Bipolar disorder with minimal medication… from an 'expert' by experience……………. Useful search option >>>
January 20, 2015 Leave a comment
Wellness Recovery Action Planning – WRAP has been an important part of my recovery. If in USA you probably know of The Copeland Center.
Not so many use WRAP in the UK. If you live here and want to learn about WRAP and how it can help, I will be facilitating a one day WRAP course in Leicester on 10th February 2015. Click on image to find out more.
WRAP Training in Leicester UK
January 18, 2015 3 Comments
Studying bipolar for 16 years led me to the realization that bipolar overlaps with other forms of emotional distress as in this diagram from our 2012 bipolar textbook:
Many psychiatric diagnoses have many similar symptoms
They also have similar causes
To tackle a disorder effectively we need a good idea of the true causes.
Causes can be divided up using these ‘five keys to well-being’ (developed from the work of Dr Liz Miller), with each cause being associated with deficiency or troubles in one or more of these key areas:
Causes of emotional distress match up with the causes of many other chronic modern disorders.
What are the common causes behind all these troubles associated with modern living?
Which common causes can I help people eliminate from their lives?
One common cause is simply;
What we put in our mouths
Recovery depends on being prepared to change what we eat and drink, whether we smoke and being able to question those who encourage us to take any form of drug.
When we can improve the ‘what, when and how’ of what we ingest (and may or may not digest), then healthy activities become easier, we sleep better and we can think more clearly.
Clearer thinking allows us to learn more, such that we can deal with other causes of disorder in our lives.
Read about improving digestion and nutrition as a way of reducing these modern disorders
Roger Smith – www.rethinkingbipolar.com – This article was originally posted here on 3rd July 2014
January 18, 2015 1 Comment
What caused you to have #bipolar?
Roger, “I have identified something like 100 things that led to me taking lithium and olanzapine for 12 years. Of these the cause I most want to tell the world about is food allergies. For decades I did not believe people who told me that I needed to have less wheat, milk and coffee. It is only since I stopped these altogether that I started to be able to sleep better, move better and think more clearly. I recommend anyone diagnosed with any modern disorder to find out more about the benefits of consuming less wheat, milk and coffee.”
October 2, 2014 1 Comment
Teaching about nutrition and mental health since 2005, I have found that all my students who have had mood disorders (who have told me what they eat) have been on low-fat diets. Some simply choose low-fat options from the supermarket, while many have had periods of extreme low-fat dieting. Others simply choose to eat lots of fruit and avoid foods such as butter because they believe fruit = good / butter = bad.
None of this is surprising as food companies, drug companies, governments and health services tell us not to eat too much fat.
One change I noticed recently is more of my students are now already aware that the brain consists mainly of fat (65% to 75% depending on how it is measured) and this helps in explaining why healthy fats are necessary to allow our bodies to support and repair brain cells. What is less well-known is that healthy fats and in particular those rich in omega-3 allow you to create new healthy brain cells regardless of your age. This is contrary to what doctors were being taught up until a few years ago. Your current doctor may be unaware of this important new finding.
Part of recovering from any mood disorder is, I believe, to get expert nutritional advice on how much fat is likely to be good for you and how to get a full range of healthy fats into your diet. This is something I can help you to get to grips with, so please contact me if you are seriously considering dietary changes to help stabilize/improve your mood.
If you have not been convinced so far of how essential fat is for a healthy brain then please pay special attention to at least the first ONE MINUTE of this interview of Dr Perlmutter…
You can find out more about nutrition and brain health by visiting:
I have just posted a direct link to the full Mercola Perlmutter Interview 22nd January 2015
September 5, 2014 7 Comments
The mind is a curious thing. We can know what is good for us and yet keep doing exactly the opposite.
It is as if somewhere in us there is a need to fail, a need to keep being unwell or a fear of what will happen if we were to become a lot fitter.
We all seem to have habits that hinder our recovery. For many it is smoking or drinking alcohol, while there are so many other ways in which we seem to choose to hurt ourselves.
For me, it is usually eating too much or eating things that I know will harm me. I have decided this has gone on too long so I am teaming up with Maria from a social enterprise called Mind’s Well to better understand why it is that I and millions of others can get stuck in a loop something like this:
I want to know the latest thinking on how we break-out of such loops whether these are described as self-harming or habitual*?
If you have suffered from bipolar or for that matter anything at all then you may be interested in one of Maria’s courses such as:
BPS Accredited Training on Managing Self-harming Behaviours in York on 24th September 2014
*Note: Many people manage to go for long periods without self-harming and would not describe their self-harm as at all habitual.
August 15, 2014 1 Comment
Older people cannot tolerate as much lithium. This is a fact that some doctors and psychiatrists seem to have forgotten. Lithium is killing people.
Lithium continues to be prescribed as sedative and many people continue to take lithium for decades. This is bad because lithium gradually damages every part of our bodies and the more we consume the more damage is done.
