Autism Journey Day 27-We were addressing Paige’s aggression with behavioral methods and removing foods she was allergic to. Things had gotten a lot better, but we wanted to extinguish all aggression. I had hoped to avoid medicating her because I didn’t want to just default to that. I spoke to Paige’s developmental pediatrician and she recommended trying a tiny dose of medication. When I went to the pharmacy to get the medicine the pharmacist said that it would take a couple of days because they don’t stock anti-psychotics. I said she has autism-she’s not psychotic! It alarmed me. I remembered a little article I clipped from the newspaper a year before. That article was about a medication that was proving helpful in people with autism. It was the same medication we had been prescribed. I just ignored the type of medication it was and moved forward. Once we had the medication we decided to wait until the weekend to start it. We wanted to be able to monitor her. Paige got a little bit sleepy, but otherwise seemed good. We continued on with the medication and we noticed a major improvement. She was less edgy but not drugged. I didn’t want her to be drooling in a corner or appear completely checked out. We didn’t see any of the side effects that the doctor was concerned about. I knew from all I had read and been told that we could try many medications before finding the right one. We also knew that the dosage we started with was very small and could be increased if needed. She is currently on the same dose she started with 20 years ago. There were a couple of times that we had to increase her dosage when there was some upheaval at school or when she became hormonal. We also trialed weaning her off the medication over the summer one year. She wasn’t herself when completely off the medication. She seemed not present. We opted for putting her back on the medication. We felt so blessed that the first medication we tried and the first dosage ended up being right for Paige. I also felt like we had implemented many other strategies before trying medication. Those were all the right decisions for our family.