[dimasmom]

Para, my son has been treated for rad and medicated for bipolar. Until we went to Art, no one else recognized the bipolar and of course he only got worse, not better. I'm a bit stubborn and anti-meds. So was not to eager to initially follow Arts suggestion to treat the bipolar. Well he stonewalled the first 3 months of therapy, made very minimal progress until I finially agreed to medication. Then he made wonderful progress and has fully resolved his rad. Not to say there is not scar tissue, but he definately no longer has rad.

As Art suggestd, I would strongly urge you to seek out someone skilled in differential diagnosis. It can be difficult to tease out the bipolar from the rad, there is a large overlap in symptoms. But the sypmtoms need to be treated based on their cause, if the child is to get better. Art - could you post the link to the John Alston (??) article on differential diagnosis if you have it. I found it to be a good read, but can't recall where I saw it.

Life with bipolar sure is interesting. I agree with slowdrowned - get it treated now. Both rad and bipolar only get worse with time. The manic state can be reinforcing and if a kid experiences it too much - they may not want to take their meds (more of an issue in adolesence, but still a concern at any age). Bipolar will take a lot of tweaking of meds over the years. As they grow, hormones kick in, medication needs changed. My son is on the horizon of adolescence and we will be exploring a med change next month. A bit scary, since he has traditionally not done well off Risperdal, but he definately seems to need a more traditional mood stabalizer now.

Best wishes to you. DimasMom