PITTSBURGH (Ivanhoe Broadcast News) -- Post-partum depression and even depression during pregnancy are common, but treating the condition can be especially challenging. Antidepressants are rarely recommended for pregnant or breast feeding women. So what’s a woman to do for help?
Motherhood was always in the plans for Laura Stinson. "I always knew I wanted to have four. Then, I had two and said, 'That was enough,'" Laura says.
"Then we were blessed with two extras."
Laura can say that today, but when she was pregnant with Sarah, depression set in.
How many thoughts do we have each day? Some conscientious wag has counted and come up with a figure of 60,000. Of these, 58,000 are apparently the same thoughts we had yesterday. No wonder we are bored with our own company. However, clever people - and in particular creative people - have gaps between thoughts, which is why they come up with new ideas. Simply put, this seems to me what transcendental meditation does: it transcends - or goes beyond - thought, providing these gaps and allowing the mind to programme itself afresh. You do it for 20 minutes, morning and evening.
I learnt about it 15 years ago. A friend I met on a train had just taken it up and I was curious. I don't know what I was expecting but certainly not what happened, which was that after two months I could climb the stairs without taking a puff of my inhaler. I had suffered from asthma since the age of six. They said six puffs of the inhaler a day would fix it, but I was having about 20. After coping with the stairs, I left the inhaler behind when I went out. Then I went away for the weekend without it. Then I forgot about it altogether and haven't used it for years. I learnt that during meditation our oxygen intake drops by 16 per cent.
(June 7, 2004) -- Americans' use of medications like Prozac has soared over the past few years. Is our growing pill habit a necessary antidote for our increasingly stressful lives, or do we just feel entitled to happiness on demand?
Crippling Stress
It happened on a sultry September morning in 1998, right after Denise Pinel, then 38, dropped off her two sons for their first day back at school after a busy summer. Walking through the door of her Westminster, California, home, she felt achingly empty. Suddenly, Pinel was enveloped by a suffocating sense of dread: Her heart started racing, her head pounded, and she couldn't catch her breath. "I was so frightened; I thought I was having a heart attack," she recalls.
Her symptoms subsided after a few hours, but over the next two weeks she had several similar episodes. "I felt like I was spiraling out of control," says Pinel, who finally sought help from her family doctor. After reviewing her symptoms and giving her a physical, the doctor diagnosed...
Financial advantages of complicated plan vary greatly among senior citizens
Nearly two months after introduction of the new Medicare drug discount cards, one thing is clear: The program is very helpful, of little help and of no help at all.
Which one is it? That depends on whom you ask.
Confused yet?
So are the many senior citizens still trying to figure out what the drug cards are all about.
A deep, inherited anxiety renders children with selective mutism literally speechless
(January 16, 2004) -- The child sits at the back of the classroom and never speaks. His teacher has tried every technique she knows to get him to open up, to respond in even the simplest of ways. Nothing. The boy sits there, silent and stone-faced.
The teacher is frustrated, maybe a little angry. The boy's parents are baffled. At home, their son talks all of the time. No one knows what to do.
July 5, 2004
NEW YORK (AP) -- It's hard to find clear answers in the debate between the makers of video games and activists who claim the electronic diversions are destroying an entire generation.
One side claims there is no evidence that games have any damaging psychological effect on the people who play them. The other says the link between game-playing and aggression is as strong as the link between cigarettes and cancer.
A 2001 report by the surgeon general wasn't much help: While noting that media violence had a small effect on physical aggression and a moderate impact on "aggressive thinking," it concluded by saying, "The impact of video games on violent behavior remains to be determined."
When defending games, the industry often cites a 2000 Washington State Department of Health study that found "research evidence is not supportive of a major public concern that...
Shopping can be fun -- and for some even a way to make them feel better -- but it can also become compulsive and addictive just like gambling. Now one drug is putting an end to the obsession for some.
Ada Spade suffered from compulsive shopping -- a clinically diagnosed impulse control disorder. "Even when the brain was telling me, 'You don't need this. You don't need to go to the store.' The rest of the body was not cooperating."
Many people take herbal supplements and believe they are safe simply because they are available on store shelves. There are many supplements that could lead to complications for your health, yet they are still available. One of the more common supplements that has received a FDA warning is kava kava.
