drug reaction confusion or psychosis

[maggie69]

16yr old 90 pound daughter (honor student)- for Bronchitis was prescribed 1600mg/day Erithromycin; hydrocod/GG 5-100/5 SYP ETHEX; also on Aleve Cold/Sinus (120mg sudafed extended release)
She began having crazy thoughts (being Jesus;etc..) Doctor said reaction to erithromycin/Sudafed/codiene...Then prescribed Xanax .25mg x 3/day...she then turned zombie-like...could not eat on her own ;  after 8days of this chemical reaction I took her to Children's Hospital as I did not think the dr was helping her (Hospital said Xanax was a dangerous drug used for panic attacks..and dr.had taken her off cold turkey...)
They worked her over head to toe (MRI/spinal tap;psychiatric;etc) then diagnosed her with drug reaction and sent her home to wean off xanax.  It has been two weeks now. She cannot do any homework on her own.  She dresses herself. Eats well.
She is still not able to think clearly (no crazy thoughts...just not able to compute well

[maggie69]

it is now 5 weeks since this medicine reaction with my daughter...
there is still no dramatic change in her for the better
today she is experiencing great difficulties in thought processes
and nervous crying bouts... my husband and i have been trying to
research any help online on what we should do for her and have
decided to seek help from a neurologist. Can you tell me what a
neurologist could help with?  Do they specialize in medications
for brain functions?  Or what sort of testing they may do?
The thought of seeking help from a psychiatrist is scary.
I am very leery of what medications may be administered as this
all started from bad meds.

[Kevin Kennedy, Ph.D.]

The simple thing first: your daughter can certainly take a multivitamin with her Prozac. Now, for the larger picture. You have every reason to believe that your daughter will return to her baseline state. It sounds like you have done the prudent things via diagnostic workups. The iatrogenic condition that your daughter experienced will wane and she should not suffer long-term problems because of it. Now, having said that, when parents are not comfortable with a situation re: a child's treatment, I always encourage a second opinion. That is, you can arrange for a different doctor to review what has occurred and see what he/she thinks about it. I don't say that because of any doubt about the care your daughter has already received, but rather so that you can rest easy that you've done everything you can do.