Over the summer, Caiden went through a very rough patch behaviorally, and we made the difficult decision to start medicating.
Our first attempt was a low dose of Zoloft. It worked well for a couple weeks and then things got really bad. Caiden lost most of his speech and began having outbursts that were unusual, even for him. He regressed back to hitting and kicking, and the repetitive behaviors got a lot more severe. We were unsure if it was a result of the medication or if Caiden's condition was getting worse. We decided to try a different med in the hopes that that was the problem.
Currently, we are finishing up month three of Remeron and I cannot say enough good things about it. Soon after stopping the Zoloft, Caiden's speech returned (his doctor said she'd never seen it as a side effect before), and in the last month he's learned several new words and is vocalizing more than ever. His behavior is phenomenal, with the exception of a couple tantrums every now and then, but we can live with that. He is back to being his old happy self, just with more stable moods.
It doesn't appear that his condition is getting any worse right now, and we are incredibly thankful for that. His overall progress has plateaued a bit with the exception of his speech, so he is still roughly at the development of an 18 month old. Unfortunately though, he has been sick, a lot.
We've made several ER trips in the last two months which ended up being for simple problems such as an ear infection and inflamed intestines. Though his tiny vocabulary is growing, because of Caiden's lack of communicable speech, when something is wrong we have no way of knowing what or how severe it might be. The only way to know for sure, is to have him checked out by a doctor and begin ruling things out. It's a time consuming and more often than not, unpleasant process.
As far as diagnostics go, we're kind of in limbo right now. October marked a year since we received his Autism diagnosis, but we still have a lot of questions. He is scheduled to return to the neuro-genetics clinic the beginning of December and we will be discussing the possibility of having further testing done. He is stable right now, so we don't feel as if we need to press as hard for answers, however we are still as determined as ever to get them.
We are excitedly getting ready for Christmas. We've found that preparing for holidays early helps Caiden adjust to the change, so we've already broken out the Christmas movies. So far he's not too interested in them, but I'm hopeful he'll come around soon.
