Clever drug companies

How brilliantly big pharma has succeeded yet again. It has managed to convince gullible doctors and parents pre-softened by all the emphasis on autism (a condition that does emerge in early childhood), that there is also something called “childhood schizophrenia.” Well done. Bravo. Parents are now on the alert for it in children as young as two. I am not doubting that children have mental health problems. Psychiatry has famously failed adults by continuing to insist that emotional problems are biochemistry. The repercussions of this meds only approach are far worse for children.

Posted by Sandra (below), on Circle of Moms: Mothers of Special Needs Children, in answer to another “mom” Jennifer whose nine year old has schizophrenia.

“if you don’t mind me asking, how old was she when she was diagnosed? has she always had problems or is it a new thing? how is she handling it? sorry if i am being forward or if you just don’t want to answer, it’s just i have a 2 yr old girl who may have childhood schizophrenia unfortunately she is to young to get a proper diagnosis. i’m just not sure what to expect or what is going to happen with her so am looking for other mums who have been through similar”

Thrown back up through the nether world

Last week I spent three days in bed with a nasty viral infection, leaving me this week with little enthusiasm to tackle a daily blog post or even edit what I “churn” out. With Christmas fast approaching and my youngest due home from college in three days, you will be hearing less and less from me for a while. The flu that held me in his vice-like grippe for three days made me feel like I had been dragged through the seven gates of hell and back.

There is not much to report on the holistic recovery front. I was dismayed to see the article in the New York Times about the drugging of children on Medicaid. When did primary school performance (primary school no less!) become so important? Makes you wonder who the insane folks really are. The saddest part of the article for me was the mother who somehow had allowed herself seven years ago to be talked into believing that her three year old son was mentally disturbed. Now she has a ten year old son with adult health problems and still seems to feel that she has chosen the right course of action.

I remember the ease with which young parents bought into Ritalin when my own children were small. As girls gained political ascendancy in the school system boys became more and more viewed as a nuisance factor. They were expected to take on the characteristics of girls, not to be valued for their own characteristics of fearlessness, civil disobedience, curiosity, and physical strength.

Since undergoing sound therapy, I am much more aware that my dreams are a bridge to somewhere else in me. The dreams haven’t changed, but something in me has changed about my relationship to them.

It is easier for me to see sound therapy’s effect on Chris. After his first session he started a daily jogging routine. His body moves with more fluidity. I am noticing less and less of those awkward mechanical moves.

Ian and I had insisted at our last meeting with Dr. Stern that the Serdolect be eliminated completely. Chris’s medication is finally starting to be lowered. Chris has been extraordinarily tired, which signals to me that the sound therapy is helping him get better by reducing the need for the medication. The “need” for the medication lasting beyond the initial crisis period is the view of the psychiatrists at the hospital, not mine.

The true believers

I have noticed that the people who have recovered from schizophrenia and who believe that recovery is not only possible, but permanent, are people who have undergone certain psychotherapies and/or rituals or have simply wrested recovery away from the views of the professionals and placed the responsibility on themselves. They have either taken themselves outside the system and chosen a do-it-yourself approach (e.g. recovered by whatever means they had at their disposal) or else entrusted themselves to the views of psychiatrists and therapies who are also not part of the mainstream, e.g. transpersonal psychology (Stanislav Grof), transactional analysis (Eric Berne), shamanic journeys.

Medications and power

When Ian and I met with Dr. Stern earlier this month we urged her to take Chris off Serdolect and not to substitute another antipsychotic. For once, even Ian was on my side about the Serdolect after we realized that it can lead to sudden cardiac arrest. Somehow, Dr. X at the psychiatric hospital had “forgotten” to tell us about this particular side effect, probably because he had finally managed to get me to shut up about his adding a second medication on top of the Abilify. It was only after Chris went for an ECG that it dawned on me why he was having one in the first place. I didn’t bother researching Serdolect’s particular drawback because all antipsychotics have side effects (at least this one wasn’t clozapine) and I am sick and tired of continually being on the offensive with the doctors and being on the opposite side of Ian.