Kava kava is a root that is native to the islands of the South Pacific. The root has long been used in ceremonies and tribal rituals. It is chewed or brewed into a beverage. When it is not used for ceremonial rituals, kava is used for the psychiatric treatment of anxiety and insomnia.
Kava is a depressant of the central nervous system, much like alcohol. When taken in large quantities, kava produces euphoria very similar to alcohol intoxication. It is used to reduce anxiety, relieve stress, calm an irritable bladder, provide mild pain relief and as a sleep aid. The general dosage for kava kava is 100 to 200 milligrams of extract taken two to three times a day. This supplement usually takes six to eight weeks for a maximum effect.
Kava can enhance the effects of many drugs such as...
What is depersonalization?
Depersonalization is a change in an individuals self-awareness, during anxiety disorder, such that they feel detached from their own experiences, with the self, the body and mind seeming alien or distant.
Although incredibly disturbing to experience depersonalization is quite harmless, it just feels dreadful. It is caused by a shift of perception in the part of the brain that provides us with awareness of our environment an disappears after anxiety levels have been reduced back down to a 'normal' level. Anxiety disorder is the primary cause of these symptoms.
Terms commonly used to describe depersonalization include:
July 7, 2004 — You're sitting with your therapist in a lovely green park, telling him about a disturbing dream you had the other night. When he asks you to describe it, you decide to first change your appearance, dim the sun and then begin your story.
No, it's not the real world, but a kind of therapy that Kate Anthony, a London-based therapist, and others envision for the near future.
In virtual, computer enhanced therapy, the therapist and patient engage in healthy discussions through computer animated characters that represent themselves. The patient chooses...
Mary Anne Catalano used to be terrified of the highways in Canada.
The 26-year-old athletic therapist spent more than three years completely avoiding the high-speed arteries for fear of getting in an accident or losing control.
"The highway seemed like the scariest thing ever _ it was just way too high-speed," said Catalano, who estimates she added an extra half-hour to her commute every day by opting for a slower route to school from her home in Etobicoke, Ontario.
Catalano is one of thousands of Canadian drivers who experience some degree of anxiety when it comes to getting behind the wheel, said Dr. Martin Antony, director of the Anxiety Treatment and Research Center at St. Joseph's Healthcare in Hamilton, Ontario.
And although most of those individuals never seek treatment for their fear, 1 percent to 5 percent of Canadians develop...
Avoidant personality disorder (APD) ís considered to be an active-detached personality pattern, meaning that avoidants purposefully avoid people due to fears of humiliation & rejection. It ís thought to be a pathological syndromal extension of the “normal inhibited” personality, which ís characterized by a watchful behavioral appearance, shy interpersonal conduct, a preoccupied cognitive style, uneasy affective expression & a lonely self-perception ( Millon & Everly ). According to this view, the avoidant pattern seems to range ín varying degrees along a symptomological continuum from mild to extreme. In mild cases, a person may be said to be normally shy, whereas extreme cases indicate personality disorder.
Warning/Disclaimer
Here you'll find the usage, dosage, and side-effects of various psychiatric medications such as antidepressants, antipsychotics, and antianxiety medications.
The information in the "psychiatric medications pharmacology section" of HealthyPlace.com has been selectively abstracted from various sources. The intended use is as an educational aid and does not cover all possible uses, actions, precautions, side effects, or interactions of any of these medications. This information is not intended as medical advice for individual problems or for making an evaluation as to the risks and benefits of taking a particular drug.
The information here should not be used as a substitute for a consultation or visit with your family physician or other health care provider.
(AP) Thousands of mentally ill youths are unnecessarily put in juvenile detention centers to await mental health treatment, a House committee reported Wednesday.
Centers usually are not equipped to treat mental illness, and in some cases the youths have not been charged with a crime, said the report by the Democratic staff of the House Government Reform Committee.
"The use of juvenile detention facilities to house youth waiting for community mental health services is widespread and a serious national problem," said the report, which found that two-thirds of juvenile detention facilities hold youths who are waiting for mental health treatment.
SYDNEY (Reuters) - You don't need millions to be happy. At The Happiness Institute in Australia, a couple of hundred dollars may do the trick.
Since the institute opened its doors this year, men and women of all ages have been paying A$200 an hour (US$140) for lessons in how to feel great.
Businesses are spending as much as A$6,000 on half-day happiness workshops for their staff.
