Frustration tolerance symptoms and conditions

Hi,
My 5 year old son has been having similar problems. He was on Singulair on and off since 2006, throughout winter for his asthma and sporadically in the summer. His new pediatrician finally said to keep him on it everyday the beginning of 2009. The only reason I am here today is because I just filled a new prescription of Singulair and low and behold it had a new warning label none of the other bottles had, "Call Dr. if you experience mood changes, sadness, depression or fear." I quickly went online to read some reviews, to my horror I see hundreds of posts from other parents detailing my sons exact aggression/fear issues.

I have been having so many many problems at his school. I had to take him out of first Kindergarten because he hit the teacher a few times. In the new school he was doing ok but then it got worse, then better, then worse, then better again and so on. Maybe it was the breaks of singulair he would get. I had him meet with THREE different therapists for ADHD and they refused to conduct any further evaluations on him because they couldn't find what the problem was. The school even ordered an educational evaluation for him to see if there was a learning disability.

The teacher is always complaining that he's too distracted, doesn't sit still and is so aggressive. He is meeting all his benchmarks and is very bright but his social behavior is causing mayhem. At home his fear of things got out of control. He was scared of his lamp and would wake up screaming at the top of his lungs full of panic and fear because of the stupid lamp. He won't go to the restroom by himself because he's scared a monster would attack him etc. Since I started giving him the medication consistently everyday everything just got worse. He flips out at home, pushes hits and is snotty as all hell.

It makes me sad because I swear he tells me the same thing, "But mom I was trying so hard to be good and I couldn't. I was telling my brain to stop but it wouldn't listen. I don't know what happened." He would come home so sad, frustrated and upset. He had a few bouts of crying in the classroom too, lots of problems with aggression.

I've done the same thing, time outs, reward system, even made up "Jacob days" which were days we did whatever he wanted at home if he had a good week at school. NOTHING works..... I was at a loss until I read these reviews.

I am taking him off tonight and hope this is the end of all the aggression or at least helps a bit. I'm not going to say my son is 100%angel but he used to be much sweeter, calmer understanding and so on. I would just be happy if it helped a little. It's a shame because this medicine was helping with his asthma but at what cost. I will post an update and let you all know how it's going.

Oh I forgot to mention he has been in and out of the school nurses office this past month for stomach aches... he had a lot of stomach problems at home too. So I will see if that clears up too.

RE: Neurontin and anger-outbursts

This is a follow-up for the side-effect I just posted. The problem of anger-outbursts can usually be traced to low levels of frustration-tolerance, and the good-feeling-feedback one gets from acting-out by doing something our society describes as "anger." This can take the effect of violence in some form or another, which usually gets a person into trouble with societal norms. It FEELS good to act-out and dissipate the frustration which may be described as feeling intolerable or inevitable.

Since Neurontin seems to work by lowering actual nerve-impulses that make muscles twitch, causing pain-signals, or restless-leg syndrome, or epileptic seizures (for example) it makes sense to me that a person suffering from OCD (Obsessional-Compulsive-Disorder)and anxiety would find the "need" to act out on obsessional actions like anger-outbursts -- which drain the buildup of anxiety and compulsion emotions -- helped by a drug that dulls or circumvents the nerve-signals causing emotional distress (Neurontin).

To expect or want a drug, any drug, to teach one how to tolerate frustration and anxiety without side-effects is unrealistic if not impossible. If you were MY client I would work with you to de-sensitize you to small levels of anxiety and frustration, while weaning you off of all meds. That way you would learn that the self-control is in your own hands, and give you the tools to deal with it without the crutch of looking for exactly-the-right drug. It's a matter of learning how to control one's own behavior in acceptable forms, like exercise, that drain-off the emotional charge that "feels uncontrollable" You CAN learn how to control your behavior without terrible emotional distress. Jan S. Kauffman, Neurontin userid, Masters degree in Counselling, alcohol and drug abuse rehab professional.