If you are taking lithium then you need a plan for taking less as you get older. Even if you feel you benefit from taking lithium you need to be aware that it does cause damage and there is no such thing as a safe level.
Recently I accompanied a friend to see a doctor who went on at length about how my friend’s kidneys were fine and how he was thinking about reducing the lithium dose anyway. After a bit more questioning, it became clear that my friend, who is over 60, should have had his lithium dose reduced much sooner in the light of deteriorating kidney function.
We left with an agreement that his dose could be reduced from 800 to 600mg/day, something which I had agreed, for me, with my doctor when I was just 42. There is a mistaken belief that high doses of lithium are more effective than low doses. The research does not bear this out. It takes very little lithium to have a sedating effect.
Having established that less lithium was needed and my friend would most likely live longer with a less toxic level in his blood, the psychiatrist initially said my friend would feel ‘no difference at all’. It seems he had not thought through the logic of this. For 10 years my friend had been on a high level of lithium with blood tests showing that damage was being done all because the high dose was supposed to make him feel better in some way. Now he was being told that in taking less he would feel no different!
The reality is that an instant 25% reduction will cause feelings and energy levels to change. If you imagine 800mg/day as being like having a foot pushed down on a car brake pedal then 600mg/day is going to be like easing off that pressure and so with the accelerator still in the same place (the accelerator being having a busy life and simply just the energy from eating) then the car is going to speed up somewhat. The psychiatrist’s response was, “If you are going to look for problems then you will have problems.” Was he now agreeing my friend’s troubles were not of a physical/genetic origin and his energy levels were more to do with life events and lifestyle?
This psychiatrist, most likely, has no personal experience of what it feels like to be coming off a sedative drug after a decade or more of taking it every day. If you have not been through this kind of withdrawal, maybe think about someone smoking 40 cigarettes a day and then being told, “From now on you can only have 30 cigarettes a day”. It would be amazing if there were no changes in mood at all, and if there were no changes at all then why was that person feeling the need for those extra 10 toxic cigarettes?
The psychiatrist suggested waiting until my friend had used all his existing tablets before making any reduction.
What I recommended was changing from 800 to 700mg/day by cutting one 400mg tablet in half and then a half into quarters. Then 1¾ tablets = 700mg. This is a 12.5% reduction. Slightly more than the 10% recommended by most experts in this field but at least not the drastic 25% from going straight from 800 to 600. The next step 700 to 600 can now be when the new prescription comes through, giving about two weeks to adjust after the first small step and going down to 600 no later than the psychiatrist suggested.
WARNING: Before moving on to why my friend so urgently needs less lithium, I need to stress that coming off lithium altogether after taking it for years is a dangerous process. Lithium is like having brakes on and stopping it suddenly will cause a huge change in speed/mood for anyone regardless of any troubles they had before first taking it.
How lithium came back into fashion
Lithium carbonate is a naturally occurring mineral that was used for all sorts of illnesses until it was proved to be too toxic. Lithium is toxic to all parts of the body. The toxic effects have been proved to be cumulative, that is, the dose level times the number of doses determines the risk of damage.
There was a period when lithium was not used at all and the stocks of lithium in pharmacies around the world just stayed where they were. It was considered too dangerous to use. Then it was proposed as a way of slowing people down, which of course almost any toxin would do. Perhaps not surprisingly there were deaths from toxicity very early on (ref 1+2). It was however accepted that some people had too much energy for their own good and the risks were worth it. Certainly relatives found it easier than living with people who did not sleep or could not stop talking.
Why less lithium is needed as we age
The research into this has focused on deterioration of kidney function which theoretically will happen quicker in anyone taking lithium supplements. A lot of research has been carried out and it has all found the same thing. Yes, those people on lithium are losing kidney function, while damaged kidneys become less able to remove all toxins and that includes lithium.
As we get older our kidneys increasingly struggle to eliminate lithium and blood concentrations become more toxic.
In this example, greater attention to annual monitoring could have allowed this man’s lithium dosage to be reduced a year earlier as his lithium in blood result went above 0.8mmol/l and his kidney function as estimated by GFR dropped below 70.
My opinion
A diet/lifestyle that causes someone to seem ‘manic’, and have to see doctors about not sleeping, etc, requires help other than lithium tablets.
Most people will experience a lot of sedation from just 400mg/day lithium and I know people who are very satisfied taking just 100mg/day. This is said to be below the ‘therapeutic limit’, but they find it therapeutic, while avoiding the risks of complete withdrawal.
If you are supporting someone prescribed lithium, please help them with thinking about how and when they will be able to reduce the dosage. Even if they like the idea of taking lithium a sensible target could be to be on half the dose within a decade.
Summing up
Talking about lithium tends to cause controversy as so many people believe lithium helps. In some ways it does, but overall I am sure the world would be a better place if ‘lithium therapy’ could once again be banned.