"You can actually increase your happiness levels. That's what we teach," said Timothy Sharp, founder of institute, which also offers group sessions from A$30 a head.
"We take people from zero and try to put a positive in their happiness bank account. You don't have to settle just for OKness. It's no more OK than having a zero bank balance. You can have a lot more," Sharp told Reuters.
Experts say only about 15 percent of happiness comes from income, assets and other financial factors. As much as 90 percent comes from elements such as...
NEW YORK (AP) _ The National Institutes of Health awarded $1.5 million Wednesday to establish a center to train researchers to study mental health after a disaster or terrorist attack.
The grant to the New York Academy of Medicine and the Medical University of South Carolina will set up the Disaster Research Education and Mentoring Center. It will train scientists to collect better data about people's mental health after disasters to help coordinate post-disaster relief services and health policy, leaders of the center said.
It's far better to deal with any symptom of stress earlier rather than later. Stress is a condition that can build up over time if left unchecked. So, become watchful for any anxiety stress symptoms.
Our bodies tell us through symptoms of stress that something is wrong. It is important to be alert to such anxiety stress symptoms and understand the situations that cause them.
A persistent symptom of stress can be a considerable health risk as they deplete your immune system. Some research even claims that 90% of illness is stress-related.
Obsessions are normal thoughts exaggerated with increased duration and intensity. Everyone has unwanted thoughts some of the time. Doubt makes the thoughts stronger. It is important to remember that no matter what the content of the obsessive thoughts, people with obsessions are very unlikely to actually carry out the negative ideas themselves. Obsessions do not have anything to do with the character and morals of the person or what is really happening or about to happen in a person’s life. Always remember that obsessive thoughts don’t really mean anything - they are just static from the striatal area of the brain. Do not judge yourself because of the obsessive thoughts or search for meaning in them. Obsessions are stimulated by anxiety and anxiety is stimulated by the brain as well as other events like sleep, diet, exercise, stress, etc.
Obsessive tendencies tend to be cyclical based on life-phase, environmental stressors, and even season of the year. Most people with obsessive tendencies...
(June 26, 2004) -- You probably know a storm phobic and don't even realize it. It's believed nearly 8 million Americans suffer from weather anxieties.
Jesus Flores is one of them. "If there was a threat of overnight storms, especially if those storms were to be severe I would grab a blanket, a weather radio, and something to drink and I would barricade myself in the closet and sort of listen in to the weather stations."
Jesus's experience is typical as we discovered in e-mails from other storm phobics...
(AP) Tough day at work? That might be one more reason to watch what you eat when you get home.
It is well-established that people often eat to relieve stress. But a study published in the monthly Journal of Applied Social Psychology found that even after the stress was over, women who were more frustrated by it ate more fatty foods than those who were not as frustrated.
One surprising finding: Men's snack preferences stayed the same, regardless of their stress levels.
"A lot of studies have looked at ...
The 13-year-old St. Bernard boy was always rambunctious, but no more so than other boys.
Then, when kids started teasing him last year, he fought back with his fists. The fights prompted school officials to call his home, his mother said. Then came a notice in the mail ordering the boy to appear in juvenile court on a charge of disorderly conduct.
But court officials found that the sixth-grader wasn't a bad kid with a bad temper and a long rap sheet. He was mentally ill. And that was the cause of his outbursts and violence.
So, instead of putting him in a jail cell, the new Hamilton County Juvenile Mental Health Court - one of the first in the nation - let him stay home and sent a team of professionals to him and his family to treat his illness. The boy, diagnosed as bipolar, is the first child to complete the requirements of the court, which started in January.
The problem with fibromyalgia is that many of its symptoms mimic those of other diseases. Matallana saw 37 doctors over two years and was given high-level steroids during the eight months she was treated for lupus - a disease she never had.
Doctors can be puzzled by the array of symptoms, which besides widespread stiffness and aching often include fatigue, headache, irritable bowel, sleep disturbances and depression. Although the condition has no cure, it's not terminal and it does not deteriorate or damage the body.
Roland Staud, associate professor of medicine at the University of Florida, said that patients also experience hypersensitivity to touch, temperature, sound and electric stimuli.
The condition was once dismissed by doctors as...
