blood pressure meds for aspie kids

[mtgoat911]

i am a memeber of a social group for kids with aspergers, a few months ago a few of the mothers were talking about their children taking clonidine
the moms noticed favorable results, i am familiar with this drug, i did not know that developmental pediatric doctors, are now putting aspie kids on clonidine,
how do you feel about this?

[Jason C Bourret, Ph.D., BCBA-D]

Clonidine was initially used as an antihypertensive but it has come to be used to treat a variety of behavioral disorders including tics, symptoms of ADHD, aggression, PTSD, anxiety, panic disorder, or sleep problems.  Medication of this sort can be helpful and has shown to be most effective in conjunction with systematic behavioral programming.  As always, I recommend that parents have a close working relationship with the prescribing physician and understand exactly what the medication is, what it is intended to affect, what the side effects are, how direct and side effects will be monitored, and how decisions about dose increases and decreases will be made.

[mtgoat911]

thank you, i just called this doctors office, it was a year wait
we are moving in a few months so thats not going to work
we did hire a therapist who came into our home twice a week for a year, that was a little helpful, but i have noticed that taking time off, and spending more time with him, has helped more than therapy
maybe our regular ped. can help us, explore the clonidine options, i wanted to make sure, this was ok, before i approach her with the clonidine idea
thanku