Posted by Elizabeth on June 29, 2001, at 19:35:41
In reply to Stigma: it will just never go away, will it?, posted by grapebubblegum on June 28, 2001, at 8:48:03
> Of course I bristled a bit at that. But I can't blame the neurology camp for trying to distance themselves from "our" camp.
Yup. The "psychiatric illness" camp tries to distance itself from the "addiction" and "personality disorder" camps. Lots of people are afraid to admit to themselves or others that they have an anxiety or mood disorder: they get test after test trying to prove, for example, temporal lobe epilepsy, which is the problem in a small number of cases but really isn't all *that* common an explanation for panic disorder or depression.
In politics it's the same. The medical marijuana proponents try to distance themselves from recreational drug users and advocates of general drug legalisation. These days, in the USA, it's considered bad to be a liberal, even though our country was founded on the classic liberal values of freedom and equality. Democrats want to be thought of as "moderates" or "centrists" instead, anything but the dreaded "L-word." The women's rights movement had a split like this too, a long time ago when they were still fighting for suffrage but other women (like Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood) knew that was only the beginning. The list goes on.
When will people learn that we need to work together to get things done? (Helen Keller had a great quote to this effect. I wish I could recall it!)
> I spoke briefly with a psychiatric nurse, as a friend, not as a professional consultation or anything, and I listed for her the meds my recently deceased father was on, at the end of his life, to the best of my knowledge. Tegretol, klonopin, to name a few.. and she said, "What's up with all the neuroleptics for a psychiatric disorder?"
"Neuroleptics?" Well, what can you expect? ("Neuroleptic" is an old word for the antipsychotic drugs!) Although they are often wonderful clinicians with their own unique place in the medical hierarchy, nurses aren't trained in pharmacology, and they really don't know much about drugs in general, especially off-label uses. (Klonopin is labelled for panic disorder now, though. Tegretol was never approved for bipolar disorder, despite overwhelming evidence that it works very well, often for people who don't respond to lithium.)
The use of the same drugs doesn't mean they're the same conditions. Lots of people have tried to connect panic disorder, depression, bipolar disorder, borderline personality, etc., to epilepsy. Although in the rare case, there turns out to be a seizure disorder with psychiatric symptoms (e.g., panic-like seizures or interictal dysphoria), more often it's just that the drugs have broad effects (for example, the antikindling effect of Tegretol also prevents kindling in bipolar disorder, particularly with mixed states or rapid-cycling; and the "antipsychotic" drugs often help with mania and certain types of obsessive states.)
-elizabeth
poster:Elizabeth
thread:68223
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20010625/msgs/68393.html