The Anxiety Report

Maybe They Weren’t as Drunk as You Thought

According to Psychology Today and their article “The Illusion of College Drinking,” they college kids aren’t as drunk as everyone has assumed. It seems stereotypes must have gotten in the way.

Researchers found that the image of a typical college student as a drunken frat boy is largely a myth. Moreover, when students find out that their classmates are relatively modest in their drinking habits, they cut back on their own drinking as well.

Well, DUH is all I can think of to say to that.

Researchers led by Robert Foss of the UNC Highway Safety Research Center used voluntary breathalyzer tests to measure the blood alcohol concentration (BAC) of students returning at night to their living quarters. In an initial sample of over 2,000 students, the research team found that on ‘party nights,’ two out of three students hadn’t had a drop to drink. On Mondays through Wednesdays, fully 85 percent had no alcohol in their systems—findings at odds with the stereotype of beer-swilling ‘party schools.’

That should quiet some people down.

=====================================================================

Psychiatric Times.

Being a male, the menstrual cycles of women have largely been none of my business, all my life. Or at least that’s what I was told. IN the paper ‘The Complex Interrelationships of Menstrual Cyclicity and Anxiety Disorders: Premenstrual Exacerbation of Anxiety Disorders’ by Miki Peer, Claudio N. Soares, MD, PhD, and Meir Steiner, MD, PhD,

Premenstrual worsening is frequently reported by women with general anxiety disorder (GAD); one study reported a prevalence of 52%.3 The mechanisms by which some women experience premenstrual worsening of GAD, however, are not known. Limited evidence suggests that GAD is associated with decreased serum levels of pregnanolone sulfate,12 but changes in neurosteroid levels in women who experience premenstrual exacerbation of GAD have not, to our knowledge, been examined. Benzodiazepines are more likely to be prescribed for women with GAD than for men, and while these compounds demonstrate good efficacy in GAD treatment,1,28,29 a significant influence of the menstrual-cycle phase in treatment response has been observed.

It is a highly technical article, but it does fit in at the anxiety report.

=====================================================================

On a Literary Note

This comes from Alicia Sparks blog on mental health notes.  It talks about how Rowling kept her sanity by retreating into the characters of the novels.  I can understand that, writing blogs sometimes helps me retreat from the mundane world of taking meds, and disability.  Anyway, it’s always worth reading Alicia’s blog.

=====================================================================

From the Editor

From time to time I will write an editorial.  Hopefully,they will be readable.  The more research I read to put onto this site, the more convinced I become that I’m going to have to find someone who can help me translate into English what the heck they’re trying to say.  I’m doing my best, but I fear that’s not good enough.  At any rate, I’ll keep at it, you keep coming back to visit me.

Tags: Research // Add Comment »

Children’s Mental Health Coalition Introduces Bill Of Rights For Families Living With Mental Illnesses

I was very interested in this article because when I think of the various agonies I put my family through as a teenager with serious problems.

“This Bill of Rights represents the standard of what families living with mental illnesses should expect from treatment,” said AACAP’s President, Robert Hendren, D.O. “Children do better when they receive consistent, tailored treatment. Few children receive any treatment and fewer still receive the sustained, quality care that they require.”

The fact that it is centered on children is helpful to parents, teacher, and baby sitters, but doesn’t do much for families living with someone with a variety of anxiety conditions and other possible mental illnesses. Living with an adult with anxiety disorders can be so challenging that it can end up in divorce. Just something worth thinking about, and perhaps someone will work out a Bill of Rights for the Family of Anxiety Patients.

———————————————————————————–

How Long Do I Have to Take This?

According to How long is anxiety medication needed?it all depends on what is being treated.

When I prescribe medication for a patient with a mental health problem, I’m frequently asked, “How long will I have to take this medication?” It’s a good question. But for someone with an anxiety disorder, the answer is particularly complex.

It’s one of the first questions I asked the first doctor who helped me; how long do I have to take this? He said pretty much what the last sentence of the quote says, except he added, “you’ll probably be on something the rest of your life.”

There are short term disorders where the medication can be stopped at a point where the patient feels ready to give it a go without the drugs. Dr. Kahn continues: “A specific phobia can be treated as needed, for example, just before getting on an airplane or giving a speech.”