Those who read this blog regularly will know there is plenty of evidence that people who have extremes of mood need more help other than tablets, especially help with getting their diet right, to cope with stress. Effective help/support is far better than labelling and drugging.
For those on psychiatric drugs regular reviews and help with reduce drug dependence are essential to avoid lives being shortened by drug effects.
Roger Smith – www.rethinkingbipolar.com – article updated 15th August 2014
References:
Page 183, “…in 1949, the FDA banned it [lithium] after it was found to cause cardiovascular problems.”, “John Cade fed it [lithium] to guinea pigs and found it made them docile.”,
Page 181 “However after looking at Cade’s [1949] clinical notes on this experiment, Johnson suggests that the results were more ambiguous. Toxic effects and ‘side-effects’ were more frequent and severe than the impression conveyed in the published paper. The notes record that one patient died, two others had to discontinue lithium because of severe toxicity and one patient refused to take it, none of which was reported in the published article.”
Bibliography:
| Year | A few research papers I feel are relevant |
| 1977 | Age as a factor affecting lithium therapy
D S Hewick, P Newbury, S Hopwood, G Naylor, and J Moody Br J Clin Pharmacol. Apr 1977; 4(2): 201–205. |
| 1993 | Kidney damage in long-term lithium patients: A cross-sectional study of patients with 15 years or more on lithium
Bendz, M. Aurell, J. Balldin, A. A. Mathé, I. Sjödin Author Affiliations 1Department of Psychiatry, University of Lund Lund 2Nephrology, University of Göteborg Göteborg 3Psychiatry and Neurochemistry, University of Göteborg Göteborg 4Department of Psychiatry, Karolinska Institute Stockholm 5Department of Psychiatry, University of Linköping Linköping, Sweden Correspondence and offprint requests to:Dr M. Aurell, Njurkliniken Göteborg liniversitet, Sahlgrenska Sjukhuset, 41345 Goteborg, Sweden |
| 2000 | Differential pharmacokinetics of lithium in elderly patients
Drugs Aging. 2000 Mar;16(3):165-77. |
| 2003 | Risk factors for the development of lithium-induced polyuria
Br. J. Psychiatry (2003) 182 (4): 319-323 |
| 2008 | Lithium-induced Nephrogenic Diabetes Insipidus: Renal Effects of Amiloride
Jennifer J. Bedford, Susan Weggery, Gaye Ellis, Fiona J. McDonald, Peter R. Joyce, John P. Leader, Robert J. Walker Author Affiliations Departments of *Medical and Surgical Sciences and †Physiology, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand; and ‡Department of Psychological Medicine, University of Otago, Christchurch, New Zealand Correspondence: Robert J. Walker, Department of Medical & Surgical Sciences, University of Otago, PO Box 913, Dunedin, New Zealand. Phone: (643) 474 0999, 8045; Fax: (643) 474 7641; E-mail: rob.walker@stonebow.otago.ac.nz |
| 2008 | Monitoring of glomerular filtration rate in lithium-treated outpatients–an ambulatory laboratory database surveillance
Nephrol Dial Transplant (2008) 23 (2): 562-565 |
| 2012 | The Effects of Lithium on Renal Function in Older Adults–A Systematic Review
J Geriatr Psychiatry Neurol (2012) 25 (1): 51-61 |
| 2012 | SOLID RENAL TUMORS OF COLLECTING DUCT ORIGIN IN PATIENTS WITH CHRONIC LITHIUM NEPHROPATHY
Boer Walther, Goldschmeding Roel, Rookmaaker Maarten1 http://ndt.oxfordjournals.org/content/27/suppl_2/ii66.abstract (scroll down to find article SUO018) |
| 2013 | Management of the renal adverse effects of lithium
Adv. Psychiatr. Treat. (2013) 19 (6): 457-466 |
| 2014 | Increased risk of solid renal tumors in lithium-treated patients – Clinical Investigation
Kidney International (2014) 86, 184–190; doi:10.1038/ki.2014.2; published online 22 January 2014 Mohamad Zaidan1,2,3, Fabien Stucker4, Bénédicte Stengel5,6, Viorel Vasiliu7, Aurélie Hummel1,2, Paul Landais, Jean-Jacques Boffa4,9, Pierre Ronco4,9, Jean-Pierre Grünfeld1,2 and Aude Servais1,2 1Department of Nephrology-Transplantation, Necker Hospital, APHP, Paris Descartes University, Paris, France 2Paris Descartes University, Sorbonne Paris Cité, Paris, France 3INSERM U845, Centre de Recherche “Croissance et Signalisation”, Paris, France 4Department of Nephrology, Tenon Hospital, APHP, Paris, France 5INSERM U1018, Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health, Villejuif, France 6UMRS 1018, Univ Paris-Sud, Villejuif, France 7Department of Pathology, Necker Hospital, APHP, Paris Descartes University, Paris, France 8Department of Biostatistics, Necker Hospital, Paris, France 9UPMC Univ Paris 6, Paris, France Correspondence: Aude Servais, Department of Nephrology-Transplantation, Necker Hospital, APHP, Paris Descartes University, 149 rue de Sèvres, Paris 75015, France. E-mail:aude.servais@nck.aphp.fr Received 1 September 2013; Revised 14 November 2013; Accepted 12 December 2013 |
August 9, 2014 2 Comments
It seems I am not the only one encouraging the rethinking of bipolar disorder…
http://beyondmeds.com/2014/08/04/rethinking-bipolar-disorder-3/
August 9, 2014 1 Comment
John Read starts by telling us of two events early in his career (the first includes some strong language) that perhaps helped him appreciate the need to better understand the causes of emotional distress. I remember that John has written about his experience in New York in “A Straight Talking Introduction to the Causes of Mental Health Problems” (Page 2).
