If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above. You may have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below. |
|
|
Thread Tools | Display Modes |
#1
|
|||
|
|||
Need help with what could be wrong
"jk9601" wrote in message lkaboutparenting.com... I have a 7 year old daughter who has been diagnosed with numerous mental health issues. Bi-polar, ADHD,ODD,and anxiety disorder. She has just recently been tested by a school pyhsical therapist and I have been told she has lower leg weakness and doesn't like to turn her torso when needed in activitys. When she was born she had a cyst near her spine that has since been removed. I am just concerned that there is something more going on than all these diagnosis, like one big thing. If there is anyone with anything they think might help it would be great. Thanks! A physical examination by her doctor should be your first step. |
#2
|
|||
|
|||
Need help with what could be wrong
I have a 7 year old daughter who has been diagnosed with numerous mental health issues. Bi-polar, ADHD,ODD,and anxiety disorder. She has just recently been tested by a school pyhsical therapist and I have been told she has lower leg weakness and doesn't like to turn her torso when needed in activitys. When she was born she had a cyst near her spine that has since been removed. I am just concerned that there is something more going on than all these diagnosis, like one big thing. If there is anyone with anything they think might help it would be great. Thanks!
|
#3
|
|||
|
|||
Need help with what could be wrong
You don't mention how she was assessed and diagnosed. If the school
did it, beware, beware, beware. Our middle child has what is termed a nonverbal learning disability, that is sometimes classed as an autism spectrum disorder although he does NOT in anyway have what we all think of as autistic characteristics. He does NOT have attention deficit disorder or obsessive compulsive disorder, however, kids with NLD can certainly LOOK like they do. You need a real expert to make a proper diagnosis - it is often missed, or totally misdiagnosed and mishandled - which is what happened to us. High priced help at the school were totally off base and didn't know what they were talking about. Ultimately, because we were so frustrated, and our son was in such distress and tanking academically, so we got a referral to a child psychiatrist at a big and respected institute - and she reviewed everything that had been done to date, ordered a mountain of tests (i.e. all kinds of psychological, perceptual, intelligence, as well as physical tests), got teachers and us to fill out questionaires, sent someone to observe him in school, spent tons of time with us AND him etc. etc. and finally figured out what it was - and then she sent all the results to a real expert in this kind of learning problem to see what he thought and arrange for him to talk to us. Understanding what was going on made a world of difference for us and our son. We were finally able to get the right kind of help for him, and get the school to give him what he really needed (as I said before, they were clueless, even though they had the school board psychologist involved). We're all doing MUCH better now - he is grade 4, and doing great at school and much, much better on the social front. Its a brain wiring thing, so he'll always be a little off the beaten trail, but we no longer despair about his future. Mary G. |
#4
|
|||
|
|||
Need help with what could be wrong
jk9601 wrote:
I have a 7 year old daughter who has been diagnosed with numerous mental health issues. Bi-polar, ADHD,ODD,and anxiety disorder. She has just recently been tested by a school pyhsical therapist and I have been told she has lower leg weakness and doesn't like to turn her torso when needed in activitys. When she was born she had a cyst near her spine that has since been removed. I am just concerned that there is something more going on than all these diagnosis, like one big thing. If there is anyone with anything they think might help it would be great. Thanks! The lower extremity weakness should be evaluated. It may be a completely seperate issue in the spinal cord or may be related if it is true and comming from the brain. If the latter it may be considered part of the same root issue but I doubt it will change the other diagnoses. I do not share the degree of cynicism of Mary Gordon but do agree that a complex case such as this should be evaluated by experts - possibly a peridatric neurologist and a developmemental specialty clinic at a University hospital. -- CBI, MD |
#5
|
|||
|
|||
Need help with what could be wrong
On Sat, 28 Feb 2004 15:43:41 -0600, "jk9601" wrote:
I have a 7 year old daughter who has been diagnosed with numerous mental health issues. Bi-polar, ADHD,ODD,and anxiety disorder. I would be very skeptical of someone who would diagnose bipolar disorder, ADHD, and ODD all at once. Certainly it's not impossible for a child to truly have all three disorders, but there is so much overlap of the symptoms in a child that young that it is more likely that the child has only one or two of those diagnoses with just some features of the others. A common scenario is for a child to be diagnosed first with ADHD, then ODD, be difficult to treat, then finally diagnosed with bipolar disorder as the revised (rather than an additional) diagnosis. Anxiety disorders, however, commonly co-exist with all three of the other diagnoses and are important to address. She has just recently been tested by a school pyhsical therapist and I have been told she has lower leg weakness and doesn't like to turn her torso when needed in activitys. Missing information, of course, is why she was tested by the physical therapist to begin with. Physical and occupational therapists will often manage to find SOMETHING "wrong" with a child they evaluate, so you have to first raise the pre-test probability that there is something wrong by being very selective in your referrals. What was the specific question for evaluation that was posed to the physical therapist? Did someone notice her legs were weak? And what do you mean she doesn't like to turn her torso? She doesn't LIKE to or she CAN'T? I remember a patient of mine who was mistakenly enrolled in some hyperbilirubinemia follow-up program at the hospital she was born at because they thought she had had a peak neonatal bilirubin level of 25, when it actually never went higher than 18. I wasn't even aware she was going there until I got their report, a few weeks after I had reassured the family that her eating habits were normal for a one-year-old, that she was growing just fine despite their requests for an "appetite stimulant," and her physical examination was normal. To my surprise, the therapists at the follow-up program had told the family that she had diffuse hypotonia and sensory integration disorder and had referred her for physical and occupational therapy, as well as an evaluation by a nutritionist! Never mind the fact that they're undermining all my work with them or that they don't understand the "bell curve" of normal muscle tone and weight is shifted low in kids from India -- what about stressing out these parents!? My partner laughed at the report that said she had a stance indicating "truncal hypotonia" -- he said, "She probably had a diaper full of poop!" I called the family and, fortunately, they agreed that she was just fine, and they canceled their therapy appointments. And guess what -- she's still just fine. When she was born she had a cyst near her spine that has since been removed. I am just concerned that there is something more going on than all these diagnosis, like one big thing. If there is anyone with anything they think might help it would be great. Thanks! I think it is always a good idea to apply Occam's razor and try to find the one major malfunction that is causing all of a kid's problems. If she truly has all of these neuropsychiatric conditions as well as an abnormal neurologic examination, and a neurosurgical history too, I would consider getting a brain and spinal MRI and have her evaluated by a pediatric neurologist if I were her pediatrician. PF |
Thread Tools | |
Display Modes | |
|
|
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Thread Starter | Forum | Replies | Last Post |
Is it wrong to keep my child chained up in the basement? | LOTRman | General | 4 | May 2nd 04 02:49 AM |
I was wrong (I'm so excited!). | Sophie | Pregnancy | 26 | April 3rd 04 04:30 AM |
ICAN and The Pink Kit: a dark side (Wintergreen is wrong) | Todd Gastaldo | Pregnancy | 0 | January 30th 04 09:45 PM |
What if the ultrasound tech was wrong??! | Nina | Pregnancy | 19 | August 9th 03 07:58 AM |
Chiropractic fibromyalgia results (Univ. of Washington MDs, PhD wrong) | René | Pregnancy | 0 | July 15th 03 04:57 AM |