I feel that with the subsequent interventions that Chris has undertaken since leaving the hospital in May (Tomatis Therapy and Sound Therapy) he has a better grip on reality and will be in stronger position than before to get off these stupid medications once and for all. He also has to be in a stronger position to make his own case with Dr. Stern. I really hate having a psychiatrist involved in what I consider our “family business,” meaning Chris, Ian and I coming up with our own agreed strategy. If there were no prescription medications involved, we would only be needing Dr. Stern to act as a counselor. Prescription medications means a psychiatrist has to be involved. The psychiatrist then has gained enormous power over the decision making of the patient and family. I forgot to add that there is a second psychiatrist involved who I haven’t met – the whom who prescribes the medications. This is an arrangement that we agreed upon with Dr. Stern so that she can meet with Chris without medications being the main topic of discussion. Where there is a psychiatrist, there is medication, however, because Dr. Stern needs to confer with the second psychiatrist about them.

If I think too much about this and actively intervene, I’ll be headed for another round of sleepless nights. My new strategy is to trust Dr. Stern to do the right thing with Chris’s fully informed consent. Dr. Stern has been remarkably open to listening to us in the past and has professed a desire to see Chris off the medications “at some point.” The point where that “some point” is located is of course up to debate.

The plastic brain

The concept that the brain is plastic (has the ability to change and grow) was not in vogue a mere six years ago when Chris had his breakdown. The doctors informed us very solemnly that Chris absolutely had to be on antipsychotics because otherwise his brain would deteriorate. They spoke in terms of his brain becoming rigid, like solidifying, but flawed, concrete. Ian and I were scared stiff that we had already lost precious time and that Chris would soon be little more than a vegetable if we didn’t put him on meds right away. (There are valid reasons why antipsychotics may be needed for the short term.)

A person experiencing a psychotic breakdown is terrifying to the uninformed observer, to whom the symptoms must surely be evidence of brain deterioration. This is where science will rush in with neuroleptic medications to “put a stop” to the problem. Pharmacy has you in a moment of crisis and it will not let go of you. The fear of a return of symptoms and therefore a further deterioration of the brain is ever present.

But today’s New York Times reports on how a dancer, who has lived with cerebral palsy for over 30 years, has improved beyond recognition through unconventional “body work” training he undertook. His choreographer specifically did not want to learn much about his condition, because that would have prejudiced any outcomes she was hoping to achieve. It is also interesting that the dancer underwent twelve years of physical therapy without getting the dramatic changes in the way he walks that the body work therapy has achieved in a year.

“Everybody told me there was nothing I could do,” he said. “That’s just what you hear, from the time you’re 5 to adulthood. Tamar gave me an option.”

Everybody tells you that schizophrenia is a chemical imbalance in the brain that will require you to take medications probably for the rest of your life. Don’t believe it. There are many exciting therapies that Chris has undertaken that are changing the way we view what “the experts” tell us is a lifelong illness. Most of these therapies have not been publicized for schizophrenia.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/25/arts/dance/25palsy.html?_r=1&hpw

Getting out in the world

I had a nice chat with Chris last night. He has decided to enter the annual race next month around our city. This is just super, on many levels. Chris is a person who I have never seen run, not even as a small boy. He just didn’t run, period. (He didn’t even walk until he was sixteen months old.) I hope I am not reading too much into this, but my recollection is that the day after his first sound therapy, he went out for a small run. He has been out nearly every day since. He told me at the time that he no longer wanted to stay in the house all day, he just had to get out.

His wanting to exercise is also partly the issue of the weight he had put on. I told him that the weight goes with the medications and that he shouldn’t beat himself up too much over this by starving himself or thinking that exercise will fix this. At least 70% of weight loss is what you are eating, not what exercise you do. Unfortunately, the medications make it impossible not to eat. Until Chris is off his medications, weight will be a problem.