John goes on to share, slide-by-slide, research that proves schizophrenia (and I believe therefore bipolar too) is caused by what happens to us and has nothing at all to do with genetics.
The first 7 minutes is just the introduction to the talk so it is best to start watching from 7 minutes into the video:
When we see the scans of damaged brains it is not surprising that recovery from trauma and from over-medication (anti-psychotics are known to destroy brain cells) takes time. Really though, when on a good diet, brains repair themselves. People who have been unwell for decades and largely written off by traditional health services can make remarkable recoveries when they are helped to get good nutrition.
As a food chemist, recovery through better nutrition now interests me more than anything else.
August 2, 2014 2 Comments
Eating balanced meals and so minimizing snacks is not only good for mood and staying physically well, it is also better for our teeth.
As chemistry students in the 1970’s we were encouraged to dip a finger in a beaker of pure mercury to see what it felt like. It felt strange! This was a one-off for everyone in our class. Teachers knew mercury was toxic but felt it worth letting students come into direct contact with pure mercury just for a few seconds, for an experience that could be remembered for life.
Also in the 1970’s, consumption of snack-food, especially sugary sweets and potato crisps that would stick in the teeth, was on the increase. Dentistry then seemed to be almost entirely about filling teeth with mercury amalgam. I believe everyone in our class had at least one mercury amalgam tooth filling long before leaving school and a lot of children had many of these fillings.
Even all those years ago, mercury toxicity was well-understood, as was its link with mental disturbances. The ‘mad-hatter’ in Alice in Wonderland was based on the hat makers who developed severe mental health problems through using mercury every day in their work.
I doubt if it will ever be proved how much mercury fillings have contributed to a range of disorders, and I am unlikely to pay to have any of my own fillings removed after all these years. What I am hoping is that parents can be better informed and that the next generation of children are able to take better care of their teeth. Then even if one or two fillings are needed these can be with the newer non-toxic materials, especially those that need far less drilling and damage to the teeth, as described in the film below this excellent info-graphic:
Discover more about mercury and how you can get this toxic, bio-accumulative substance from your dentist through our info-graphic “Mercury Dental Fillings: By the Numbers.” Use the embed code to share it on your website or visit our info-graphic page for the high-res version.
<imgsrc="http://media.mercola.com/assets/images/infographic/dental-fillings-infographic.png" alt="mercury dental filling" border="0" style="max-width:100%; min-width:300px; margin: 0 auto20px auto; display:block;">Discover more about mercury and how you can get this toxic, bioaccumulative substance from your dentist through our infographic “Mercury Dental Fillings: By the Numbers.” Visit our infographic page for the high-res version.
Film about mercury amalgam fillings:
July 17, 2014 1 Comment
Vitamins and Minerals Help Fight Off Diseases of The Mind and The Body
All of the following has simply been pasted here from: Life Extension Magazine because I feel it is worthy of reproducing here and in the hope that more people will appreciate how much illness can be treated and often even cured through improved nutrition. This article was recommended by a reader of my blog who was diagnosed as bipolar and now says, “I am one of those who has rejected the bi-polar label and am totally off drugs for more than two years. I was on lithium and respirdal for just six months. It took me three months to get off the drugs (with the help of Truehope supplements). I am feeling 85% recovered.”
I am not necessarily recommending any particular vitamins or minerals as a lot of research is needed to get the right supplements, whereas I have found that getting help with changing to a healthier diet to be the quickest lowest cost option for rapid improvements in health and well-being.
From: Life Extension Magazine
Interview with Abram Hoffer, M.D., Ph.D.
Hoffer: We ran it for two years, and then we did a blind follow-up. We had a follow-up team that would call the patients in every three months to see how they were doing, and at the end of the two years, we wanted to see what had happened. We found that for the patients on placebo, there was a 35% recovery rate, which is what you would expect from acute schizophrenic patients. The other two groups had about an 80% recovery rate. These results were very encouraging, so we ran another study, and another. Eventually, I did about six double-blind, controlled experiments in Saskatchewan between 1953 and 1960, and they were all confirmatory.1-3 Also, by this time, I was developing a good deal of clinical experience because I was also treating other patients who didn’t fit into our study.
