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Autism/resperdal for autism/adhd

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Expert: - 7/20/2008


Question
my son is 8 yrs. old and has been taking Ritalin for 3 yrs.It is not working anymore so we have recently tried Resperdal.It seemed to work well but I am wondering about long term use and side affects.Could you please help with an answer to this?

Answer
Hi,

I'm not a medical professional, so I cannot give you reliable information on the side effects of any medication. Please talk to your doctor about it.

Risperdal is a drug belonging to the class of atypical neuroleptics which is usually given to treat schizophrenia, but occasionally used in the treatment of autistic kids too.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risperdal

One of its more serious side-effects can be tardive dyskinesia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tardive_dyskinesia which *can* be permanent (but isn't necessarily permanent), but that's the case with all medication from the neuroleptics group. Just do a google search on "risperdal side effects" and you'll get a number of pages talking about possible side effects. If you're worried, talk to your doctor, as I said above.

I'm sorry I cannot help you with this question

C.  

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*DISCLAIMER*

Please note I am not a healthcare professional or a doctor.
I cannot provide a diagnosis or give any medical advice.
Therefore I cannot answer questions like "is my child autistic ?" other than by telling you to go and see a specialist
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Please be aware that if you are in the US it will usually take at least 24 hours until I can answer your question, as I'm in Europe and don't have access to my email during the day. I also cannot answer questions concerning the US educational or law system (other than by looking up things on google, but that's probably not the expertise you need), as I'm not in the US.
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Please also be aware that I'm a person with autism. My answers may sometimes be very blunt and direct and I may tell you things you won't like to hear. Diplomacy is certainly not among my talents. I'm never being rude on purpose, and I always try not to hurt or offend people, but it has happened before and may happen again. It's NEVER on purpose. I just want to help.
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What I *can* do for you is gather information on any aspect of autism and therapy of autism you're interested in and give you my personal oppinion about it (if you want to hear it) or, if it applies, tell you about my personal experience. I can answer all questions about what life is like for an autistic person.

I can also answer questions asked in German or French (but will have to answer in English to questions asked in French as my French is a bit rusty).

Ich beantworte gerne auch Fragen auf Deutsch.

Vous pouvez poser des questions en Francais, si cela ne vous dérange pas que je responds en anglais.

Experience


As I'm not doing well right now and am not in the shape of answering questions well - I recieved a few low ratings lately - I'll take a break from AllExperts for the next few weeks/until I'm doing better

I am an adult diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome/High Functioning Autism and ADD.

In the past years I have also read a lot about autism and its comorbid conditions and related subjects (as I am experiencing symptoms of most of these or know others who do) , so I have accumulated a lot of layman knowledge in this area (AD(H)D, Tourette's Syndrome, OCD, sleep disorders, allergies, sensory integration dysfunction, learning difficulties, left/right-brain, giftedness, Irlen Syndrome, prism glasses, executive dysfunction (aka. "inertia"), "special" diets).

Education/Credentials
None in the field of autism, apart from being autistic myself !

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