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).

Getting Better – Part 1 - Overview (Bipolar and Off Her Meds Part 2)

Over a year ago, I wrote of an unexpected event in our lives, “Bipolar and Off Her Meds (and doing well),” about my older daughter. I promised to eventually provide more information. Fortunately, my children are far from unique in their experience of recovery from the  epidemic of mental illness.

It is, perhaps, ironic, that my older daughter’s former psychiatrist wanted information from her—research he could hand out to patients—on how she got better. The research is not new. It has been available for over thirty years.

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.

Childhood-onset Schizoaffective - A Medical Doctor's Perspective of the Case

We are fortunate to have the following perspective about my daughter's case (and the book) from her General Practitioner, Dr. David Marwil, M.D.

Please note that Dr. Marwil is a traditional  doctor (not specializing in "alternative medicine" nor "complementary" or "naturopathic," etc.) He is a regular GP who goes the extra mile for his patients.

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Jeanie Wolfson and her daughter Keri walked into my office several years ago, frustrated and discouraged. For many years, Keri had been experiencing profound fatigue, sleepiness, headaches, body pains, and hallucinations.

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]