By 1960, a large number of American psychiatrists had joined us, and by 1970, I think we had a collective experience of over 100,000 schizophrenic patients treated. The results were really good. They weren’t perfect-we’ve never claimed that-but they were certainly an awfully lot better than what you get today by simply taking drugs.
LEF: Have you been able to apply this to bipolar patients or other types of psychiatric problems?
Hoffer: Yes, we have. This was, later on, called Orthomolecular Psychiatry by Linus Pauling [American chemist and researcher], who published his very important paper in Science in 1968.4 For a long time, I didn’t believe that depression would really respond, but I began to see a large number of people who were bipolar or depressed.
LEF: I understand as your research continued, you also made some discoveries by accident in regard to this approach to treating certain cancers.
Hoffer: It wasn’t our discovery. We just confirmed what Linus Pauling had reported. The first observation happened in 1960. A retired professor who was psychotic was admitted to our ward, and I discovered he had cancer of the lung. He was terribly psychotic, and he was declared to be terminal. At that time, we were examining the urine for a chemical factor that has since been discovered to be crypto pyrole. I was looking for psychotic people, and normal people [for a planned trial]. When he came in, and was psychotic and had cancer, we ran [several tests on] him, and we thought we had a huge quantity of this product in his urine. So, I wanted to start him on niacin because I wanted to treat his psychosis, and I didn’t think it would do anything to his cancer.
So, I started him on niacin-1 gram taken three times per day with vitamin C-on Friday. The following Monday, he was mentally normal. It wasn’t really schizophrenia he had. He was in a delirium, and he recovered very quickly. Then, I said to him, “I want you to stay on these two vitamins as long as you can,” not expecting it would do very much for [his cancer]. He was supposed to have died within a month or two, but he remained well for another 30 months. When he died, we couldn’t get an autopsy because he died at a different hospital. But as far as I can tell, the tumor was completely gone 12 months after he started on this approach. On an x-ray, they couldn’t see the tumor anymore. This was one observation.
I had another observation in 1986; a woman who had a terminal cancer of the head of the pancreas, and she, too, made a complete recovery, and lived for 20 years.
LEF: Were there other treatments used as well, or was this the primary treatment?
Hoffer: By this time, it was a fairly comprehensive treatment because we had concluded by then that one or two vitamins wouldn’t be adequate; that this was a major nutritional problem that required a more comprehensive approach. By this time, Linus Pauling had published his very important book on cancer and vitamin C5-13 [additional citations noted]. So, having read what he and [Ewan] Cameron had written, and in my own few observations, I decided that I would do the same. Because I was well known as an expert in the field of nutrition, cancer patients who were told by their doctors that there was nothing more they could do, would demand that they come and see me.
So, I began to see more and more patients. And after seeing five that first year-and some of them did remarkably well-it gradually began to increase. Eventually, I was seeing up to 150 cancer cases a year. It’s not a cure. Every one of my patients also had the usual treatment, which consisted of either surgery, chemotherapy, radiation or some combination. But when the vitamin program was grafted onto that, they certainly felt much better, and, according to my data, they also lived a lot longer.
LEF: Should these vitamins be taken in combination, or do they have their own unique value when they’re taken individually?
Hoffer: Each vitamin has its own unique value. It depends a lot on the patient; it depends on their condition, it depends how old they are.
LEF: Do you find that they need a multivitamin, so that they get all the basic nutrients to work together with the megadosages of the other vitamins that they’re using for treatment?
Hoffer: I think one should do that. One should use a good, comprehensive approach, using the essential vitamins and minerals. Not all, because a lot of the vitamins we get from our food. But the B vitamins are the most important, I think [as well as] vitamin E, vitamin C, and maybe some of the others depending on what condition you’re treating. For example, I’ve treated a few cases of Huntington’s disease. I think that’s a double dependency of vitamin E and niacin. And when I put the patients on 4000 [international] units of vitamin E and 3 grams a day of niacin, they were the ones whom I saw got well. And this is a disease from which there is apparently no treatment.
LEF: When you say “vitamin E,” it has a whole new meaning to us these days because there are a few different components we’ve discovered now besides alpha-tocopherol. Which kind were you using?
Hoffer: The alpha-tocopherol. Four grams a day. I worked up to it. I started out with 800 units, and gradually worked it up.
LEF: Can you explain the risks related to the toxicity that exists in our environment, and how vitamin regimens can help ward off that risk?
Hoffer: I think that we are overwhelmed today with a large number of chemicals, which are present in our air, soil, water and in our food. I found that since we can no longer live in a pure world, the best thing we can do is to improve the immune system of the body so that it can deal with these toxic compounds more adequately than it has been doing, and vitamins and minerals are very helpful with that.
