Posted by Larry Hoover on November 15, 2003, at 11:15:31
In reply to Re: help - I need a biopychiatrist!!, posted by noname on November 14, 2003, at 12:30:26
> There is a book by Dr. Gold called, "the good news about depression"
> in it he states that there are over 70 physical illnesses which depression is one of the symptoms. he first rules that out, and then he can actually test to see what part of your brain has the chemical imbalance, and then can test to SEE if the medication he tries is working or not.
> Sounds a whole hell of a lot better to me than the "try this and see how you feel approach" I've been subjected to for 10 years now!I agree, it sounds a whole lot better. Unfortunately, I find no evidence that any kind of testing can determine what sort of "imbalance" might be present in the brain, nor any way to determine if a treatment is working. At best, we have a few correlations, but no sense of cause and effect.
Let me put it to you this way....If such testing was possible, do you not think it would be routinely performed? Mental illness costs the economy a staggering amount of money, in terms of lost productivity. There is no greater health-care burden, period. Psychiatric care remains a black art, the application of educated guesses to a mysterious process. Some people get lucky, and the first treatment experiment works. Others do many, many experiments with no apparent success. Nobody wants the latter to occur. Nobody. But it's the best we've got.
Lar
poster:Larry Hoover
thread:279143
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20031111/msgs/279999.html