be something you want to look at.

i have a friend who adopted and her ds started having some issues like this-but a bit younger. they learned that the mom had a significant alcohol habit during the pregnancy. on a brighter note-her ds is doing realy well. he needs some extra help working on some subjects, and she needs to be aware of his 'off days', but all in all he's a great student.

good luck to you.

 

[leanan]

I agree with the idea of looking into bipolar but it could definately be food related as well so try that first. I have a friend whose child turned around completely once she moved all red dyed food out of his diet.

 

[emerymt]

Affective disorders aren't as heritable as, say, schizophrenia. In other words, there's at least a 50% chance that your child is perfectly fine. Which is what the teacher has, in fact, already said. Also, his learning problems are really minor- is it possible that if you weren't told he could have problems you wouldn't have noticed?

I think you (not your child, but you) would really benefit from having your child see a good child psychiatrist. Things may be better than you think they are. For one thing, the severity of his birth family's problems are certainly magnified by the dysfunctional environment they created. On the other hand, you sound like you are doing everything you can to make sure your child has a great environment. But, you can worry too much and see problems where there aren't any, and that's not good for him, either. Predicting mental illness can be a self-fulfilling prophecy, especially if the child himself thinks he's from "bad blood."

Good luck! Be positive! There isn't anything in your child's behavior that sounds like he has a problem. Try not to worry. If anything happens that seems very strange, you won't miss it. Until then (and that time may never come ), don't assume the worst. Like my mom used to say, "Worrying is just borrowing trouble."