LEF: What is your opinion in terms of conventional medicine? Where does it fall short? For instance, why don’t government RDAs work, in your opinion, when it comes to nutrition?
July 16, 2014 Leave a comment
…is sharing this excellent 7m 31s film. It is what I have said for a few years now, just that Sean says it better and more clearly.
(Originally added to this site 8th July 2013)
These are not such new ideas. What is happening is that people like me and Sean are rediscovering stuff that has been known for years.
A man called Meyer was writing and telling as many people as he could about the ineffectiveness of labeling people with specific mental illness quite a while back (in 1896!). It is a difficult message to get across.
I studied, taught and wrote about bipolar. I even took the psychiatric drugs for it for 12 years. Gradually I discovered that bipolar is no more than a label given to people when an underlying cause has not been found.
Discovering a disorder does not have to mean a permanent disability gives opportunities for change and having a whole new life.
My review of Sean Blackwell’s book:
July 15, 2014 6 Comments
The story was: “You have had a faulty brain from birth and it took 40 years for it to show itself as a ‘bipolar brain’.”
I was struggling at work. A doctor without even meeting with me prescribed fluoxetine (Prozac). I continued to struggle and got a prescription for double the dose of fluoxetine. I became increasingly agitated and restless. Eventually I could not sleep and was taken off the fluoxetine, and within 24 hours had to be admitted to a psychiatric ward.
On the ward I was given olanzapine (Zyprexa).
Olanzapine is a powerful sedative. I was still just as anxious and restless but now had no energy to complain. The psychiatrist told me the agitation and restlessness were due to a manic episode and that my lack of energy on the ward was due to depression. I had never been depressed and never experienced agitation and restlessness in that way before.
Everyone suddenly agreed I had always been bipolar – or at least bipolar for many years. Yet, no one had mentioned bipolar before the drugs. I was told I could not be discharged unless I agreed to take lithium tablets everyday for the rest of my life. I agree to do this as I wanted to get out of the hospital.
At the time the possibility that my problems had been made worse by the drugs or this disorder had been created by drugs was not discussed. I believed what I was told. It was all I could do, as it was made clear I would have been ‘sectioned’ and kept in hospital for 3 months had I not agreed with being called ‘a manic depressive’ and taken all the tablets while the nurses watched me.
I came to believe that my brain had always been faulty and it was because of my faulty brain that I had not coped well as my job became bigger and bigger and I had been required to work more and more hours.
The drugs did not just lower my energy levels. Any more than a tiny amount gave me a headache and made it impossible to drive safely. Once out of hospital I needed to cut the Olanzapine into smaller pieces. The headaches went and I was able to focus, get back to work and believe that I was ‘in-recovery’. My bosses were OK with me having a diagnosis and were reassured because I was taking the drugs.
I did not fight against the diagnosis for many years. I kept taking a little of the drugs to keep everyone happy. The trouble was that I was not getting any better. I was getting better at taking small pieces of tablet and better at explaining what bipolar was all about. But I was very much ‘in-recovery’ rather than ‘recovered’.
As well as my full-time job, I got involved with research work which led to meeting people who had been diagnosed as bipolar and were telling us researchers that they had recovered. There were just a few who said they no longer saw themselves as in-recovery, but as fully recovered. My first reaction was that they must be wrong as I had been taught that bipolar was incurable. One psychiatrist had even told me that without drugs it was a degenerative illness and so I was never to stop taking the drugs or even think about full recovery.
Coming off the drugs after 13 years was not a simple thing at all. I did a lot of reading. I talked to a lot of people who succeeded and to people who had tried to come off too quickly and became more ill than they had ever been before. I noted how many people I had met who were no longer with us – people who thought they could manage without drugs and then… died. Coming off psychiatric drugs is not to be taken lightly. Anyone who has been on psychiatric drugs needs to research withdrawal effects and get support. Most of us struggle, but being drug free is a great goal to have. It just needs a careful realistic approach to withdrawal.
My own situation is that I am now off the psychiatric drugs. I have returned to experiencing stress in the way I used to experience stress. It is not always fun! The drugs have left me with plenty of physical reminders of the need to look after myself. I am rarely without pain as even the low doses I took seem to have taken their toll on my body. Overall though, it feels better to feel alive and face the future in a more natural way.
Mistaken and unnecessary diagnosis of bipolar disorder has become a massive worldwide problem.
The way we react when we get stressed tends to decide what we get diagnosed with. Yet, saying it is about ‘stress’, hardly moves us forward at all. As Cary Cooper says, “Everyone knows what stress is, yet no one knows what stress is”. If you have suffered badly from stress, anxiety, a diagnosis of bipolar or anything like this you may need to spend a lot of time figuring out bit by bit what stresses us, what causes us to be unwell and what helps us to stay well.
