Brain Health: Thyroid Hormones

There is good reason the book, It's not mental, talks so much about thyroid hormones, dedicating an appendix to that topic. Not only were those hormone levels intertwined with both my daughters’ cases of ultradian cycling “bipolar” and “schizoaffective” (schizophrenia with a mood disorder), but the topic has been in psychiatric textbooks, and involved in the research on these brain symptoms, for going on half a century.

Brain Health: Vitamin D

Just in time for the winter months is a reminder about sunlight, blue light, sleep, and that all-important hormone, vitamin D.

We’ve talked at length about the importance of sleep hygiene—the sleep-wake cycle, diet and exercise—but also of critical importance is the “sunshine vitamin,” the hormone we call “Vitamin D.” Readers of the BOOK- "It's not Mental" know how all this tied in to my daughter's full recovery from bipolar/schizoaffective disorder.

Historically, the FDA made a grave error in its vitamin D recommendation level due to a misunderstanding in the scientific community about what vitamin D does. Their recommendation was just high enough to prevent immediate damage (rickets) and immediate death but, at the time, they did not realize that this did not prevent slower long-term damage (“mental” illness, autoimmune diseases, lower immune function, obesity) and earlier deaths (cancer, heart attacks).

It‘s Not Mental — The Book Description — Availability

Otherwise mentally healthy children can experience sleep problems, symptoms of depression, bipolar mood swings, and/or psychosis. 

The award-winning book, "It's Not Mental - Finding Innovative Support and Medical Treatment for a Child Diagnosed with a Severe Mental Illness" is currently available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble and other on-line booksellers, and, in Lexington and Midway, Kentucky,  at:  

• Morris Bookshop,   
• Good Foods Co-op,   
• Joseph-Beth Booksellers,  and    
• Midway Center for Integrative Medicine.

Being distributed through Ingram Books, any book store can order a copy of the book for you. 

If you live in Lexington, KY, please shop local!

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How to SWALLOW PILLS - Video

The issue of how to teach children to swallow pills gets brought up so often! In my family we started by giving the children tiny hard candies to swallow with a sip of water.

That was fine, but this training video from Dr. Bonnie Kaplan in Canada is awesome! It is for both the child AND parents to watch.

Holiday Gift Ideas for Special Families

Many of us have children with special needs who already have enough “stuff” or we really need to concentrate our resources on things that can help them with various issues. My children are now grown, but over the years I’ve accumulated some nifty ideas and thought this was a good time to share some of them. Some ideas are for the children. Some are for the children to give to others. Some are for the parents.

Repeated Depression

A recent study written up in the Archives of General Psychiatry found that although almost all teens treated for Major Depressive Disorder recovered in the short term, half suffered a relapse within 5 years. This held true even if the teens had received a combination of antidepressant and cognitive behavior therapy (CBT). This combination has been considered to be the “gold standard” for depression treatment, with the hope that the CBT would help prevent relapses.

Bipolar, Cancer, Stroke. What's One Connection?

Epigentics, influenced by food, toxins, environment and even our grandparents' lives may connect seemingly unrelated medical illnesses such as bipolar, schizophrenia, cancer, stroke and heart disease.

There is good news in this!

Conceivably, the extensive amount of money poured into cancer research and prevention may pay off for these other illnesses as well. [1]

Inflammation, Schizophrenia, and Bipolar Disorder

Inflammation can be contributing to symptoms manifesting as schizophrenia-spectrum disorders, as a Dutch study adding ASPIRIN to these patients' drug regimen showed.[1]

Much research has been done about the link between inflammation and brain symptoms that get diagnosed as “mental illness.” We discussed back in 2008 about the study showing inflammation in body and brain preceded the brain symptoms that got diagnosed as mental illness.[2,3]

Bipolar and Off Her Meds

Words that usually strike fear into a parent’s heart are that their adult child with a diagnosed mental illness is off their meds.

My older daughter suffered 13 years of unrelenting, unstable bipolar disorder in spite of hospitalizations, psychiatrists, therapy, and strict adherence to medications.

She is finally STABLE, but NOT while on any of the past psychiatric medications.

She is finally stable, AND off her meds. (Part 2 here - Getting Better and Part 3 - Recovered: No Longer on Psychiatric Medications or, start with the book that started it all -- It's Not Mental)

Huh!!???

Treat the Whole

By now, most people have probably read about the proposed change to the psychiatric DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual) whereby the diagnostic labels for Asperger’s syndrome and pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified (PDD-nos) will be eliminated, and enfolded into the broad diagnostic label of autism spectrum disorder. Here is an article about it in the New York Times: A Powerful Identity, a Vanishing Diagnosis.

But the pros and cons of that proposal is not what my writing is about today. I am more interested in the MEDICAL-oriented updates to be included in the new DSM-V, which is due to be published in 2012, replacing the current DSM-IV.

Brain Health: Nutrition and Epigenetics

Nutritional and other environmental factors, such as too much or too little food, toxins, smoking, trauma, viral infections, and other stress-inducing factors—both before and after birth—can affect the functioning of genes due to changes in the proteins regulating those genes. These changes can even be inherited much as genes are inherited, incredibly complicating the study of genetic involvement in illness.

This month, we are fortunate to have a paper describing the subject written by a nutritional science student studying dietetics.

New Doctor Visit: Medication History

Sometimes it is just as well to start over with new doctors without going into past history, especially when the past history is based on misdiagnoses. But when we are still in the initial process of searching for answers to complex medical mysteries, knowledge of what has been tried, what worked, and what did not, may add some clarity to a still-murky picture.