Should I start giving my toddler an antidepressant because of her potty training issues?

WTF? Since when is it necessary to medicate a child due to potty training issues? What did people do before antidepressants? Read a book and learn some consistency.

Um, yeah. Wait… what?!?

@tinyfaery Obviously, you did not read the details of the question or you would have seen my sarcasm and disdain for the subject…

Not using the litterbox correctly is a sign that the cat is upset about something. Cats tend to be fastidious about that sort of thing. Since cats can’t talk, there’s a lot of guesswork involved, and if you can’t figure out what’s upsetting the cat, medication is something to try.

Perhaps if you understood more about cats, your attempt at humor would not have fallen so flat.

@WillWorkForChocolate

LOL

If I had an alternate account I’d use it to lurve you now..

Kudos on proving once again that some respond without having read more than a third of the question lol

I would give the litterbox Prozac so that it and the cat can get along better with each other.

Actually, let’s try MDMA…...oooooh the purring….

@cwilbur I understand quite a bit about cats, thank you very much, and I see no point in giving a cat Prozac because it’s peeing outside the box. Maybe the owner has changed a routine or food or something that pissed that cat off. Cats WILL show their displeasure with you by peeing on your floor or your bed.

A cat with potty issues needs Prozac as much as my toddler needs Prozac for hers.

If I gave my kids Prozac every time they were upset about something, I’d me a mother to two zombies. Antidepressants are seriously overprescribed these days, and givin a cat one is just silly unless the cat is seriously disturbed or previously abused or something of a serious nature.

Maybe the cat needs therapy and acupuncture. If that doesn’t work maybe it should go to rehab. Send the kid too.
.......maybe the cat is just an asshole.

@elijah

LAWL

@elijah I just lol’ed into hysteria! :D

first thing that came up when I Googled +antidepressants +toddlers.

quote:

“While antidepressants and other mood-altering drugs have long been prescribed to adolescents, the fastest-growing group using such medication is children under age 5.”

(emphasis added.)

from http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0408/p01s03-ussc.html

@Ria777

ooooonly in America….. so sad…

Pfft. You can be sarcastic but I can’t.

Hahaha.. yeah, I thought that was weird too. I mean, why not try other avenues first, right?

@tinyfaery

“Pfft. You can be sarcastic but I can’t.”

I don’t even know what you’re trying to say with that…

@WillWorkForChocolate: ~ I think it sounds like a grand plan, make sure you double whatever dosage your Dr. recommends… to really make her happy! :) After you get the potty training under control, you should start putting a little vodka in her morning coffee, you know, to take the edge of the morning. ~

GREAT Q – thanks for the laughs! :)

@TaoSan, americans actually do consume a lot more psych drugs than other countries, per capita.

What can I say, people are stupid. This is what you get. There are likely many other factors contributing to the cat’s inability to pee in the box, but they turn to medicine cause it’s there and may fix the problem with no further effort on their part. Then again, when you are being bombarded with ads about drugs, it’s no surprise that you think about them as solutions.

All I do is avoid these kinds of people. That way, my life is better.

@bythebay

ahahaaaaaaaa

@Ria777

Yepp, and now the pharma reps talk doctors into prescribing them earlier and earlier. Kinda reminds me of crack dealers discovering schoolyards. What better way to ensure there will be plenty of watered-down ecstasy and speed junkies in the future creating fat quarterlies. The shareholders will be happy.

According to the latest Physicians Desk Manual, fully three-quarters of all toddlers in the United States show symptoms of depression. Unfortunately, they refuse to diagnose it. As a result, there is a growing black market in black market prozac, zoloft and ritalin.

It is difficult to diagnose the proper problem that is creating difficulty in potty training. Some believe that low-self esteem leads to depression, and inability to learn to pee in the right place. Others say that these children are actually suffering from ADD, and they don’t have the attention span necessary to learn potty etiquette.

Desperate parents, anxious to show how their little one is more brilliant than any other toddler, and now turning to the black market for drugs. Some even give them both Ritalin and Prozac at the same time, on the theory that if one doesn’t work, the other will.

Toddlers, slowly going mad because of their lack of privacy at very private moments, then act out, pooping in the living room and smearing the results on the wall. Parents than add valium to chill their kids out. And who can blame them? Isn’t that what adults do to manage their lives?

