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Autism and Psychiatric Medication: Caution Advised

Photo © RoseFireRising | Flickr / Creative Commons [image: Mandala made out of different colored and shaped pills, on a dark blue background.] Kit Mead kpagination.wordpress.com [Note: This post discusses anxiety, medications, and chemical restraints. It is meant to caution against overmedication and about risk factors in medication for autistic people, with the understanding that many autistic people rely on psychiatric medication for their health and well-being.] I would need more than two hands to count the psych meds I’ve been given. There are enough that I don’t remember all of them; it started in the first grade. Some were just regular ADHD meds—which I needed—not psychotropic. As years passed, others were anti-anxiety SSRIs, and then antipsychotics; many well before I’d hit the end of middle school (these include Risperdal, Paxil, and Wellbutrin). While I was not diagnosed autistic until I was 14 or 15, the logic under which these…

IMFAR 2012: Toward Better Psychopharmacological Management of Anxiety In ASD

This is one of four talks from the IMFAR 2012 symposium Anxiety in Autism Spectrum Disorders: From Biology to Treatment. The overall session theme: It’s clear that anxiety is a major problem for kids and adults on the autism spectrum, now we need to figure out how to treat it. This summary is not intended nor should be taken as medical advice. Please consult a medical doctor for any decisions regarding psychopharmaceuticals.  Any errors or omissions in the edited-down transcription below are on me. Dr. Scahill also presented data and slides from several studies, that information has either been summarized or omitted. INSAR members can download the full audio file of Dr. Scahill’s talk. -SR —- Lawrence Scahill School of Medicine, Yale University There are so few data on this topic that he actually had to change the talk. The story starts in 2002, with a study in the New…