Reducing Anxiety Medication for Teenage Daughter - Side Effects?

[dramafluff]

Regarding DD, 17.

There are a whole lot of 'by the by's related to this:

How useless CAMHS are, should she ever have been on these drugs in the first place, has it helped at all..... I am firmly of the opinion that a little less 'poor you' and a bit more, 'that's life, get on with it' may have been more productive. However you do what you think is right to help at the time.... naturally dramatic tendencies +
'I know my rights, you can't tell me what to do' attitude + a possibly higher dose of teenage angst than most may well be more the issue than anything else.

However.

What I am trying to ascertain is whether some symptoms she is having now are related to a supervised reduction in medication.

She has been on Risperidone and Sertraline, started small increasing to 200mg Sertraline am, and .75 risperidone am, .5 risperidone pm. Has been on them for about 8 months.

Quite frankly, hasn't helped at all, if not made things worse as she now worries about being on medication and has piled on 10 lbs in 3 months (she is naturally very skinny and so this is now something else to worry about - sheesh). She was also studying psychology and the suspicious part of me notes that she has ticked off every side effect etc in some small way as her course has progressed. CAMHS locally had a period of no doctor, locum, no doctor, also no counsellor, counsellor off sick, no counsellor - both of which apparently resolved - which meant she didn't see anyone for 6 months, neither did I except to pick up a repeat prescription. In the meantime we took things into our own hands, I wrote them a snotagram, and with daughter's complete agreement we reduced to 0.5 risperidone and 150mg sertraline am, leaving the .5 risperidone alone in the evening. This was OK for 3 weeks.

Finally got back to CAMHS who managed to find me an appointment following said snotagram.

They did advise that reducing both at the same time was not a great plan, but fair enough it was happening, and we moved to a month plan during which at weekly intervals starting the following day the risperidone would be reduced and I could leave the Sertraline at the same levels (is anyone still with me?). We have been following this for 2 weeks and dosage is now the same old 150 of sertraline, but 0.25 risperidone am and pm. She is due to stop the morning dose of risperidone tomorrow morning (hooray) with the evening amount stopping next Wednesday.

I have had her off school for 2 days now with nausea - she says she has been feeling queasy after eating for about a week. Splitting headache, tired, sometimes light headed (but not fainting) etc etc. (Although now she's not been at school for 2 days she appears to be feeling slightly better - she is changing school and starting A Levels again at another school and doesn't want to finish the term - this discussion has been stopped before it started!). 'Sadly' I cannot prescribe boyfriend arriving every day which would probably provide a miracle cure.

Can anyone advise, in their experience, whether this may be a withdrawal symptom and if so, how can I help? If it is a withdrawal symptom, what's the life span of it. We are due an appointment at the end of the month to look at the Sertraline.

She had a shed load of blood tests last week but I don't think there is anything to report there.

Sorry if I have banged on a bit there - possibly a little spleen venting mixed in. It's been a long 3 years.....