Decision to quit medication

It’s a general rule of thumb in behavior therapy. After a kid has a TBI, they will need to be on higher doses of medications to have the same effect. I have worked in this field for over seven years before I received my own TBI and rediscovered this fact firsthand.

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Ditto for me. I have never come off my med’s and had it work out okay.

Not so good. Currently in a situation where my med seems to be quitting me. Wishing you luck with your efforts and hope you have a support network in place in case things go sideways and you lose your insight and succumb to hallucinations/delusions (happens to the majority of us).

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@Cj56 theoretical assumption. If you want to go into theory of the function of the brain, I would think you would inquire the part of the brain damaged rather then make it a is or not response. Let alone ask of the specific medication taken and known effects and side effects of them. Let alone the assumption of what substances I spoke of. If you want to take it in to scientific psychological perspective I would assume you would observe the solitude of your answer rather then learned or perceived assumptions of what you believe to be consistent, (unless your going into another branch of scientific study) May behavior therapy be the retraining of ones reaction to stimuli, maybe your reconstruction was interpreting the reason being of yours and other of a needed uptake in medication to deal with your uncertainty of common experiences with having a TBI, being of emotional correction response to your experience of brain damage…(joking), let alone my observation was made out of actual experience and references from others. Hey maybe I do need a increase of medication to deal with my uninsightful unreal belief in scientific theories.

Um…what? Please restate the question. I don’t understand what you’re trying to say here.

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Wouldn’t quit my meds ever ,done it twice ended up in ER both times. Can’t put my family in that place again. Refused meds last time as long as I possibly could, ended up in great need for them.

@Ninjastar if you can’t understand my statement, I don’t feel like re-writing it. A short draft of the post was why your understanding of BT, was not understood by me as actual.

Oh, okay. I worked in behavior therapy for seven years as an ABA counselor. ABA means applied behavioral analysis. Basically, I would take data on when certain behaviors occurred, and what happened immediately before and afterwards, to try to find patterns. From there, we could determine why the behavior was occurring, and work on finding a suitable replacement behavior. For example, if a kid was punching people when no one was paying attention to him, we would instead give him a button he could press that would ask for attention.If a kid always had behaviors in the hour before lunch, we could offer him an extra snack break before he became aggressive.

There were always things we could not control, and one of those things was a child’s response to their medication or to a medication adjustment. We would communicate with doctors weekly about any medication changes or increases in behavior. I worked mostly with a nonverbal autistic population. Many of the kids I worked with had self-injurious behavior such as banging their head against the wall/floor/other people’s heads.

Whenever a child sustained a head injury, the doctor would warn us that their medication may lose effectiveness for a while. If we reported increased agitation in a child with a head injury, the doctor would temporarily raise the child’s dose. After the child seemed to be recovered from their brain injury, usually after six months or so, they would be lowered back to their original dose… It was a common practice. After I sustained my head injury, my doctor followed the same protocol. Does that answer your question?

Honestly, yes, likely. You’re normally clear and easy to understand. Not so much right now.

@Ninjastar yes it does, I didn’t get your answer in detail. But I have a question, was the protocol to give medication for behavior a short period of time from the occurance brain injury, and what type of medication would be given? I’m guessing different medication depending on the prognosis? Also seeing that it is of long-term disabilities from brain damage I would think they would work more extensively in trying medication to assist in negative behavior.

@shutterbug a pill doesn’t solve shitty personalities unfortunately.

Again, I’m not entirely sure what you’re asking, so let me try my best to answer you. Decisions to add/change medications were made by the doctors, not by us. That requires about eight more years of schooling than we had.I can not tell you what medications these children were on, because that would be a violation of HIPPA laws. The children were on medication to help control their behavior, but medication can only do so much.

I was working with the most severe population. My facility was one step above jail or institutionalization. These kids had to live at the school because they were too dangerous to themselves and their family members. Medication did help these individuals, but a 24 hour therapy schedule was needed to help them also.

Mood stabilizers DO help keep a person from losing their ■■■■ on others. So does nicotine I’m discovering.

@Ninjastar I do not understand why you don’t understand my question, I guess will just leave the answer of my question as there were certain protocols you would do for changes in behavior after a TBI. My question was just factors that may or not play into treatment.

The protocol of our job never changed. ABA is an evidence-based method, and requires consistency, in order to ensure the student is receiving even treatment from every staff member. Our job was always to record behaviors, evaluate, write up behavior strategies, and implement them. If a child received a brain injury, we would continue to monitor them as closely as we always had, and report any changes to their doctor, as we always had. It was then the doctor’s job to decide on medical approaches. Our job was just to help the children replace their negative behaviors with more adaptive ones.

I’m sorry I have trouble understanding you. The way you word things is just confusing to me.

In my case for my TBI other protocols where taken because of a good recovery from it. I was treated with antisezuire medications because I had a seizure from the brain trauma. There where certain things I could and could not do and behavior changes and other things to be expected, but I just jumped back into the swing of life after the head trauma, so no further treatment was taken. It wasn’t until 5 years later I developed schizophrenia. Hence why I asked of the period of time medication was given, the extensiveness of the disabilities from the brain damage, and my different reasoning of treatment because my own recovery from it was different. I guess I went to in-depth and thought to deep about your answer :sweat_smile:. @Ninjastar

If your brain injury was from five years prior to developing schizophrenia, and you made a full recovery, I’m not sure why you brought it up. Most brain injuries resolve themselves after about a year with proper treatment. Are you concerned you have some lasting damage you might want treated? If so, I can recommend a few other non-medical treatment options. I saw a vestibular therapist for my troubles with balance. I went to speech therapy to work on my ability to track moving objects and for help with memory problems. I have exercises I do at home to improve my concentration and reaction time. Do you have trouble in any of these areas?

I feel damn near normal on my meds right now but I am not naïve enough to think I can go off of them. I had a relapse 5 months ago ON meds. Wouldn’t even want to risk going off them. I wish you both the best of luck.

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If u have delusions try to put together some sort of plan to help u get medicated if relapsing. Negative symptoms tend to get worse whilst delusional, and those they can’t give u a pill for, stuck for life.

And plz stay away from drugs.

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