Doctors decide who should take Prozac or not. Same for valium and other potent substances. Self-medication is extremely dangerous.

Oh for Pete’s sake. Just cover all your floors with the plastic that painters use until she stops doing that. And if you slip in a puddle or trip on a pile, just take some Advil.

like I said in that thread:

@WillWorkForChocolate Uhh that’s not the same thing at all.
Why can’t people believe that animals have emotions like humans? If we can have stress and mental illness, why can’t animals? Cats who are very stressed can only show it in certain ways, and peeing in places other than the litter box is one of them (especially an older cat who has been litter trained for many years) I’ve seen many vets for this issue, when my cat had it. We did everything we could to help him, before giving him medication, just as we would for a person. Why is that such a foreign concept?

I hope if you have a cat, it starts pissing all over everything. I seriously do. Then you do everything you can to fix the problem, I bet you’d just get rid of your cat though, you seem like that type of person.

@mattbrowne, did you take the subject line literally or did you say that to respond to other posts on this thread? as for doctors deciding who should take Prozac, don’t underestimate the power of a persuasive patient (alliteration!). apart from that, the patients can (and in some cases will) go to another doctor for Prozac if the first one refuses.

@casheroo I do have a cat, as it happens, and we have not run into this issue with him. If we do, however, you can rest assured I will NOT get rid of him, nor will I turn to an antidepressant to “cure” the problem which can likely be solved by non medicinal means.

Antidepressants or so over-prescribed these days, it’s no wonder that people are at ease with the idea of giving them to cats and children.

And what in the flipping hell do you base your judgement of me being “that type of person” to get rid of an animal? Hmm? Do you know me? Have you spent any time conversing with me on important matters? I don’t fucking think so. You have NO idea what “type of person” I am, so just back off with your assumptions.

@WillWorkForChocolate What would you do then? Tell me in detail exactly what you would do if your cat started to urinate outside the litter box, in places like on your toddlers toys, in your toddlers crib, in your shoes, in the living room, in the dining room. What actions would you take? I’m curious.

Parents who agonize over potty training should take a prozac.

My Dad used to be so proud that his 6 kids were potty trained at 7–9 mos. I remember it differently. I remember sitting in the bathroom with the faucet on waiting for younger siblings to just GO!

With my two kids it was mission accomplished in just 2 days. When they started taking off their wet diapers about 2 yo, we just took them into the bathroom and showed them what to do. Most kids don’t have the muscle development to get it right until they are that age. Also if they are using diapers or pull-ups that “wick” the liquid away, they won’t feel the clammy cold discomfort so buy cotton.

lol

@Lothloriengaladriel

lol4rl :)

Funny thread!
I bypassed it initially because of the subject but really the true answer here
is that neither the cat nor the litter box needs Prozac. The owner does.

That is why they call it “Mommies Little Helper” :)

My current kids, cats, and dogs have all potty trained/house broke themselves. They are the winners. The losers are a Labrador, a black & white cat, and 2 adopted Brazilian children. All were shot and buried in the neighbors backyard.

There are simple solutions to all problems. The question is whether or not you want to take the simple steps. Just remember bullets are usually cheaper than medication, or, at the very least, they produce faster results.

Thank you for your time. And to anyone/everyone here who took this whole thing serious… you’re retarded. GQ Lurve

Wow! Does anyone read the entire question? I blinked when I saw the lead, but laughed when I read the rest.

I can just imagine our little guy (A Bombay Black) on Prozac. It might give the dog (A Red Rottie) a chance of not getting beaten up so often.

I realize the question is tongue in cheek but the woman who originally posted the question regarding her cat and prozac I assume was serious.

And while I do wonder about using prozac as a cure, the woman had done everything I could think of before she resorted to the prozac such as medical checks on kidney bladder etc.

So I just wonder what one would do if the cat started fouling the whole house instead of the litter box. I guess you could pen it in the laundry room or some room where you could just hose down every time it happens. Doesn’t seem like too good a life though, living in a laundry room. I think in a lot of cases the cat would end up at the shelter, euthanized or worse simply abandoned. Perhaps this woman should be praised for her willingness to try everything. And I agree drugs are over prescribed and all that, but I just am not sure what I would do in her shoes. Cat pee all over the house is not a nice thing.

