scottishrainbows
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 schizophrenic teenager,advise appreciated
Hi,I am a new member on the boards and registered with the sole purpose of spouting off about my local mental health service and also hopefully to get some advise from savvy people with some experience of mental health issues in their own children.
My son was diagnosed as schizophrenic at aged 14 after having trouble at school and developing a fear of going outside.I took him to the GP after finding him cowering in his wardrobe hiding when I thought he was at college.
He saw a child psy.who diagnosed him,medicated him and saw us 3 times at 3 monthly intervals.Son was to see a community health nurse every week between appointments with psy. but only saw her 3 times,she was off sick long term and there was no replacement,so no supervisory checkups for my son.
We saw a social worker too at first who was less than helpful and wouldn,t help us get education set up as son was nearly 16 anyway.
So son is now 16 and waiting to see another psy.after being removed from the files of child health services because he is now 16.
We had to go to GP again and ask to be reffered to adult psy.services.In the meantime my son has no medication and is getting more withdrawn again and the voices are back and getting louder.
I am angry and feel helpless at the void in mental health care between childhood and adulthood.The waiting list is long,his medication(which was helping) stopped abruptly,he is becoming more enamoured with death and I am worrying greatly as the teenage suicide rate for boys with mental health issues is enormous.
Are we being passed over by the local health service,shouldnt the file have been passed to someone else rather than closed just because he turned 16?
Advise please.
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29/Sep/07, 13:13
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parlicoot
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Re: schizophrenic teenager,advise appreciated
Hi, and welcome.
It's hard to understand why your son's doctor can't prescribe the appropriate meds. Or the psych for that matter. Have you moved to a different are? because I would have thought your family GP, knowing you as a family, would be a lot more helpful. Of course his file should have been passed on.
We had the ****ens of a job getting our son even diagnosed (ADHD). It was obvious for years that he had a problem, but when he was little, no one had ever heard of ADHD. After a fight with our local practice, (and our GP who was useless) we finally got a referral to a private psychiatrist when our son was 34. The appropriate meds help a bit, but certain behaviour patterns are so deeply ingrained, he'll always have them I think.
You are right to be concerned. Perhaps CAB could help.
Sorry I can't be more helpful. Good luck and let us know how you get on. Parlicoot
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29/Sep/07, 16:51
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Shadow88
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Re: schizophrenic teenager,advise appreciated
Are you in England? If so he should have been under the care of CAMHS (Childrens and Adolecents mental health service) this continues beyond 16 to avoid being dropped from childrens and lost into adult services. It may be worth your while to enquire about how you've been let down through PALS (leaflets with local contact details available from your local surgery and a few chemists too).
Hope he gets the right help very soon.
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29/Sep/07, 21:03
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squillie
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Re: schizophrenic teenager,advise appreciated
Hi there, welcome to the board.
What a nightmare situation! I'm shocked and yet not suprised unfortunately. Have you tried rethink.org? I think their service is better in some areas than others, but worth making contact with them maybe.
Glad you've got somewhere to vent! The board's great for that!
Good luck.
squillie
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30/Sep/07, 8:17
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scottishrainbows
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Re: schizophrenic teenager,advise appreciated
Hi again,thanks for advice so far.We are in scotland,the west coast,so I don,t know if that makes a big difference to the support thats available.
The GP cannot prescribe the meds,it has to be the psychiatrist,but he is between psychiatrists so no meds.He is getting quickly worse,he has this feeling of being "almighty" and this morning even thought he had wings.He thinks his halucinations are mere insights or glimpses into reality.I am very worried about him.Just found out this morning that his first appointment with adult mental health services is on 3rd December,another 2 months away,and thats not with a psychiatrist but just with a community mental health nurse who is to decide whether to refer him on to a psychiatrist.They don,t seem to be taking into consideration at all that he was already diagnosed and did have medication for a few months.They are treating it like a brand new case and I am honestly very worried that my son may not be here by the time he actually gets seen by someone who can medicate him.
I would have thought that with the 50% increased risk of suicide in teenage boys they would prioritise his case,but there is aparantly just one waiting list for everyone.
Does anyone know if there is private psychiatric treatment available,I don,t want to risk waiting as I consider this an emergency.
Also how do other families with teenagers get round the patient confidentiality thing,I had a hell of a time trying to find out when he was likely to be seen and only found out because I managed to get my son to speak on the phone,that wasn,t easy either.
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4/Oct/07, 13:24
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scottishrainbows
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Re: schizophrenic teenager,advise appreciated
A little update.I managed to get hold of someone at the Adult mantal health services team and explained to them that I really was worried and felt that December was far too long to wait.They couldn,t guarantee an earlier appointment but did add our name to the list to be contacted incase of cancellation,so my son may just get seen sooner after all.The best thing they did was to call the GP and get him to authorise a continuation of the meds he was on before,it wasn,t easy as the GP is not meant to prescribe these tablets to under 18,s,but because he had been put on them previously by a psychiatrist they managed to swing it.
I pick up the prescription on Monday and my sons seams to have calmed down a bit too,so all good.
He does have a new thing which is causing a bit of a problem over the last few days,he is right into philosophy and ethics,goes too far with it obviously because of his illness, and has suddenly decided humans are wrong to eat other living things including plants.He has agreed for now that he will eat nuts and berries,at least its something.
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5/Oct/07, 16:08
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parlicoot
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Re: schizophrenic teenager,advise appreciated
You have my heartfelt sympathy, SR. I've been through the 'I think I may actually have a divine purpose on this earth' routine. (My son voiced this while he was a teenager, and I was quite shaken and scared.) He still refers to his 'mission', but it's plain now (at 37) that he's not driven to do anything about it. He loves to fantasise about what he's going to do, but nothing ever happens. I view these things as phases which come and go in his thinking, some madder than others. I'm not saying that your son and mine have the same problem, just letting you know that you're not alone in having to deal with these quite scary behaviours.
You can always get private psychiatric help, but it costs. We had to, as I said before, and you may have to wait even then. I really hope there's a cancellation for your son, soon. At least he's back on meds.
Let us know how it goes. xxxx parlicoot
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7/Oct/07, 14:56
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