Learning from our mistakes

My husband and I have always put our son's health and safety above anything, as most parents do. There was one mistake about 3 years ago that we made and I wonder where where my mothers instincts were and why they didn't kick in.

Our soon to be 5 year old son was diagnosed with asthma around the age of 2. He only needs his puffer when he has a chest cold, when he's been around animals (especially dogs) and, in rare circumstances, when he's very active. When he was diagnosed, his pediatric allergist provided us with a puffer and a prescription for Singulair. We were told it was very safe and effective for treating asthma, especially in children. My husband who suffered from asthma for years remembers lying in bed as a kid, not able to breath enough air into his young lungs and being absolutely terrified, thinking he was going to die. Neither of us wanted our son to have to go through this, and so, putting way too much trust in a doctor's advice, we put him on it immediately, thinking we were doing the best for our son. He wasn't treated with it for very long and I wasn't a bit surprised today when I read this.

He was on it for 2 weeks and in that time we watched our loving, sweet, happy little boy who had a perma-grin on 24/7 turn into a sad, sullen little boy who was starting to be very physically aggressive towards his daycare friends. He woke up from nightmares and was very quick to react in anger and with tears, which was very rare for him. It was heartbreaking to watch this change in personality and I started to think if it was the Singulaire doing this to him.

One morning, after a particularly rough night and morning with my son, I called our pharmacist and asked if this could have anything to do with the medicine. He advised us to stop giving it to him immediately and speak with his doctor. Not only did we stop giving it to him we told his allergist that we would never be giving it to our son again. He told us that he didn't think our decision was wise and that his asthma would probably get worse. We still refused to continue with this line of treatment and were willing to risk any alternative. As far as we were concerned keeping him on this drug was a detriment to his mental health and could do more long term damage to him than an asthma attack ever could.

I started to do some research on the net and found a few blogs of parents who believed this drug should be pulled from the shelves because it has done the same thing to their child with no mention of it on the side effects information sheet that comes with the prescription. There was also mention that some parents believe it is linked to autism.

We certainly don't regret getting him off that drug. The change back to his normal self was instantly noticed and literally overnight we had our sweet, cuddly, funny little boy back. Although he still has asthma we treat it with prevention, education and his puffer. We talk about it with him and answer all is questions in a way he understands. He is very aware of the fact he has asthma and asks for his inhaler when he needs it.

If we are supposed to learn from our mistakes than I got one hell of an education on dolling out prescription medication to my son without doing research on it first.

I'm so sorry baby.