Alternative Treatments Archives – Page 9 of 10

Medical Alternatives to ECT

04.26.2016 by Molly McHugh // Leave a Comment

What are some medical alternatives to ECT? I have never had ECT, though I definitely have had illness episodes that are similar to those who are suffering now and being recommended the procedure. Disclosure: I am adamantly against the treatment, consider it abusive and think it should be banned.

Especially forced ECT on children, experiemental ECT on low IQ kids. Maybe you can agree with me on at least that much. And if you think there is no risk of permanent brain damage – you are simply ill informed and being given incomplete information about the treatment.

You can rally for it on your side if you think it is ‘safe and effective’ and a good treatment for serious depression. That’s fine, I just happen to not agree and think it is never ok to do intentional damage with risk of permanent damage in treating something that can be treated in other ways.

If you do have the proceduce I hope all goes as well as is possible. But I really hope you would consider every other option to get through your emotional/physical crisis and state of suffering: Take a Staycation Instead of Having ECT Treatments.

A Few Thoughts To Think About Before Consenting to ECT

If you think ECT is ‘safe and effective’ here are a couple thoughts for you think about:

“After one, two or three ECTs, the trauma causes typical symptoms of severe head trauma or injury including headache, nausea, memory loss, disorientation, confusion, impaired judgment, loss of personality, and emotional instability. These harmful effects worsen and some become permanent as routine treatment progresses.”

Source: ECT Works By Damaging the Brain

“Electroshock never addresses the cause of the person’s problems and offers no cure.”

Source: Brain Damaging Effects of Electroshock

We Need Better Treatments for Depression

It’s horrible that anyone is in a mental state of severe suffering and feeling that taking the risk of damaging their brain to alleviate that suffering with ECT is a risk worth risking.

Personally, it makes me feel bad.

We need better treatments for depression, at all stages of the illness for those who are bipolar, suffer from Major Depressive Disorder or other mental illness. I think we can all agree on that.

Better treatments that make even having to consider ECT a thing of the past…

Are There Medical Alternatives to ECT?

They do not know how ECT works… other than it induces seizures in the brain and causes changes in functioning and that it damages the brain.

There are newer therapies being developed that have a similar effect on the brain (effects changes in functioning) but are considered to be less harmful. I will do a write-up on each when I have more time and then link to the page about the heading here. Give me a couple of weeks.

Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS), Vagus Nerve Stimulation, Magnetic Therapy, Deep Brain Stimulation. Others?

I will add others as I find them during my research. Those who are developing less invasive and less harmful treatments for severe depression deserve to be highlighted and supported (in my humble opinion).

How Did ECT Come To Be?

A lovely psychiatrist decided humans were like pigs so why not shock them. The treatment has pretty much an exciting (not) and disturbing an origin as that.

“It occurred to me,” wrote Cerletti, “that the hogs of the slaughterhouse could furnish the most valuable material for my experiments…At this point I felt we could venture to experiment on man, and I instructed my assistants to be on the alert for the selection of a suitable subject.”

Source: Who Invented ECT?

We are not pigs. And our brains are not heavy machinery that you can jolt with electric currents to get up an running again. Damaging an already under-functioning or diseased organ is usually counter-indicative in medical settings. ECT is brain damaging and should be banned.

We need better and more effective treatments for depression that get at the root causes. Treatments that help to heal a person, not harm them.

In an article written by Dr. Frank Ayd in 1963, Cerletti is quoted as saying “When I saw the patient’s reaction, I thought to myself: This ought to be abolished! Ever since I have looked forward to the time when another treatment would replace electroshock.”

Let’s figure out alternatives. Molly

Photograph is “Pig in a bucket” by Ben Salter.

You Have a Second Brain – Your Gut!

04.25.2016 by Molly McHugh // 5 Comments

You have a second brain – your gut! And you are smarter than you think. Literally! We all have what scientists now refer to as a ‘second brain’ – our gut (stomach, esophagus, small intestine and colon).

And this second brain can have an effect on our emotions such as feelings of depression and anxiety.

For real. Not just in a metaphorical way or how we assume to have ‘gut feelings’ or are told to trust our ‘gut instincts’ – your gut really can feel all on its own… and act. On its own meaning without getting input from the brain or spinal cord.

And then send that information back to the brain.

That’s where you come in. Your higher thinking processes then process the information. And you feel happy, depressed, calm, anxious, etc.

The fancy name for this is the enteric nervous system (ENS). It was discovered by Michael Gershon, M.D., a researcher and specialist in enteric neurobiology.

He is the author of the book “The Second Brain: A Groundbreaking New Understanding of Nervous Disorders of the Stomach and Intestine.” It was first published in 1998.

