Help regarding medication

Hi!
I am working with a 25- year old autistic girl. For the past few years she is very unquiet. She can be smiling one minute- and then suddenly start to scream. She does not talk and her abilty to communicate is very low, so she has no way of explaining anything to us.
She is currently taking Risperidal 3mg and Tegretol (Carbamazepine) 400mg.
They don't seem to help. They make her drowsy for 3-4 hours and then she's calm, but as soon as this effect is gone- she is again shouting or banging her head with her fists. During the past few months she started to wake up at 2 or 3 in the morning and she screams non- stop until around 7 when she gets her medicine and is drowsy again for a few hours.
Her parents are suffering from this, and I'm sure that she also does.
I know a lot of psychiatrist medicines myself because I suffer from PTSD and am taking 4 different medicines. I also know that finding the right medicine is based a lot on trial and error.
Her psychiatrist, who is supposed to be an expert on autism, says there are no other medications that could be given to autistic people. We are trying a different psychiatrist, but he isn't an expert on autism, so he wants us to bring him a list of medicines that might help.
From reading things that Temple Grandin wrote on the topic, autistic people sometimes react different than other people to psychiatrist medicines.
I would appreciate it very much if anyone can give me names + dosage of medications that help autistic people who are suffering from similar symptoms, and any other information that might help. I would be glad for as many opinions as possible. (of course any treatment will be done with the supervision and agreement of a psychiatrist).
Thanks a lot!!!!!
Happyface

I can't give you any names of medications or anything, but can say that in a perfect world people with autism do not need medication for autism. It is only a tool that should be used to reduce the negative effects of what the real issue is. Don't forget to look at sensory considerations. If she is screaming a lot I would have to assume she is auditory hypo-sensitive? Maybe get some headphones and play music/sounds through it really loud; she may just like to experience hearing the sound so she yells a lot. When someone is hypo-sensitive they seek out a way to stimulate that sense.

Head banging could also be a sign of someone that is hypo-sensitive to pain/touch that is experiencing pain. I worked with someone that would continue to pick at anything that should have been painful to anyone; he kept a sore open for months doing this because he wanted to feel the sensation of the pain that he normally could not feel. (example: I stub my toe and it hurts, he stubs his toe and feels nothing) This persons father told me about a time that he stood on top of a stove with the burners on and didn't want to get down. Further, they don't even have to be in pain. Maybe she just likes the sensation of what happens when she hits her head.

If i'm deprived of something, I will seek it out and over indulge when I can... a person with autism that experiences hypo-sensitivity of a sense is essentially deprived of that sense and will seek it out. and with the nature of restrictive/repetitive behavior in people with autism, it is likely to go on for a long time.

The point being... what ever the behavior, it is filling some need. If the behavior is undesirable for whatever reason, you have to find a way to fill that same need in a different way.

Just some thoughts from a caregiver that currently works with young autistic adults.