Sleep Issues Are Being Misdiagnosed as ADHD and other Mental Illnesses

It was over 3 years ago that I wrote Is It ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder)?, but for some reason in the U.S.A. the psychiatric community is slow to act like the real medical doctors (MDs) they ARE.  Many still are not looking for WHY a child is exhibiting symptoms we label "ADHD." Instead, they simply slap on the label itself, which only serves to say, "This child exhibits attentional difficulties and possibly hyperactivity." That simple "mental" illness label, eliminates all their obligation to investigate the true underlying cause of any particular child's symptoms.

One of the things so many of us have been saying is that SLEEP issues (ranging from sleep apnea to narcolepsy or even just staying up a little too late) can contribute to or even cause psychiatric symptoms that are getting diagnosed as many kinds of "mental illness" ranging from Depression and ADHD to Bipolar Disorder and Schizophrenia!

At least even the U.S. mainstream newspapers are starting to warn people that many of these increasingly numerous "ADHD" (and Depression) diagnoses we and our children are getting may actually be manifestations of SLEEP-related issues.

When Hearing Things Is Not Schizophrenia

I received an E-mail (below) from a mother, Arna Mathiesen in Norway, who went that extra mile for her son who was hearing things, withdrawn, panicky, and dizzy for no apparent reason.  She sent me a link to an article about him.

“When he was still in a room, he would be staring and not answering.” He was having panic attacks. The doctors initially could not find anything wrong with him and repeatedly suggested that his issues were mental.

Hmmm…. Sound familiar?  A lot like (see It's Not Mental) what happened to my younger daughter?

Let’s see, hearing things that no one else hears…Staring out into nothingness. Disengaged from life around him...Claiming symptoms the doctors couldn't believe in because they saw no medical cause.  Schizophrenia perhaps? Severe Depression with psychosis? Bipolar Disorder? Schizoaffective?

Gut, Brain, Bacteria, and Behavior

Can the way we use antibiotics — without focusing on keeping up the normal biota in our gut that antibiotics wipe out — be contributing to the rise in both “mental” illnesses as well as inflammatory and metabolic disorders such as allergies and diabetes?

Scientists are saying “YES.”

They are re-confirming what many doctors and researchers in the field of Integrative medicine have been saying for years — that gut health is intimately connected with the function of our brain.[1]

The gut-brain connection is being implicated in brain disorders ranging from anxiety to schizophrenia (as it was in my own children).

We Have Sick Children

The latest statistics in the U.S.A. show that one in FOUR children are now on long-term prescription medications for chronic illnesses.

This does not include acute care medicines such as antibiotics for a sinus infection. It doesn’t even include over-the-counter (OTC) medications such as allergy medications, cough medicines,  and analgesics. It means medications such as for asthma, diabetes, autoimmune disease, high cholesterol, and “mental” illnesses.

This is great news for the pharmaceutical companies and their shareholders.

Sleep: A Critical Yet Under-addressed Component of Health

Sleep is critical for human life.

Grossly disrupted or disturbed sleep is often an early indicator that something is going wrong. Many neurological and endocrinological problems have disturbed sleep as a symptom.

Disturbed sleep can cause physical distress as well as mood and psychological issues(*). And physical distress, as well as psychological and emotional issues, can also cause disturbed sleep.

Teasing out what is causing what and, more importantly, addressing the issues that need to be addressed, can be a daunting task.

Musings on “Medical Mysteries”

There are some fictional and nonfictional "medical mysteries" television shows (such as "Mystery Diagnosis") that I have enjoyed watching.

What I find quite revealing in the real-life medical mysteries is that in case after case the people were told that their symptoms were not "real" – i.e. they were "mental".

Some Known Medical Causes of “Mental” Symptoms

There are many known medical causes of anxiety, mood swings, depression, attentional difficulties with or without hyperactivity ("ADHD"), psychosis, and/or other psychiatric symptoms.

However, to complicate matters, the illnesses of the endocrine system, sleep disorder, autoimmune disorders, etc. are frequently found to be “co-morbid” with the illness that gets diagnosed as “mental,” rather than contributing causative factors. The danger in this way of thinking is that these "co-morbid" conditions may not be treated as effectively as they might be if the set of symptoms as a whole had been adressed, rather than in pieces.