I will start off by saying that Dr. Elkin is a very nice man and knows a lot about medication and does attend seminars and updates his education. However he is NOT a psychiatrist for children. Im sure he is great with adults but not with children. Ill admit we took our son to see him for 2 YEARS before we realized what was happening. Our first clue should have been that we never in 2 years of monthly visits saw another child in his office. We came to him with behavioral concerns. In the first visit Dr. Elkin diagnosed him with a mood disorder and then started him on many medications. I thank God that I was conservative on letting him up his medications because now I have found out that he was on dosages that were to strong for my sons weight and height. Before we took him to another psychiatrist he was on 4 different medications taking 5 pills a day at age 7! We started seeing worse behavior each time he was put on a new medication or if the medication was increased. We finally realized that the medications were actually making his behavior worse. I approached Dr. Elkin and asked him to reconsider his diagnosis and to possibly start lowering his medications but he said no that he stood by his diagnosis. That was the last time we saw him. Now my son is off all but one of the medications and is doing great! He was profoundly misdiagnosed. The questions our new psychiatrist asked us in our initial 90 minute session were never even mentioned to me in Dr. Elkins office. Please please please do not take your children to him. He may be a very nice man and good with adults but his specialty is NOT children!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I cannot imagine where my son would be now or 5 years from now if we had not pulled him out of Dr. Elkins care. Its hard to know who to trust and since he seemed so knowledgeable we trusted him, go with your instincts. There are other child psychiatrists in town!
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