The Anxiety Report

Part of the original purpose of The Anxiety Report was to have a section for the people who live with others who have a disorder. What I had not thought about, and now have to seriously consider, are those who are also caregivers. I was a caregiver to my father until he died.

There is a new link list on the side bar for Caregivers.

News
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Have you ever felt like cleaning up your house helped your mood? Well, according to “Tidying the House Soothes Mental Distress” By Crystal Phend, Staff Writer, MedPage Today.

The benefits of physical activity in general could be by reducing biological stress reactivity, “given that heightened responsiveness to daily stressors is a risk factor for psychological morbidity,” they said. Exercise might also improve biological risk factors such as dyslipidemia, glucose intolerance, inflammation, and vascular dysfunction, “which have been related to mental health disorders such as depression and dementia.”

——————————————————————————–

Next item on today’s agenda is “Time on the Farm Helps Psychiatric Patients,” By Crystal Phend, Staff Writer, MedPage Today.  it’s rather in the spirit of the first article, isn’t it?  The article was too interesting for me to pass up.  So here it is for you.

——————————————————————————–

Here is yet another story of a young girl starving herself.  This epidemic amongst young women is totally unacceptable in civilized society.  That we have allowed this image of skinny is glamorous to develop is a societal sin.  “Skinny Sweepstakes” By: Hara Estroff Marano.

——————————————————————————–

Research

Research is difficult to tackle for anyone who is not educated in the upper regions of psychology, medicine, psychiatry and pharmacology.  However, your humble webmaster will spend the remainder of his day deciphering, summarizing, and posting.

It takes a while to get into the swing of things, especially when first starting.  Stay with me!

Tags: News, articles by Stephen
No Comments »

We’ll start today with a Video that I think explains depression, and the types of depression, very well. I wanted to start with the video because I’m excited to find a video, that’s not just on subject, but is also well done.

Today I have a Smörgåsbord of News

Seeking out the positive things in life might turn out to be the best thing to do for yourself, according to this article fro Oh yeah, go see a comedy and laugh. The title of the article says it all really. “By Seeking Out Positive Experiences That Make Us Laugh We Can Do A Lot On Our Own To Stay Well.”

---

As all of us know there is an amount of stigma with which we are branded, when it comes to all mental health issues. In her article “Health system keeps stigma on mental care,” Margaret Krome addresses the issue with some interesting observations along the way.

It’s perfectly common to hear about a political or corporate leader’s heart bypass operation, their pulmonary therapy program, diabetes or cancer treatment, or even the details of their colonoscopy. But treatment for depression? For anxiety disorders and phobias? Post-traumatic stress disorder? Obsessions?

How true that is. We’ll beat the drum for any of those serious conditions. Not for mental health. So what lies at the root of this stigma? Is there something that can be done about it?

The health care system is a principal driver behind mental health stigmas. Rosalynn Carter, the former first lady, worked as a mental health advocate for the Carter Center in Atlanta and earlier while her husband served as governor and president. She maintains that “if insurance covered mental illness, the stigma would go away almost immediately. It would legitimize mental illnesses.”

---

Along the same vein of stigma and all the fun it entails, this shows up today. “Herd QB leaves program.” by Jacob Messer, of Charleston Daily Mail. For me that’s the kind of step in the right direction that’s needed to keep these problems in the eyes of the public. I’m not going to quote from the article, it’s too personally expressive for me to mangle it.

---

“Be Careful What You Think.” This little piece is worth a read. Especially when “It would appear from results that vividness and control associated with negative images act as mechanisms through which images of poor performances significantly disrupt consequent performances.” From MedLine News Today

---

We will close today’s festival of linked articles with this book review by Stephanie Moulton Sarkis, PhD, NCC, LMHC. An impressive array of acronyms, but don’t let that stop you, it’s an interesting review of a book called Bipolar Kids, by Rosalie Greenberg.

Tags: Anxiety, News, Review by Stephen
No Comments »

Click here to read article.

Since this article appears in MedScape Today, I am encouraged by the attention scientist are now giving to the alternative forms of healing. Yoga is not just good for the body, it is good for mental health as well.

Not everyone is going to rush out and sign up for Yoga classes, but it might not hurt for a few of us to do just that.

Anything we can do to make life easier with, or without medications, we should do. Don’t just close your mind to the possibility of Yoga, or Tai Chi, helping with our mental health.

Tags: Self Medicating, articles by Stephen
No Comments »

Andrea Gordon’s article for the Toronto Star, is one that I think should wake us all up to the true danger of teen depression. We’re all used to the sullen teenager period that all adolescents go through, but this article isn’t about a period or a phase, it’s about suicide.

