Eric is almost 19. The main issue is social. With the combination of Asperger's and Social Anxiety Disorder, at this point it appears to me that he most definitely needs medication. My older daughter who has her own family now, had pretty severe anxiety, though hers was more of a generalized anxiety and not social anxiety. Anyway, she tried several antidepressants like Prozac and Seroquel, etc, which actually made her anxiety even worse. Then she started taking Lexapro and said that it made a world of difference and swears by it. Last Friday we took Eric to the Psychiatrist and he agreed that Lexapro was the best one for him to take and wrote a prescription. He also wrote a prescription for Klonipin but not for every day use - only as a back up on days when Eric may be having an especially difficult time coping. His mother and I have no problems with Eric other than his idiosyncrasies. When he is not struggling with anxiety he is very enjoyable to be around. He just can't deal very effectively with the public in general. I am absolutely looking into getting him cognitive behavior therapy. Many thanks to all of you who have responded or will respond!

I think teaching him coping skills is a better approach. Medication can be helpful but it also creates different problems. We all have coping strategies. Your son needs them too!

Get him on Klonopin immediately. Then get someone to teach him coping skills. All the coping skills in the world won't help him if he can't control his uncontrolable anxiety. It's like asking someone with epilepsy to learn skills to stop having seizures. More compasion on the severity and paralyzing nature of anxiety for those on the spectrum needs to be emphasized. Medication, especially anti-anxiety medication, (NOT SSRI's) is the bridge that makes learning and implimentling coping skills possible.

My grandson is not on anything. Most medications really bothered him when he was younger and most made him worse. He takes no drugs for his Asperger's.

My son is 20 and my daughter is 23 and both are on the spectrum...my son has Asperger's and my daughter HFA. My son was younger when he was diagnosed and we used a combination of coping skills that he learned in therapy and medication. We found prozac to be quite effective for his anxiety and some mood swing issues he had. Paxil is often prescribed for anxiety and was originally prescribed for my son, but it often causes weight gain...which it did in my son's case and was also ineffective for him. He has used a moderate dose of prozac for 9 yrs now and it's been very effective; that's the only med he uses. My daughter has very severe social anxiety and was only recently diagnosed with HFA, but has been on prozac for general anxiety disorder for about 8 yrs now. The therapist she's working with has increased her dose and will be working with her on her social phobia because my daughter never leaves the house and would like to go to college. So she'll be doing a combination of therapy and meds. As I am a pharmacy technician, I personally wouldn't recommend Xanax as a long-term option unless you've tried other options first. Xanax is a benzodiazepine and, while quite helpful, is also very addictive. If you could work with his doctor to start with antidepressants, which are non-addictive; there are a number of different classes to try and a large number of them are specifically geared toward anxiety. Hope this helps.