CBT views the client as an active participant in his or her own treatment. It is seen as beneficial if the client understands exactly what is involved in treatment, and the theory behind why certain treatment protocols are chosen.. Here is what you could expect if you sought CBT treatment for an anxiety problem.
The focus of Therapy is to help the client learn new ways to think about and behave towards situations which create anxiety.
CBT is formulated on the hypothesis that significant contributions to the development and maintenance of anxiety disorders include faulty learning experiences and distorted thinking. The focus of therapy is to help the client learn...
Sudden heart-pounding panic attacks are most likely caused by abnormalities in the brain, new evidence suggests, reinforcing earlier research on animals.
People with panic disorder, according to scientists at the National Institutes of Health, have drastic reductions of a type of serotonin receptor, called 5-HT1A, in three areas of the brain. The findings, reported last week in The Journal of Neuroscience, lend credence to the suspicion that serotonin dysfunction plays a role in the disorder.
"This provides evidence...
Everyone has bothersome worries now and again. Worries that consume a person are called "obsessions." Obsessions are uninvited or "intrusive" thoughts, urges or images that surface in the mind over and over again. People with OCD usually know that their obsessions are creations of their own minds, but they can't control, ignore or get rid of them.
Often people with OCD will try to reduce or suppress their obsessions by acting out certain rituals. Many people have rituals, or specific ways of doing things. For people with OCD, however, rituals may become "stuck," and last for hours. When taken to this extreme, rituals are called "compulsions."
When obsessions and compulsions get out of control...
New research from Yale University may help explain why women are twice as likely as men to suffer from stress-related mental illnesses such as depression. Animal studies show that high levels of the female sex hormone estrogen affect the brain's ability to deal with stress.
Estrogen was found to amplify the stress response in areas of the brain most closely identified with depression and other stress-related mental illnesses. Researchers say the findings...
Do many people with psychiatric disabilities file employment discrimination charges?
Yes. Psychiatric disabilities are among the most frequent disabilities cited by individuals who file ADA employment discrimination charges. In recent years, psychiatric disabilities have been cited in roughly 15 percent of the charges filed under the ADA each year.
Over what issues do people with psychiatric disabilities tend to file charges?
The reason that most people with psychiatric disabilities file charges is because...
Nearly half of Americans have had someone in their household seek mental health treatment, but most still perceive cost and lack of insurance coverage as barriers.
May 14, 2004 (AXcess News) Washington DC - Nearly half of Americans have had someone in their household seek mental health treatment, but most still perceive cost and lack of insurance coverage as barriers according to national poll results released today by the American Psychological Association (APA).
The poll also shows that stigma about seeking mental health treatment is increasingly less of a barrier to getting treatment. Nearly half (48%) of American households have had someone see a mental health professional and nine out of 10 Americans say they are likely to consult or recommend a mental health professional if they or a family member are experiencing a problem.
Those polled say lack of insurance coverage (87%) and concerns about the cost of treatment (81%) are important reasons not to seek help from a mental health professional. More and more Americans (85%) think health insurance should cover mental health services, up from....
Agoraphobia affects about a third of all people with Panic disorders. In studies of agoraphobics it was found that the majority of sufferers also had Panic attacks and the Panic attacks always started before the agoraphobia. In about 75% of the cases studied, agoraphobic episodes began within a year of the initial Panic attack. This can be attributable to the sufferer not wanting the embarrassment of having a Panic attack in public and so they remain at home where they feel safe.
Agoraphobia is not, as many people believe, just about open spaces. It is really a fear of being in any place or situation where the sufferer does not feel safe or where the sufferer feels trapped, and he/she is driven by an uncontrollable urge to escape to a place of safety which, in most cases, is his/her own home.
Defined as: Anxiety about being in places from which escape might be difficult (or embarrassing) or in which help may not be available in the event of having an unexpected or situationally predisposed Panic Attack or panic-like symptoms. Agoraphobic fears typically involve...
Psychiatric researchers have long been trying to understand the origins of mental illness. For a considerable period of time, there were two camps that appeared to be at odds with each other, the well-known Nature-Nurture debate. It goes something like this:
Nature: “Mental illness is just something you are born with, and no matter what happens to you in life, you can’t escape your fate of suffering.”
Nurture: “One’s emotional health is determined by the sum of life experiences. Therefore, if you have a mental illness, blame it on your upbringing or other experiences in your life.”
Various lines of research seemed to...