My daughter who is 8 has been taking singulair for about 3 years....

I just want to tell you that your experience opened my eyes. My daughter too has anxiety and has OCD tendencies. She washes her hands to the point that her skin has cracked and bled. I have had her seeing a counselor for anxiety and suicidal thoughts. I am so in shock that this medicine is approved for children!!

My daughter started the OCD about 2+ years ago. All of a sudden the hand washing started--her hands were raw. She also refused to use the bathrooms at school which I did not know about so she held it in all day and this came out with her stomach doctor so she was allowed to use the nurses bathroom at school which was always clean. She also has a need to put things in order. Her toys/room has to be perfect with nothing moved off its space. If you move it she will put it back to the place it was. She was finally diag. with functional chronic abdominal pain which is supposed to be your brain telling your stomach it hurts 24 hours a day. She is on medication for this now. I forgot the name but it is a drug used for many things (the top being bed wetting). It helps block the brain glitch from telling the stomach it hurts. She was on it for a year and the doctor said she could be taken off of it. I just started her back on it this week due to stomach pain and anxiety. I feel thes mood swings have to have some type of effect on her. She does lash out with the I am going to kill myself too but my relative said this is typical behavior for children her age who do not get their ways and my daughter is known as the drama queen for her behavior. My daughter does not wash her hands like before, it is normal but she will not go in her room after school or if we go out unless she takes a bath or shower. I am the only one allowed in there at any time. If my son just got out of a shower and she knows it he can go in her room to play with her. She does have major germ issues and I really wonder if this is related to the drug and not just a person having OCD.
I mean how does a loving and happy child change in to a "child with such rage" then switch back in to a loving child. This has to confuse them too.
I am waiting to call the doctor and it will be interesting to see what he thinks.
I will post when I hear from him.
Does your counselor think the medication might have a side efffect like we are all talking about? I mean they have to be informed. But the doctors are the ones the drug companies push the drugs to. My relative is a doctor and let me tell you the drug perks they get.......it's like they are rewarded for writing drugs.

Hi Gilian. My name is Amanda. I just read your posting. I am in shock like the rest of you, because this sounds just like my son. He is 8yrs old and has been on this medication for 4 yrs. He was diagnosed with ADHD a year and a half ago. He is not the same child and seems to be getting worse everyday. I already have an appointment for him today. I don't really know what to say except good luck and I wish you the best. You are not alone.

I talked to my daughter's doctor and he said I can take her off the medication. He said there is no weaning her off I could just stop. He did not seem to think there is any problem with Singulair at all. I faxed him copies of a few pages of posts from here and wrote a letter to explain that all of us seem to have the same symptoms with our children. I don't know how this could be explained? I mean it is not like all our children have bad behavior--these are major mood swings with the same words repeated to us all. I just feel better knowing I am not alone and perhaps there is a answer to why my sweet little girl turned in to a child I did not know and how this medication could be the cause of all this pain. No child should have to live like this and deal with such a range of emotions. They can't understand why it is happening. It is our job as parents to keep them safe and taking her off this medication is the first step for me. I am going to try to talk to my relative (a doctor today) and ask her if anyone is telling her this stuff. I wish everyone the best.

It's amazing to see how many of our children have the same behaviors. My son is 8, almost 9, and has been taking it for 2 years during the winter/spring time for asthma. Spring pollen affects his asthma so it does double duty then. But a year ago he was diagnosed with ADD, and takes meds for it. I'm now wondering if it's the side effects of the Singulair and not ADD at all. And just how many other kids may be in the same situation and being medicated for something they don't even have. I'd much rather take a nutritional approach but I hate to do it during school/baseball season. It may be too much change at once with so much going on. I just happened onto this site looking for info on the Singulair report, I missed it on the news (baseball practice) and have found all of your postings comforting to know I'm not alone.

I am starting to become big in nutrition and healthy eating. I myself switched to a raw food diet 2-3 months ago. I do not eat meat at all. No cooked or processed foods. No dairy. I drink almond or hemp milk. There are a lot of raw food books out there and it is quite a learning experience to see all the junk in out foods and how it effects our bodies. I have lost 15 pounds and my sinus allergies I had for years are cleared up. I suffered with allergies and now think it might have been dairy. I would love my family to eat healthier but this is too drastic a thing for them to do. They do eat more fruit and drink soy milk instead of cow milk. The more I read the more I learn how our bodies can heal ourselves. I don't want you to think I am going in another direction with this post but I think medications might not always be the best for us.