I Want A New Drug? For breathing episodes….

So as I’ve mentioned in a previous FB Note Kyle does this crazy breath holding and heavy breathing thing.  It’s been going on for over a year and has really reached a head.

Read the original note about this at http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=227130863981388    if you want the whole story.

Anyway, so after having our house tested for mold & seeing a pediatric pulminologist within the past 3 weeks because of these breathing issues we ended up back at Kyle’s psychopharmacologist to see if she had a medicine suggestion.

She suggested a very low dose of Klonopin (clonazepan) which is an anti-anxiety med and a slight muscle relaxer.  Hopefully this will help with the breath holding / heavy breathing and maybe even help reduce the tantrums / meltdowns.  There’s been some success in using these types of drugs with kids with Retts Syndrome who have similar breath holding episodes. It all has something to do with GABA levels…

We don’t jump into medication lightly but this feels very necessary because several previous blood tests have shown that these breathing episodes are restricting oxygen to his brain.  Also, and maybe more importantly in Kyle’s case, because the act of holding your breath and pushing out your belly requires some thought and concentration, we are concerned that ALL of Kyle’s thought and concentration is going towards this and that’s why he’s made little to no progress in the past year or so….

So we’ll be trying a new drug within the next few days.  As usual, we’re not expecting and miracles, but something to mellow him out a bit and make him forget his breathing “stims”.  Hopefully if it works it will be a short term solution…

 Wish us luck!!

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