July 11, 2014 6 Comments
Not just Bipolar Disorder #notjustbipolar
Stomach Acid 1 of 4
When we get stressed, part of the fight or flight reaction is for our stomachs to make less acid. This is because it takes a lot of energy to make stomach acid and when we are stressed that energy is being used elsewhere.
Without enough stomach acid we do not digest protein at all well. If we continue to be stressed then much of the protein we eat will leave the stomach only partially digested. This is harmful to our health for these reasons:
For optimal health, then every day, we need enough of 8 essential amino acids that we can only obtain by digesting proteins. A lack of stomach acid is likely to leave us short of these vital building blocks for health and happiness. For example: Serotonin (often described as a good mood hormone) can only be made from the amino acid tryptophan. Failing to get enough tryptophan from our diet will cause us to feel less well as our serotonin levels drop. The medical intervention for low serotonin is often an SSRI drug (such as Prozac or Citalopram) however, without tryptophan you cannot make any fresh serotonin, which makes such interventions ineffective compared with improving digestion.
Below our stomach our gut has a sophisticated immune system. Its main function is to protect us against tiny organisms (especially but not only bacteria). However, our gut needs friendly bacteria such as those that allow us to digest enough vitamin B12. There has to be a chemical way for us to tell friend from foe in our guts. Every organism has unique sets (codes) of amino acids. Your immune system knows the codes for common invaders and will react to these often causing discomfort and inflammation. The trouble is that many partially digested proteins (perhaps most famously from wheat gluten) are mistaken by the immune system as invaders and so cause inflammation.
How does inflammation impact on common disorders? Reactions to improperly digested foods do not just affect the gut. This inflammation can affect our breathing, our balance, cause us to itch, cause blotches and almost always causes our energy levels and hence our moods to be more variable. Joint pain is also related to inflammation, so whether or not diagnosed with arthritis, the inflammation due to poorly digested protein tends to make us feel more pain/less well.
It seems that most people with the bipolar diagnosis have food allergies (and many may well have low serotonin due to poor digestion). Many allergies are mild and are simply described as intolerances. These may be put down to everything other than the true cause as most often the proteins causing the allergy are in that person’s favourite foods. For example: Protein in cheese is for many a source of variable moods, yet few cheese eaters will willingly give up eating cheese.
From personal experience I can say there are several effective routes for dealing with low stomach acid and through using these I can say the outlook is good. As we start to overcome low stomach acid and its effects then we can start to have more of the moods we want and need to be having. I will share what has been working for me and what I know works for thousands of others who have been diagnosed with ‘modern’ disorders and are overcoming these through improving their digestion.
For understanding allergies and intolerances I found ‘Boost your Immune System’ by Patrick Holford and Jennifer Meek to be particularly helpful
Roger Smith – www.rethinkingbipolar.com – article updated 29th June 2014
July 10, 2014 2 Comments
Recovery from bipolar or any other disorder depends on our digestive system working well.
Ideally our stomach valves remain closed most of the time. How tightly these valves close depends a lot on the fullness and acidity of the stomach. The top valve only needs to open and then close again each time we swallow a mouthful of food or drink. When the stomach is full this top valve needs to close tightly. Ideally the bottom valve will remain tightly closed until a meal has been bathed in acid long enough to:
1) kill the vast majority of the harmful organisms that can be present in food,
2) break up much of the protein with the help of the stomach enzyme, pepsin.
Stress can cause any part of the digestive system to malfunction as energy is diverted from elsewhere in the body. One effect of stress is a lack of stomach acid when it is most needed and this may contribute to the valve at the bottom of the stomach opening too soon and letting partially digested foods through. This can lead to abdominal pains as partially digested foods tend to irritate the gut lining. It can also lead to a need to get to the toilet sooner than you would normally or even to what seems like frequent diarrhoea. From a survival point of view diarrhoea is a sensible reaction to under digested food as it is more likely to contain harmful bacteria.
Food not being in contact with strong enough stomach acid for long enough can cause Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS). For everyone I have worked with who has had bad IBS, treating their low stomach acid that has lessened any pain, diarrhoea and bouts of constipation.
With low stomach acid the top stomach valve tends not to close so tightly which allows small amounts of stomach contents up into the oesophagus. The acid may be weak but with pepsin present it can start to dissolve any part of a body that is not stomach lining. This hurts! As the part of the oesophagus affected is near the heart, this pain is often called ‘heart-burn’. For some the pain is mild but can be frequent. For others the pain is severe and can even cause people to believe they are having a heart attack when it first happens.
Contrary to popular belief, pain due to too much acid or acid that is too strong is extremely rare. Here are some reasons for this:
If you get chest pains related to your digestive system then it is almost certainly due to weak stomach acid and not your stomach making excess acid. (Low acid is even more likely as you get older and is affecting 50% of those over 60.*)
If you are feeling very stressed your body will almost certainly have too little stomach acid. Saying, “Be less stressed” is not going to help, instead I want to share simple ways to improve your digestion over the next few pages.
