Easter Sunday, and new medication for Liam

Today Jill and I started Liam on a new medication, anafranil. Liam has been on Focalin in the morning, and melatonin at night. (previously was on clonadine) We weened him off the clonadine and started using a natural herb melatonin. The melatonin has poven to be inconsistent in its performance. Sometimes he is asleep within a half hour, other times he simply does not fall asleep, like last night, Liam was up until 11pm. When the melatonin wears off, Liam has been up as early as 5am and ready to start his day. He in turn wakes up everyone else with his noise, which he can't help.

Focalin was a medication Liam was on to help control him. When Liam was on this, he was often extremely mellow, depressed looking, and would fidget with his fingers constantly. He would also repeatedly ask the same questions to the point of obsession.

To slowly assimilate Liam's body to the new drug anafranil, we have to take a 25mg capsule and split it in half. We then have to pour it out on a clean sheet of paper folded in half. Then we take a knife and split the powder evenly to our best ability. Now to administer this to Liam we have to pour the powder in some yogurt on a tablespoon and serve it to him. We put as much yogurt on as we cold to hide the bitter taste. Based on Liam's reaction, he still tasted it. This has to happen twice a day for the next 14 days. Fun.

Today is also the Easter. The kids all got neat stuff from the Easter bunny. Some candy and a toy for each. Seamus got a Spiderman video game to play, and a kick stand for his bike. Liam got a Buzz Lightyear, a Jessie doll, and a Buzz lightyear star command movie. Aidan and Brendan (our twins) each got a Care Bear. The Easter Bunny ran into a problem Saturday night assembling 2 big wheels at 11pm. One was previously opened at Wal-Mart and was missing parts, and the stickers were already placed in the wrong locations. The Easter Bunny had to put away the big wheels until the one can be replaced. Thanks Wal-Mart.

The day went pretty good. The kids all enjoyed their new toys and of course the candy. Liam was very impulsive all day. We believe it was a combination of the candy, and the change in the medication. We will see each day how he does. Liam was given 15mg of melatonin at 7pm and at 9pm still was not asleep. Liam has also been picking at his gums a lot lately and is leaving blood stains on his blankets. His gums are noticeably damaged in a couple spots. On one tooth the gum is down to the root. Liam has seen a dentist once who said there was no problem dentally. What Liam is doing is a sensory issue. For some reason this is what he does. Tomorrow will start the second day on anafranil, so we shall see how he does. Liam is off school this coming week, so Jill will be able to see how he does all day. Tomorrow is a brand new day, and as we always hope, he will do better.