The parents of teens who commit suicide suffer something similar to those who loose a teen to a serial killer who tortures them to death. In both cases, torture unto death was involved. I have no science to back that up, but anything that drives a teenager to take their own life has got to be torture.

A survey last year by Kinark found 38 per cent of 1,500 parents would be too embarrassed to admit their child or teen had an illness like depression or anxiety.

So, out of that number, which is horribly large, their child needing medication for depression or anxiety was a stigma, a cause of shame. Didn’t I just talk about this in a post not long ago? The stigma of mental illness. I wonder if they would feel that way if their child had cancer? No, because then they’d be out there beating a drum calling attention to cancer research.

When it comes to mental health issues no one wants to talk about it. So I’ll end this post with this quote.

Ellen Ostofsky of the Mood Disorders Association of Ontario said stigma is still huge and that fewer than half of the 20 per cent of Canadians with a mental illness will end up seeking treatment.

Health warnings and controversy over antidepressants and teens “is a muddy, muddy issue,” she said. And rather than making decisions based on news reports, parents must raise these questions with a professional and consider the needs of their own child, she said.

“It is so important to be vigilant and watch your loved one,” she said, particularly if they have started or changed medication.

Tags: News, Research, articles by Stephen
No Comments »

You should check out this interesting press release. BASEL, Switzerland, March 31, PRNewswire. Yet another epilepsy drug is showing anti anxiety effects as well. It does beg the question, is there a relationship between epilepsy and anxiety? Let’s start here

Synosia Therapeutics today announced the start of a multi-site, Phase II clinical trial to evaluate the efficacy of rufinamide (SYN-111), a sodium channel blocker, as a potential treatment for general anxiety disorder.

The name Rufinamide should not cause fear as the date rape drug, because they are not the same thing, flunitrazepam is the date rape drug. Rufinamide is a triazole derivative. They are not the same thing so let us return to the article.

“Given the extensive safety experience available from previous studies, we believe this structurally novel compound has the potential to relieve anxiety without the adverse side effects of current treatments,” said Stephen Bandak, Synosia’s chief medical officer. “There is a real need for new treatment options without the limited compliance associated with selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) or the risk of dependence of benzodiazepine-based treatments.”

Whoa! Now that is some claim to make. It’s a claim I like and hope for, because I know that sooner or later my doctor will take me off of Klonopin and I’ll be right back where I was before, malfunctioning. So this little press release offers some hope. Interestingly, when they first marketed the drug they were not allowed to offer it as an anti anxiety.

This bears watching.

Tags: Research, articles by Stephen
No Comments »

This is an article that should cheer up some people. It seems the the anti-depressent Paroxetine is safe for pregnant women in their first trimester.

Motherisk partnered with centres from around the world that study and provide information on the safety of medication in pregnancy to follow up on 1,174 women in Canada, the US, Australia, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Finland, and Israel who called such centres with regard to the use of the drug in early pregnancy (when the fetus’ heart develops). Data was then compared with the outcomes of an equal sized group of non-exposed infants. The rate of cardiovascular defects was 0.7 per cent in each group. As the incidence of heart defects in the general population is approximately one per cent, the rates in this study were slightly lower than expected.

That quote should make it clear they did not come to this decision lightly. Read the complete article here.

Here’s another article that I offer for a taste treat if nothing else. Subordinate Monkeys More Likely To Choose Cocaine Over Food It’s interesting that submissive monkeys want cocaine more than food. What does that say about our affluent Cocaine users?

Alicia, over at her Mental Health Notes, blog for b5media, has posted an article Saturday Sanity: Drugs And Government Issues. Alicia’s site is always worth checking out.

And now for all us messy people out there is this article, Why a spring clean is good for you. It took me years to realize it, but the state of my house, workstation, or car, was a sure indicator of my mental state at that time.

On a completely different note, The Healthy Geezer: Senior Years Aren’t Always Serene.I think we can learn here that just because mom or dad seem to be getting along fine, they might be be at all.

Tags: News, articles by Stephen
No Comments »

Mary Murry, R.N., C.N.M., wrote an article that I think should be mentioned here on the Anxiety Report. Miscarriage is something that very few people talk about with any real understanding. In her article, Murry makes it painfully clear when she says,

“When we discover that we are pregnant, we don’t think of zygotes, embryos or fetuses. We think of babies. We think of sons and daughters. We start planning the minute we know we’re pregnant. So when a woman miscarries she loses a baby. It doesn’t matter if she is 7 weeks or 15 weeks.”