(Next article to be added about 13th July)
Roger Smith – www.rethinkingbipolar.com – article updated 30th June 2014
Ref*… see slide 9 of:
http://www.agri-dynamics.com/Health%20and%20Education/Health%20from%20the%20gut%20up.pdf
July 9, 2014 Leave a comment
Stomach Acid 3 of 4 – Topping Up Your Acid – Not just Bipolar Disorder
If you are suffering from any kind of long-term disorder, whether; arteriosclerosis, arthritis, bipolar, chronic fatigue syndrome, depression (or any of hundreds of others) then having your digestive system work something like it should work is going to aid recovery.
For our digestive systems to work well we need to have enough stomach acid, right when we need it and not have that stomach acid or stomach contents anywhere other than in the stomach until our food is sufficiently digested to move on. Both stress and eating too frequently can cause the stomach valves to open at the wrong times. The top valve allowing acid up that burns the oesophagus leading many people to believe indigestion and heartburn to be due to stomach acid being too strong. It is usual weaker acid, just acid in the wrong place.
I want to share two remedies for low stomach acid. The first option is quick, simple and only costs about 50p/day (about $0.35/day). The second costs nothing. In the longer term I am hoping everyone who has this problem will follow me in my move to this zero cost option, which I will describe in my next blog. First though, if you are in pain or struggling with your moods you are likely to want a quick fix along with the good news that this does not involve any additional artificial drugs.
My personal experience:
I remember well my first acute problem with stomach acid. It was summer 1984 and I was working and staying in a hotel 100+ miles from home. One evening I chose the ‘mixed grill’ from the menu and was overwhelmed by the amount presented. It was huge! However, I grew up in a household where everyone was expected to clear their plate. I ate sausages, bacon, liver, kidney, black sausage a piece of steak and a whole lot more. The meal went on until midnight. I had never eaten so much! I went to bed and as always in those days slept right through the night and got up about 6:30am. Then suddenly I had the most extreme and frightening pain in the chest. This gradually eased over about an hour. Later I mentioned the pain to a colleague, who guessed the pain will have been linked to all the protein I had the night before and I would not have had enough acid to digest it all.
After this I avoided huge meals and my digestive system was fine until 1992 when a new neighbour moved in, removed our garden fence and claimed he owned part of our garden. He insisted we only communicate through solicitors which resulted in 3½ years of stress before a court case that allowed the boundary to go back to where it had always been. During the court case we had to leave the home we owned and move into rented accommodation 20 miles away as we feared this ‘mad’ neighbour so much. We were never able to return. I had not experienced stress like this before and ended up hardly sleeping at all.
Meanwhile I was experiencing indigestion every evening and this was horrible. I went to my doctor for various tests. Eventually, in 1996, I was incorrectly diagnosed as having too much stomach acid and was prescribed an acid lowering Protein Pump Inhibitor (PPI) drug.
Did I need a PPI drug? Most certainly not! It was the stress of the court case and house move that had lowered my stomach acid and was leading to the valve at the top of my stomach not closing. It was 20 years after this all started that I eventually paid for time with a nutritionist and came to better understand low stomach acid.
The nutritionist recommended Nutrigest® to be taken prior to any meal containing more than a few grams of protein. Nutrigest® is one of many tablets now available that contain natural digestive enzymes along with a source of stomach acid to aid digestion by temporarily boosting acidity, which helps with the tight closure of the top valve. If your meals are not massive then Nutrigest® tends to be very effective. For me it eliminated all IBS symptoms and all indigestion.
Nutrigest®: In the UK, expect to pay £15 for 90 tablets. At 3 per day (one per meal) that is 30 days supply costing 50p/day. Other similar tablets are available with the same acid and enzyme combination.
As I say, this is a quick fix and certainly one I was grateful for after years of suffering. – On the next page I will be sharing an even more effective zero cost option.
Warning: When stomach acid is too weak the bacteria that cause stomach ulcers can thrive, but stomach ulcers cannot be treated using additional acid. If you get more pain than usual after taking a Nutrigest® or similar tablet then stop taking these tablets as it could be due to a stomach ulcer or a severely damaged oesophagus, both of which need specialist help to ensure these conditions do not get worse. If you were ever told you had a stomach ulcer without appropriate testing then now could be a good time to ask to have your stomach checked by a specialist.
Disclaimer: Most people easily tolerate Nutrigest® because it is a natural product, however you still need to research and read the information that comes with the tablets. If in doubt consult a local nutritionist or a doctor with good knowledge of stomach acid. I am only putting stomach acid/enzyme tablets forward as one option, while the option I prefer and highly recommend is one I will write about next.
Roger Smith – www.rethinkingbipolar.com – article updated 3rd July 2014
Roger Smith (in the UK)
Rethinking Bipolar 