14 yr old hearing a voice

[real1992]

Hi my son is 14. He has been on Prozac 20mg for over a yr. He mentioned about 3 wks ago that he was hearing a voice but could not tell me what it said. A few days ago he told me this again. He said the voice sounds like a demon and it is telling him to hurt himself and others. I took him to a mental health ER on Wed. He saw a nurse, a therrapist and a psychiatrist. The psychiatrist upped his Prozac to 40mg. He also said that males at this age who have depression symptoms sometimes experience this. He started the 40mg Prozac on Thurs. morning and says the voices are more frequent. Does any one have any suggestions or know how long we should wait for the Prozac to "work". He has an appointment with a therapist on Wed.

[Darkestlight]

In my opinion you need to take him to a psychiatric hospital and have him admitted. Apparently the prozac is not helping and he needs some different meds. I wouldnt wait till wednesday. I'd take him now.

[ILADVOCATE]

As a person who has recovered from schizoaffective disorder with an experimental antipsychotic in Phase II FDA study (read through my posts if you wish) I can say in having exprienced thoughts like that before recovery that they sound psychotic to me. It should be noted that I have schizoaffective disorder and with the bipolar aspect of schizoaffective disorder when I was put on Anafranil which is similar to Prozac it made me psychotic. The same is true of bipolar. Anyone here would tell you as well as a psychiatrist that anti-depressents especially SSRI's can if given to someone with bipolar make them manic. They need a mood stabilizer. If a person has schizoaffective disorder or bipolar with psychotic features they need a mood stabilizer and an antipsychotic as I take. The links page has cogent information on mood stabilizers and anti-depressents. Don't make any changes on your own but speak to his psychiatrist about the fact that he might be wrongly diagnosed or underdiagnosed as people with bipolar often don't note their manic days and only report feeling depressed and can be wrongly diagnosed with depression and given what may not be the right medication.

[LeftCoastChick]

I have to interject, that this community cannot make any sort of a diagnosis, but we can suggest some options.  I think taking him into the ER was a good thing, but it's awfully strange he was given Prozac for those symptoms. If you have, like the first poster mentioned, psychiatrict hospital or a hospital with a adolscent psych unit, I would go there.
Here's a link to the child behaviour community, teens and children's mental health is different then an adults.
http://www.medhelp.org/forums/show/64

[Encephalomalcia]

This is about the age when symptoms of schizophrenia start showing up.  Does anyone in your family or in your family tree have or had schizophrenia?  Symptoms that I noticed when my cousin was diagnosed at the age of 14 with schizophrenia were talking fast, talking about something that doesn't make any sense and being very excited about it, lots of sentences and words but no meaning, hearing voices, thinking people were out to get him.  Does he have any of those symptoms?  I think it is strange to up his Prozac for hearing voices.  I would agree that he should be evaluated by psychiatrists so that he can get the proper medication to help him.  Also, a lot of people who have schizophrenia were very smart as a child hitting their milestones faster than normal.  Drugs can cause schizophrenia also.