We discussed how long he should continue with the sound therapy. I believe we have only started. Chris said that he had to keep adjusting to a different reality and he didn’t know if this was useful or not. So we discussed the pros and cons and then he said something very interesting. He said that after undergoing the sound therapy he was no longer afraid. I’ll leave it there.

Old and wise

Sunday, I skipped church and headed to my local chapter meeting of a network that functions as “a safe haven environment for the airing of novel experiences and ideas on scientific as well as transrational, spiritual, or similar topics.” In short, the group is composed of mainly older people with unusual ideas and life experiences. An out-of-body experience like Chris had is nothing new to many of the members. I sat next to a recently transgendered woman in her late fifties/early sixties, who is fitting into her new skin quite nicely, although the early stages of the transition were a bit off-putting. As I came out of the washroom and she was going in, I realized with a start that she would now be forever designated to pass through the door marked “Eve”.

How did I find myself hanging out with this crowd? Well, as I too, get older and more reflective, my eyes have been opened to people who have a more elastic view of what reality means. I see these people as my guides, in the same way that Chinese people respect their elders for their wisdom accumulated over a lifetime.

The need not to panic and to stay positive

Points one and two from Tuesday’s blog post were about the importance of keeping calm and being positive. While this seems self-evident, it is not. The reason why it is not, I am sorry to say, is the medical profession. Until relatives begin to view them with skepticism, as we do with lawyers, real estate agents, and financial advisors, they will control the outcome, not you.

Your doctor, as I have said elswhere in my posts, does not really believe in your relative’s recovery. It is not what he or she has been trained to expect. Their expectations of a happy outcome are not transferred because they lack belief. Your relative’s eventual recovery is outside the scope of their limited experience because they are mainly familiar with scientific studies usually funded by drug companies.

Pharmaceutical companies have a vested interested in keeping doctors pessimistic about their patients. Here is a recent example: “The Worldwide-Schizophrenia Outpatient Health Outcomes study (W-SOHO) was a three-year observational study designed to assess costs and outcomes in outpatients using antipsychotics” says lead author Dr Jamie Karagianis from Eli Lilly Canada Inc. “On average, 19% were in paid employment, 69% were living in dependent housing and 62% had reported sexual problems in the previous month.” Hmmn, this to me implies that there is a causal link between being on medications, living in dependent housing and having sexual problems. Your doctor will not see it in this light. He will only think that this scenario is a typical outcome of schizophrenia while perhaps offering to prescribe a new medication for sexual problems. The job of getting out from under this dismal scenario falls to you.

Just about everything, not just schizophrenia, is outside the scope of your doctor’s experience, so for the really big medical scares of our day and age, if you are planning to survive and thrive, be prepared to reject just about everything the doctor has to say or to convey about your prospects.

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Source: Wily-Blackwell news release

Niacin prevents Alzheimer’s disease

I have been exchanging a flurry of e-mails with my older sister over the past few days. Since my mother developed the signs of dementia/Alzheimer’s (does it really matter which?) in her late seventies, her three daughters have been understandably concerned about preventing it in us!

I first learned about prevention of dementia from Dr. Abram Hoffer. He experienced great success with his own mother and went on to recommend it for other members of his family, none of whom developed dementia. I immediately started on the same combination of vitamins that Dr. Hoffer recommends for schizophrenia. I felt there was a connection between my mother’s dementia and Chris’s schizophrenia. Both are related to the nervous system.

I saw dramatic results within three days. These results have stayed with me. I am faithful to my daily regime of 3 grams Vitamin B3, 3 grams vitamin C, 3 B complex tablets, omega 3 and zinc.

Dramatic results:

1. Sharp, focused thinking
2. Improved skin
3. Thicker hair

Dr. Hoffer advises that you reverse dementia if you catch its early signs, which he did with his mother, but that once dementia has set in, there is no turning back the symptoms. He also advises that if you begin the regime in your sixties, you need straight niacin, not niacinimide or flushless niacin.

Here’s an interesting background story on niacin preventing Alzheimer’s disease from the Orthomolecular Medicine News Service, dated December 9, 2008
http://www.orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v04n25.shtml I urge you to read it.