But other anxiety disorders — for example, generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder, and obsessive-compulsive disorder — commonly require ongoing treatment. Experience shows that when drug therapy is stopped, symptoms often recur. Only 25% of patients who stop taking antidepressants for anxiety have relief for two years or longer. Two studies found that one in four people with generalized anxiety disorder relapse within a month of going off medications. Similarly, most people with obsessive-compulsive disorder relapse within a month unless they either continue drug treatment indefinitely or undergo behavior therapy.

So for some of us, we’ll always be taking one drug or another. When you consider the return to anxiety attacks, or OCD symptoms, you realize that each day you will take your medications.

Isn’t it a small price to pay for the freedom from symptoms?

———————————————————————————

Herschel Walker’s Battle with D.I.D. And Suicidal Thoughts: And My Own Struggle with Mental Illness

For those who do not know who Herschel Walker is check this page out. He has D.I.D. Dissociative Identity Disorder. In other words, multiple personalities.

Walker had several alternate personalities, known as alters. After retiring from the NFL, Walker dealt with memory loss, a symptom of D.I.D. Because other personalities are the ones taking action, he often cannot remember things he has said or done.

That is down right scary condition to have. I think someone of Walker’s fame and position in football history, to come out with this book at such a time is worthy of many kudos.

Tags: News, Research, articles // Add Comment »

While researching the research out there so I can digest, process, and post here, I have come again and again up against the phrase cognitive behavioral Therapy. So what is it? A little Googling brought a ton of answers, some of which are better than others, but that’s usual, so no whining on that score. Here are a list of links. Check em out then see what I say below.

The Widipedia

The National Alliance on Mental Illness NAMId

Now let’s have a little story about a guy named Joe. Joe is plagued by anxiety attacks which come from nowhere, last for days, and make his life a living hell. Joe loves going to the library, and one day in the library he has an anxiety attack. I’m breaking in green type to now say that Joe is in a social situation, but his thinking capacity is impaired. Joe immediately is certain that everyone around him knows that he is crazy, and are probably sneering at his weakness. That’s not true at all, no one probably even notices Joe unless he does something stupid. Joe puts his book down, doesn’t even check one out, goes straight home to his room and sits on his bed thinking “Now everyone in town knows I’m crazy.”

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is the way one finds their way out of such thinking patterns. David Burns wrote a magnificent book on the subject called The Feeling Good Handbook. (see link at bottom of post)

Joe’s original anxiety was all based in his hardwiring. It is a physical phenomenon that occurs and has something to do with our GABA receptors.

GABA acts at inhibitory synapses in the brain by binding to specific transmembrane receptors in the plasma membrane of both pre- and postsynaptic neurons. From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GABA

When Joe finally gets medication for his anxiety disorder, to life the burden of the physical symptoms, then his therapist can begin to help him unbind all those irrational assumptions he had made while in the grip of anxiety. When Joe had anxiety attacks in the past, his mind would seize upon what ever was at hand as the cause of the attack, because we are human, we need a cause. It is very hard to admit that the cause might be your own body, because everyone has taught you all your life that “it’s all in your head.”

Once the physical symptoms have stopped, then you may begin Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. To start out with CBT, instead of taking a serious medical assessment first, is lunacy. Physicians today are more alert to the reality of the anxiety disorders. There is enough research out there to show them that this can and does originate within the physical system itself, our bodies.

The Great Task

With the flow of research going all the time, what is the most important for us, the patient, to know? Another disquieting problem I have is how too get what I find to you in plain enough English that you will bother to read more than two words. That is turning out to be no easy task, but I am up for it. There was never a time that research and it’s tortures could stop me from finding out every bit, every detail about what I was looking for.

If you could give me a push by suggesting a topic, any topic, it would help. Until you do, I shall muddle my way through as much as seems relevant and then post it.Email Me

Tags: Anxiety, News, articles // Add Comment »

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 // Add Comment »

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 // Add Comment »

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 // Add Comment »

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 // Add Comment »

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 // Add Comment »

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 // Add Comment »

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 // Add Comment »