Daughter in recovery following relapse, hospital want to discharge her. She’s on 30mg Aripiprazole for psychosis which seems to be holding her, but she has odd moments.
She’ll turn her head and look at me as though she’s not seeing me as her dad. Pretty regularly she’ll ask mum and I if we’re ok. Other times she’ll turn and give us a hug. Other times she’ll become very abrasive for suggesting something as simple as “your hair could do with a comb through it”, or “do you need to brush your teeth”. She’s especially abrasive with mum, and gets very defensive and angry when we try to give her advice about her relationship with her boyfriend.
It looks like mood swings, from happy and loving, to hateful and angry. Is there anything we can suggest to the medical team, either drugs or therapy?
My son was just in the hospital for the 4th time in 8 months. The meds would work in the hospital, then he’d come home and things would go bad quickly. The first time he just stopped taking them. The 2-4 times, he was on an injection, but it just wasn’t enough to keep him from going into a manic stage about a week before he was due for his next shot.
This time, they added Triliptal at 150 mg, 2X a day - they just moved him up to 300 mg, 2X a day and he can go to 3X a day if needed or he wants to. .
It helps him sleep, keeps his mood stable, makes him very pleasant to be around - I think it’s helped him every bit as much as his anti-psychotic. He’s even taking his oral meds without any arguments. Sometimes, he’ll say he doesn’t need them, sometimes he’ll jokingly mimic throwing them across the room, but he takes them.
It’s been a huge change. I think I read that there are about 5 different mood stabilizers including lithium. I wold definitely talk to her doctor about them.
Yes, ask to try any mood stabilizer. Different people respond differently to each one, but there should be one that helps her feel better if she has a mood component of the illness.