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When our daughter started to run away, the first thing we wanted to do is find out why and how we can fix this problem. We took her to counselling where she talked to several counsellors and a psychiatrist. She was 13 years old.

The psychiatrist talked to her with myself in the room for 1 hour and decided she should be on redillin. I was a little shocked at this because my daughter was nowhere near being hyper so I refused the redillin. I told him absolutely no redillin. So, instead, he put her on an anti-depressant. What the two have in common is beyond me but I went along with it in hopes that it would stop her from running away. I jsut wanted my baby safe.

When that kind of anti-depressant didn't work, he then put her on Paxil (stronger anti-depressant), an anti-mood swing pill and an anti-psychotic pill. She was taking all 3 of these pills daily. Twice a day! She got more depressed, more moody and gained about 30 pounds which I might add didn't help at all with the depression. We kept her on these meds for about 1 month then I decided to take her off of them completely and flushed them all down the toilet. I told the doctor that I didn't want her on any meds anymore and that we needed to get down to the root of the problem instead of masking it with meds. He didn't agree with me but went along with it anyway. He never did get down to the root of the problem. I don't think he ever does with any of his patients. He likes to write prescriptions for everyone instead.

When we moved to a bigger city in search of a better doctor for our daughter, she was assessed by a very good psychologist. This doctor found her in sound mind. Nothing wrong with her mentally. There have been 2 more doctors since then and they found her to be of sound mind also.

I don't appreciate the first doctor giving my daughter "brain chemical meds" like he did. I think that could've screwed her up big time if I didn't demand to have her taken off the pills. My daughter isn't running away anymore and with proper sleep (and she needs the sleep or she's impossible!), she seems to function normally.

I think a lot of these doctors are too quick to prescribe these heavy meds to kids. They don't take the time to find out the root of the child's problem before giving them these harmful meds. That doctor told us he was going to treat our daughter as if she had bi-polar to see if it works. Never a diagnosis, just treating her just in case kind of thing. Not impressed!!

So now, our daughter has to go back to counselling so that she can someday become primary caregiver to her baby. I got a letter in the mail yesterday that they want to send her to that same doctor that put her on these brain meds. I don't think so! I'll be calling them up and demanding to have a psychologist talk to ur daughter. Anyone but him!

Have any of you had to deal with doctors prescribing these meds to your kids? Were they diagnosed? Were they totally tested for everything first? If so, did it help?