Med Change Failure

It's been 11 days since the med change.  The psychiatrist gave us a schedule which included a quick ramping up of the new med (the anticonvulsive) and a slow ramping down of the old med (the atypical antipsychotic). For the last 3.5 days we've been at 100% new med 50% old med.  It is NOT working.

- Sunny started having abdominal pains where he says "my waist hurts!"  It was probably gas and intestinal discomfort.  We started giving him some fiber pills and that seemed to help a lot.  We were hoping this symptom was just a temporary one that would go away when his body became adjusted to the new levels.

- He used to bedwet 1-2 times a week, now it's almost every night.  He's also been spot-wetting during the day, which used to be a fairly rare occurrence.

 - He became much more irritable and oppositional.  These last few days, it's been at least a fit every day, sometimes two. He jumps more quickly to accusing us of wanting to hurt him.  For example, when I said he had to wait until after dinner to eat a chocolate-covered pretzel, immediately, it was because I "never wanted him to have nice things, ever".

- This morning Sunny had hives all over his face and chest.  He was miserable. I gave him a benadryl. A rash is one of the rarer side effects of the anticonvulsive.

The rash sealed this. We're taking him off the new med right away. Not even one pill more. I just called and left a message with the psychiatrist.

Our only question now is whether to try and take him off the old med entirely now that we're at the halfway point. That way we could check his baseline. I have a feeling that he really needs his old med in order to regulate his emotions, and that if we raised his levels, he'd be able to regulate them even better. But then he might start drooling and ticcing because of the side effect profile.

UPDATE: The psychiatrist was out for the holidays but he just called me back shortly after I left a message on his answering service. He said we should stop the new med entirely and could go right back to the full dosage of the old med.  We'll make an appointment in a month, which should be enough time for the new med to clear his body entirely.