@rooeytoo Exactly. We tried everything with my cat, but he mainly lived at my parents…my parents got fed up and took him to a kill shelter because the vets could not help other than giving our cat valium all the time, and that in itself didn’t help at all :(

@casheroo – That is exactly what I meant. I admire her determination and willingness to try anything and everything before she is forced to resort to the ultimate “cure.”

Pushing and rotating doctors to me is the same as self-medication, which as I said is extremely dangerous, especially when it comes to psychoactive drugs. I noticed the tongue in cheek disclaimer ;-)

This whole thread is riddled with judgements. First the judging responses about someone’s parenting skills, then judging responses about how someone takes care of their animals. I mean seriously, was it really worth the time to post a “funny” question to insult another question? Sounds like you have children WillWork—why don’t you go spend some time with them.

If this isn’t a real question, why is it even here?

Too many angry people.
Too much wasted energy.

I wonder why people who don’t think this is funny keep on commenting? It seems to annoy them so.

For the record, I think this is a hoot, and I’m glad the mods let it stay!

@daloon Thanks hun. I lol’ed when I posted it. :P

@casheroo I have a girlfriend who, before a violent furry death via a vacuum cleaner and a dog, had three cats. Two of her cats began pissing all over the house. She hadn’t changed their food, she hadn’t been away from home more frequently, so she didn’t know why her kitties were being so vocal about their anger.

She ended up buying a small litter box for almost every room. (She kept the guest bedrooms shut up.) Any time she found pee on the floor, she took all three cats (yes, even the non-peeing one) to the pee spot, stuck their noses in it, said NO very loudly, then carried them straight to the nearest litter box.

This went on for almost 2 weeks. She made certain to keep all the boxes free of poo and pee clumps, and stayed very firm with the routine. Nose in pee, NO NO NO, straight to the box. It worked.

If you truly love the cat, you will find a way to make it work, without medicating it to take the easy way out.

BTW, you could also try peeing on the cat. See how much the furbaby likes it…

@WillWorkForChocolate The fact that we had our cat for 9 years, and did all we could those 9 years to make him stop, even resorting to medicine means we loved him. It was not my choice to have him put down because of it.

@WillWorkForChocolate @daloon Well if your mom had been so whacked out that she tried to feed her young sons Librium, you might fail to find the humor in this question. Remember the strangest things are truth to somebody.

Well, to each their own. I am at a much higher risk for suicide than most of the people on the planet, and yet I find suicide to be a humorous topic. It’s harder to be killed by something I can laugh at.

Humor is a matter of taste. And while I certainly don’t want to disrespect your feelings, I trust you don’t want to impose your sensibilities on me.

I’ve torn the heads off quite a few different kinds of animals in the last year or two and I personally believe that a cat would be easier than a duck. (Ducks have a surprisingly tough neck.) Almost got hold of a mean stray cat a couple months ago at the in-laws farm but it was slightly faster than me.

Anyway, cats are cheap unless you get one of those crazy breeds that nobody needs. Almost all cats are the same so I would suggest getting one that looks like the one you have and get rid of the old one. Kind of like replacing a goldfish.

“OH GOD! I COULD NEVER REPLACE MITTENS/FLUFFY/MR. JEEPERS!!!”
Why not? It’s just a cat. What does it do for you? If you were in a life-threatening situation would it go get help or would it just sit there and glare at you for disturbing it’s sleep with your annoying screaming? Why are all of you so testy about your cats? I would hazard a guess that a few of you have over 20 of ‘em so what’s one less anyway?

ya no dont do that

@Sakata If you seriously think that trying to kill a cat with your bare hands would be easier than a duck, then maybe you’ve been pulling something with a head on it for way too long. I have seen the sort of damage a cat can do to a grown man’s hands and arms when a guy tried to rescue one from a storm drain. (He was wearing gloves as well, not just bare skin.) As for your claim to have torn the heads of various animals, although I doubt your veracity, I still find you dumb and offensive.

@DarkScribe I stand by my opinion that a cat neck is weaker than a duck’s and. therefore, would be easier to remove the head.

You can doubt my veracity all you want. Doesn’t change the fact.

As for you finding me dumb and offensive… thank you. Brings a tear to my eye.

WTF???? Never give children drugs like that. Seriously, that is just plain wrong.

@Kraken lol, this question was just to make fun of someone who gave prozac to their cat