You can read a chunk of the book (26 pages) that covers how this discovery was first made before Gershon, then ignored by scientists for decades, then ‘rediscovered’ by Gershon – on Google Books.

Your Gut Can Heal Depression

The below is an article from Psychology Today.com titled: Your Backup Brain.

“It also sends signals north to the brain that directly affect feelings of sadness or stress, even influence memory, learning, and decision-making.”

“It relies on, and in many cases manufactures, more than 30 neurotransmitters, including serotonin, that are identical to those in the brain.”

“What’s more, tinkering with the second brain in our gut has lately been shown to be a potent tool for achieving relief from major depression”

You can read the full article here: The Backup Brain.

A Prescription of Probiotics Instead of Prozac? To Treat the Second Brain?

This is exciting news as if more natural treatments for depression are found (that actually work!) then many more folks will be treated successfully and become well… not medicated to death with psychotropic medications.

Psychotropic meds such as antidepressants are toxic and all have serious side effects. Also, the ‘proof of their efficacy’ (whether they work or not) is being strongly debated.

In walk a new class of drugs that affect the gut directly, not the brain?

The below is quoted from the article Can Probiotics Treat Depression on Psychcongress.com.

“Timothy G. Dinan, MD, PhD, and colleagues from the University College Cork in Ireland, defined a class of probiotics, called psychobiotics, as “a live organism that, when ingested in adequate amounts, produces a health benefit in patients suffering from psychiatric illness.”

That may be what is in store for the future. Prescriptions for a gut bug that has been identified to have a specific affect on the brain and is then used to treat your mental illness. Wow, no?

That is seriously exciting info. Take Probiotics to Treat Your Depression?

Targeted, isolated strains of probiotics may be the replacement for our current arsenal of chemical antidepressant and anti-anxiety drugs.

Studies are being done to test the effects of probiotics on moods. So far the results are promising.

A randomized control study at the Leiden Institute of Brain and Cognition at Leiden University in the Netherlands found that:

“There was no difference between the two groups before the intervention began.”

“But after four weeks, people who took the probiotic reported significantly less reactivity to sad mood than the control group—meaning that when they were put in a sad mood, they had fewer recurrent distressing or aggressive thoughts.”

Source: Can Probiotics Improve Your Mood?

Exciting news for anyone who suffers from anxiety and depression. And of course anyone with Manic Depression.

Will Less Psychotropic Medication Give Better Results?

04.24.2016 by Molly McHugh // Leave a Comment

Will less psychotropic medication give better results? Many years ago – 25 or so – I was given large doses of psychotropic medications that probably would have felled a race horse. Or at least given him or her a good, long, drug-induced nap.

The medications were either classified as mood stabilizers or antipsychotics. How much I was given or the name of the medications I have no idea. It was when I was hospitalized for out-of-control mania.

After I stabilized and left the psych ward in 2 weeks or less, I didn’t take psychotropic medication, was not prescribed long-term use.

[bctt tweet=”You Do Not Need to Be Medicated to Death. Search for Root Causes of Mood Swings.”]

Except one time and had to go off the drug quickly as it caused serious side effects.

I’m lucky that way. I was so intolerant to most psychotropic medication that doctors really could not prescribe them to me. Or if they did, my medical history showed they only had a short-term positive effect. And that is usually what happened.

Intolerant to Toxic Meds Not Treatment-Resistant

The only psychotropic medication that I took for an extended time at a large dose was when I was in treatment in my early twenties and given lithium.

The dose was such I had to have monthly blood levels checked. After a slow downward spiral of not getting better I ended care with the doctor after that year trial. Then slowly took myself off the med.

And I was unstable at times until found treatments that helped the bipolar as well as other undiagnosed medical issues I had.

That’s my story – just so you know where I am coming from. I was told I was one of the treatment-resistant type of patients. Now I know I really wasn’t. The toxic meds were just making me ill.

Getting better and not taking large doses of meds has been a very long and complicated journey. I share my story in my book: Bipolar 1 Disorder – How to Survive and Thrive.

Why Less Psychotropic Medication Can Be More Effective

There are many reasons why less medication to treat your bipolar illness may be more effective. A primary one simply that you are being prescribed the wrong meds. Or you are being over-prescribed multiple medications that you do not need.

Who would that NOT make sick?

Another important issue to consider is that you have underlying medical conditions affecting your mood states. Health issues that need medical attention such as thyroid disease (even if blood levels normal), sugar intolerance, chemical exposure and sensitivity, allergies, addiction issues, etc.

If you are actually Manic Depressive or suffering from Major Depression then a doctor or psychiatrist is acting ethically trying to stabilize you with what they have in their med vault. In my humble opinion.

