Treatments for Pain Autism I didn t add anything but hope someone will take the time to provide the research for these two items I m touching on As the parent of a child on the spectrum I know that many people children and adults are prescribed Elavil and other SSRI s Off label to treat anxious behaviors associated with ASDs I read an article Medscape on how alarming it is that so many off label drugs are prescribed for autistic youths I m not surprised enough aren t tried IMO Elavil Sertraline Paxil and Prozac are all used to treat ASD s TMK only sertraline is approved for autistic youths over the age of 6 to treat anxiety Further the association of using SSRIs to treat pain involved symptoms and syndromes do not alleviate the pain they alleviate the stress anxiety of from both pain and the idea of the pain For example I ve a friend I call a pain wuss she has no tolerance for pain whatsoever and what s worse is she FEARS pain to the point that if she knows something will cause pain the anxiety will cause her to feel pain that is not there She had a major surgery I was there pre operatively to discuss pain management with the surgeon He blah blah d me when I reminded him of the issue of my friend not only needing pain meds but something to handle the anxiety from the pain He said it was handled It was not Post operatively even with a pain block no pain killer alleviated the pain My friend suffered horribly until I hollered at a nurse who was in disbelief that there could still be so much pain with the morphine drip and additionally administered pain meds that it wasn t the pain it was the anxiety FROM the pain that was keeping her awake even after receiving enough morphine to knok out an elephant She was finally given something for anxiety and she passed out relieved Dealing with chronic pain is a stressor that can cause more or cause perceived pain I know I ve read things about this and experienced it but I m no encyclopedia I bet one of you more clever Wiki people know right where to go though and the information may be helpful to a few folks Mom