FoggyRock General Forum

My daughter is 3 and she has outbursts every single day. If somebody looks at her and she just randomly yells out. If she gets frustrated because she can't do something which is often then out comes a yell!    Drives us CrAzY!   I didn't realize that Gluten can cause sudden outbursts.  Interesting. . .

Yeah, we're having some of those same issues with my 13-14 yr old HFA boy.  Hadn't thought of the gluten issue.  The psychiatrist seems to think it is that his medications need adjusting, but when she increased his Seroquel, it seems to have made things worse.  See her again soon ... but not soon enough!!!

You didn't say exactly how old your son is but mine is 15 years old and I know that sometimes he is mystified by all the changes his body has went through during the past 5 years.  Hormones may be part of the reason your son is having the outbursts.  We had to put my son on risperdal when puberty began at age 10 and it's made a world of difference.

Last edited by caregvr1 (2008-02-01 09:19:42)

Yeah, we still have it happen sometimes. My son is 23. I am sure some is hormones, but it still needs to be dealt with. As you have found, de-escalating by staying calm is best. Don't react, don't yell or threaten or talk about consequences. Agree as much as possible in short calm sentences.  Only when he is completely calm can you talk about other ways to handle his anger/frustration. I think all people with autism should be given courses in relaxation techniques, too. Meds are also something to look at. You might try some supplements first- like L-tryptophan, L-arginine, etc. Good luck and God Bless.

Benjamin has frequent violent outbursts and he throws things-usually to hurt one of us.  The scariest is when we're driving and something comes flying toward us from him in the back seat.  His outbursts are definitely from his anger/frustration.  It's hard to handle because we can't keep everything that is hard out of his reach.  All the programs which work with us have tried to help with recognizing his escalation signs before he gets violent and sometimes he can be deflected.  But with the throwing and other physical violence it often comes so fast with very little warning (especially when we're driving and can't see him as well).  We are using Resperdol and Prozac (he's almost 10 and we have been putting off meds for years but we've finally given in to help protect Benjamin and our daughters) which is has helped reduce the violence a bit.  **One thing that we have learned is that if Benjamin has already experienced in frustration earlier in the day, his reactions will come much more quickly and will be more violent.  It's like once he has responded to anger/frustration, he never really comes all the way back down and each subsequent frustration keeps diminishing his tolerance level.  (p.s.  all the posts about puberty have been adding to MY freak out level!) --lisadianne2

My son is 15, 6'2" and weighs 230.  When he gets aggressive it is very scary for me and my daughter as he often times comes after us.  Sometimes he hits himself which is equally disturbing.  He recently spent time in a hospital to wean him off Seroquel, Lexapro and Propanol.  He did really well until we tried to wean him off the last 100 mg of Seroquel.  It became obvious that he needed to be on something, so Abilify was started.  He is currently on 25 mg. per day but still having violent outbursts at least once or twice a week at home and now it is happening at school also.  He has been on risperdal, prozac, clonidine, trazadone and zoloft.  Risperdal helped some but he gained 45 pounds.  All of the anti-depressants/anxiety meds seemed to make him more aggressive (any one else experience that?).  Any suggestions you all have would be really appreciated.