They don’t want you to harm yourself or others, or end-up hospitalized. They want to help you be a productive member of society and be able to work, have relationships, be self-sufficient.

But a large part of the problem is they go for the big guns (large doses of meds) at the get go, due to the influence of Big Pharma. Billionaire drug manufacturers who pay the doctor to treat you like an oversized mammal and medicate you to death.

Rather than having the doctor treat you like a sentient being who has been unfortunate enough to inherit the serious medical condition Manic Depression. And is struggling through life like everyone else is.

You may need to have drug treatment at times, but you are not a pharmaceutical human recepticle that needs every med they’ve been told to prescribe to patients like you.

And often you do not need to take large doses of drugs that are being prescribed. Or the 10 plus they are trying to get you to down with a glass of water or meal daily.

They Do Not Know How Psychotropic Medications Interact

The physician may not tell you… but they do NOT know how many of these drugs interact with each other. They do not know the potentiating effect of this med or if that med is decreasing the effectiveness of your other meds.

In actuality, they don’t know how these drugs work at all in many respects for the condition you are being treated for. They still do not know how lithium works, only can postulate.

“Doctors don’t know exactly how lithium works to stabilize a person’s mood, but it is thought to help strengthen nerve cell connections in brain regions that are involved in regulating mood, thinking and behavior.”

Source: Lithium for Bipolar Disorder.

I can give them some thoughts too… as someone who almost died when on large doses of the med.

Create Drugs Then Create Mental Illness Categories

Much of what is touted as biological psychiatry is anything but biological. It is ‘pharmacological psychiatry’. A medical approach that comes from creating synthetic drug products to sell and market. Create in a lab so patents can be issued and lots of money made. Then find symptoms they can prescribe the meds for.

And then create new diagnostic categories to label people with a ‘newly classified in the DSM’ illness to be able to prescribe the drugs to. So they get insurance payments i.e. make money.

That is what the new ‘bipolar spectrum’ created in 1994 is all about. Bipolar 2 Disoder is not bipolar i.e. Manic Depression. It is a form of depression that has been around for decades.

You Are Smart and Special

Or the person has other mental – or physical – health issues. But everyone would rather get to think they are smart and special and get to say all their problems are because they are bipolar. You are smart and special, don’t need a diagnosis for that.

No one in their right mind would want a diagnosis of bipolar. Or to be put on psychotropic medication. Trust me on this one. But Big Pharma loves this approach. They’ve been making billions of dollars controlling doctors and the medical sciences fields for decades.

“Psychotropic drugs, such as chlorpromazine, imipramine, or diazepam, were developed by astute researchers, at a time when several neurotransmitters had not yet been discovered and when little was known about the physiology of neurotransmitters.”

“The modes of action of these first psychotropic drugs were discovered years after they had been successfully used clinically, and are still undergoing further study.

Source: Psychotropic Medications, Psychiatric Disorders and Higher Brain Functions.”

They know effects – some of them – these drugs have on the brain or on the way a patient may respond (sedation, increase in energy) but they do not know specifically how or why they may help you.

Psychotropic Medications Are a Guessing Game

It’s all a guessing game, though your physcian will lead you to believe is all very scientific and well proven. Then if you don’t respond as expected, or adversely… it’s your issue maybe. And not caused by the harmful chemicals they are instructing you to put into your system.

Take away point: All of these medications have serious side effects. More potential dangerous effects the more medications you are prescribed and take as directed and the larger amount of the drug you are prescribed.

If you feel you do need help with a psychotropic medication to calm your moods or try and treat serious depression and experience unwanted side effects, know that it is possible to take less than the doctor prescribes and possibly still get an effect that helps you to stabilize or feel better.

And that side effects are common – the meds are toxic. Being prescibed more or a higher dose will just make you sicker, not better.

The best defense is to never agree to take these meds, or get off as quickly as possible. Even for those like me who were forced to due to hospitalization for a crisis.

Then I was misled by a psychiatrist who did not inform me accurately about the medical treatment that was being recommended i.e. high doses of lithium for an extended time. There is no way that could have continued without debillitating effects.

And I came close to losing my life as a result i.e. suicide. One story I read recently is a woman who was started on lithium in her late teens. Now in her thirties, she needs a kidney transplant and has to undergo dialysis. What wonderful medical care.

Most psychiatrists do not inform patients about the harm psychotropic medication can cause. They just want to write prescriptions, pretend to treat a ‘chemical imbalance’ they know you do not have and make money.

Know this reality and protect yourself, protect your family. Search for other ways to be well. When you can.

Cheers. Molly