That is a potent paragraph. The moment that the woman knows she is pregnant is the moment that baby becomes the future, is human, is hers! What Murry teaches us is that the sadness and sense of loss is very real. But it’s a piece at the bottom of the article that cause me to post it here,

We just don’t talk about it with anyone. This is when the silence can end. These women know your sorrow, your loss. Talk to women who know your sorrow and loss, and share your feelings. You can do it here, or on other sites just for women who have lost babies. You will find a community of women who understand.

Let’s rethink that statement into some that says, We anxiety people don’t talk about with anyone.  But we can find others who know out situation, just like the woman who miscarried can find a place to share sorrow and loss.   We can talk to others in the same boat as we are, share our feelings, and determine how best to push forward in the never ending process of living our lives.

Tags: articles by Stephen
No Comments »

Here’s a story that caught my eye because my father was an alcoholic.

“Reshaping of the DNA scaffolding that supports and controls the expression of genes in the brain may play a major role in the alcohol withdrawal symptoms, particularly anxiety, that make it so difficult for alcoholics to stop using alcohol.”

The idea in the article/study is to make alcoholism easier to cure by making the withdrawal less terrible. My father was unable to quit until Diabetes claimed both of his legs.

This is another story I posted on Topix.com today, because it actually have good advice in it, and it came from the television show!

A Link Between Antidepressants And Type 2 Diabetes This is interesting because

Lauren Brown, researcher with the U of A’s School of Public Health, found people with a history of depression had a 30 per cent increased risk of type 2 Diabetes.Lauren Brown, researcher with the U of A’s School of Public Health, found people with a history of depression had a 30 per cent increased risk of type 2 Diabetes.Lauren Brown, researcher with the U of A’s School of Public Health, found people with a history of depression had a 30 per cent increased risk of type 2 Diabetes.

These are just a sampling of the stories that broke today.  Throughout the day I will make new posts, and later include some of the more interesting clinical trials.

Tags: articles by Stephen
No Comments »

You have to understand that about 350 newstories, researchpapaers, and clinical trials, starting up and results, all arrive in my Google Reader. Ok, no problem I go through it, select what’s important to anxiety issues in general and then write some commentary.

Lately, I’ve found it’s easier to do that by sending you for the time being to my Topix page. Now, when I learn to pump the feed directly into my sidebar, and I become a more accomplished webmaster, then things will get better.

What is important is that I am already at work on what has got to be done, every day, to get this site going. It’s for all of us whether you have the GAD, OCD, or PTSD, we are all in the same boat. This site is here to help us stay up with the science and the research, and root out the charlatans and shysters. Please keep visiting the site, and keep commenting. I am dying for comments.

Tags: Anxiety by Stephen
No Comments »

I have learned so far that the truthfulness of every website has to be checked, and double checked.  Even though I have been on the Internet since the 1990s, I still can be coerced into believing that what I am seeing is a site with legitimate information.  That is not always the case.  Some of the sites I’ve seen lately have huge grudges to grind against various drug companies or doctors, or both in some cases.

While I would love to make declarations of how this site will never do such a thing; how we would never grind an ax on a company.  Well, one can never know what the future might bring.  I currently have no ax to grind, and honestly, I’m not much of an ax grinder anymore, anyway.  That does not mean, however, that if some horrible information comes out that I will not jump on it like fly on … rotted meat.

Also, there are a large number of sites out there in cyberworld where the writers should be the patients’.   I am probably one of them, but I will try to isolate my personal situation from this site, because the success of The Anxiety Report.Com is not up to me.  This site is a call to community for all of us who have one of the five annoyingly classified ‘Anxiety-Disorders.’

Let’s list them, shall we?

1. Generalized Anxiety Disorder(GAD)
2. Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)
3. Panic Disorder
4. Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome (PTSD)
5. Social Phobia (or Social Anxiety Disorder.)

Here is the complexity of the issue, we have five disorders that crisscross one another, and these are all due to something chemical in our brains.  No one, psychiatrist or neurologist, knows exactly how, what, or why, this happens.  It just does  They are looking, and working for us, and so this site wants to make these people familiar faces to us, the patients, and not just a faceless Clinic or just a name from Pharmaceuticus Optimus-Maximus .  (Bit of a pun on the temple of Jumpiter Optimus Maximus)

The issues of our disorders are too complex for us to not be involved in some way with those people who work for us in the scientific fields.  So there will be some interviews on here.

Why don’t you leave a comment?  I love comments.  I’m a nice guy, and I even like dogs.  I am working night and day posting stories to Topix, where you will notice I am the editor of Anxiety.  I go through hundreds of news stories a day, and slog my way through research trying to render it into plain English.  O, Muse, send me help!  Make someone comment upon my weary efforts.  Alas and Alack.

Other than that, have a great day.  Peace

Tags: Uncategorized by Stephen
No Comments »