Posted by bleauberry on May 14, 2009, at 18:59:05
In reply to What are our alternatives?, posted by SLS on May 14, 2009, at 15:58:37
> The drugs currently available to treat mental illness are far from being ideal.
That is because they miss the fact that most mental illnesses are not caused by a brain problem, but instead by a body problem (opinion). They are attached. One affects the other directly. The brain has a large bullseye on it for anything else awry in the body. Fix the physical problem, the brain assault goes away, and it is no longer a mental condition, and actually never was. That's how I see it. Any of the below problems will cause mental illnesses that do not respond well or completely to manipulating neurotransmitters or receptors.
The problem however is that modern medicine is ill equipped to find what is wrong. If it is simple and basic, it will be found. But how about Lyme disease...easily missed even if someone has it. Yeast toxins...easily missed or never even considered because outward symptoms are often not seen. Suboptimal thyroid function in the face of apparently "normal" lab values (extremely too broad, too generalized, and not viewed in context of the other related hormones). The 24 hour cortisol curve is below the average reference value of various labs. Gluten intolerance. Cassein intolerance. Other gut inflammatory conditions allowing unprocessed large molecules to enter the blood system on a journey to the brain. Molds and fungus in the person's residence. Mercury and lead accumulation in the nervous system where it will stay for 30 years unless chelated out. Various viruses. Genetic flaws or roadblocks involving one or more essential vitamins.
All of the above are hard to diagnose and many need to be treated blindly, with the blind treatment itself being the diagnostic tool to either pinpoint a possible suspect or rule it out. To rely on what modern medicine views as clinically proven in 2009 to diagnose something is a guarantee of failure.
Medicine is and always has been an art, a practice, a set of hunches, try this, try that. Over decades a body of knowledge is cemented, but it is always changing and evolving and growing at a rate faster than medical schools, journals, and "provers" can keep up with.
While we become imbedded in the try-this try-that strategy of psychiatric meds, it astounds me we don't do the same for bodily things that directly cause brain function to be impacted. It astounds me how almost everyone is convinced the brain and body are separate entities without connection.
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> The question arises as to what are our alternatives for treating mental illness but to use the currently available resources.Our currently available resources are limited to brain altering drugs that sometimes work to reverse or block from the brain whatever the phsyical problem is doing, or to aggravate it even worse. As with the blind diagnostics, the psych med treatments are also blind.
Sometimes the brain might actually be the problem. A genetic flaw, receptor deformity, wires not connected, dead tissue, stuff like that. Treatment is blind.
The best resource anyone has is to study, study, study...everything! Not just psych treatments. Study things that impact the brain and the relatively easy ways, and most of them inexpensive, to test on your own if they are valid concerns in your case or not.
And of course many resources are simply lifestyle choices. Is the diet heavy on pizza and sugars, or is it heavy on raw veggies? Is there heavy exercise (relative for each person) being observed several times a week? Is the sleep-wake cycle being maintained as regular as a clock? Not that any of these will heal someone, but they make any pills and any treatments work better, and can actually help to reverse whatever the physical or mental problem actually is. In other words, I think a portion of mental illness we see these days is a direct result of a negligent lifestyle. We the sicker ones have to put huge emphasis on this, where the young and healthy don't...yet...wait till they get a little older, then they'll see what happens.
Other than self-study and self-direction with a cooperative MD, we really don't have any resources, other than a few dozen mysterious brain altering molecules praised by the FDA gods.
All that said, we've all witnessed people reborn into new lives with ADs, APs, benzos, stimulants, and mood stabilizers. When they work, they really work. Why or how, we'll never know.
Full circle back to the beginning. Blind diagnosis and blind treatment, those are our resources. I just think we exceedingly exaggeratedly omit everything from the neck down or anything we or our doctor don't know about. After all, it is human nature to be "down on what we are not up on".
poster:bleauberry
thread:895787
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20090505/msgs/895824.html