Big News! Biomarker for Depression Meds Study

One big problem with treating people with depression is finding the right treatment for them.  Many patients have to try one medication after another in order to find just the right one.  Some patients cannot take medications but do well with therapy.  Finding the right treatment could take a depressingly long time.

But how about if there was a diagnostic test patients could take which tells them what medications would work best for them before actually trying the drugs? The test would be a brain imaging scan that looks for specific things called biomarkers.

This is the hope of a promising new study at Emory University funded by the National Institutes of Health.  Details of the study can be found at JAMA Psychiatry, June 12, 2013.

In case you let your subscription lapse, here’s a bit from the press release about the study from the NIH website:

Using a positron emission tomography (PET) scanner, they imaged pre-treatment resting brain activity in 63 depressed patients. PET pinpoints what parts of the brain are active at any given moment by tracing the destinations of a radioactively-tagged form of glucose, the sugar that fuels its metabolism.

They compared brain circuit activity of patients who achieved remission following treatment with those who did not improve.

No — I didn’t understand that, either.

Of course, a lot more testing would need to be done in order to make sure this test works as well as preliminary results suggest.  If it does, then would be a huge leap forward in treatment of mental illness.

How Pets Help People with Depression

When you are in the teeth of depression, it feels as if nothing can save you. You feel as if your case is completely hopeless, so why bother. Winston Churchill, who suffered from depression, called it “the black dog”. But a black dog (or any other color or species, for that matter) may be precisely what a person with depression needs. Pets help give people with depression a reason to move, triggers the release of relaxing transmitters and gives a sense of accomplishment…

Please read the rest of my article at Yahoo. Thanks!

Is There a Real Cure for a Broken Heart?

I’m convinced that if people stopped getting married or even stopped dating that a great percentage of mental illness symptoms would either disappear or be greatly reduced. Certainly, relationship break-ups are a major cause for suicide attempts, especially in men.

If you have a broken heart, remember that no person is worth the agony you are going through. As the late, great Bill Hicks once said, “Have some self-respect. Stay home and masturbate.”

Anyway, here’s the link to my YCN article Is There a Real Cure for a Broken Heart?

If God Speaks to You, You Are Insane

On May 1, The New York Times (usually a good source for news) published a reprehensible article first-person guest columnist T. M. Luhrmann called “Is That God Talking?” The author is an anthropology professor and really should have known better.

The basic gist of the article is that people who hear God talking to them are normal. The “talking” meaning hearing acutal words spoken out loud as opposed to intuition, coincidence, vivid dreams or the other crap theists claim is their God “speaking” to them.

Are you kidding me? Now, many people may believe that they heard God, but this this is not normal. The voice of God is used as an excuse for someone to do somthing that they really want to do anyway. There is a theory that the original meaning of the third commandment “Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain” really meant “Don’t speak for God” rather than “Don’t swear.”

In other words — don’t say that God told you to do something or selected you to present a message to the general population. Speaking for the rest of humanity, I can say that you should save your breath. We’re not interested.

Anyone who cliams that God is talking to them is insane. It’s called religious mania. Get them help immediately or at least, leave the immediate area. Definately do not do anything that the person claims God has “instructed.”

Even the article itself noted that people with a prominat prayer life tend to be more prone to “hallucination-like events.” The article should have emphasized this point rather than make a bald statement that hearing God is normal.

Weaning Myself Off of Remeron (Mirtazpine)

I’m breaking up with Remeron (mirtazapine). And, yes, Remeron — it was you. Although I got a much-needed grip on my mental health with Remeron, I gained almost 100 pounds in less than a year. OUCH!

Ideally, I should’ve talked to my therapist about weaning myself off of Remeron, but in our last session, he’d talked about getting me off of it while keeping me on Prozac (which I’ve been on since April of 2003.) Also, I’m not getting any younger (although I am getting fatter) and I couldn’t wait to get an appointment with the therapist. By the time I manage to get an appointment, I’ll be so fat I can’t get out of the house.

I had two refills of 30 pills left, so this is what I did:

The first refill I took a Remeron every other night. Two months later, I got the last refil and have been splitting the pills in half and taking half a pill every other night.

Even before I stared the half a pill, my appetite decreased to a dull roar. My appetite has been decreasing. Unfortunately, I haven’t lost any weight, yet, but at least the grocery bill has gone down.

So far, I have not experienced any withdrawal symptoms except that it takes me another 2 or 3 hours to fall asleep on my non-Remeron nights.

I don’t recommend cutting back on psych meds unless you talk to your doctor first, but I rarely follow my own advice.

Ginger for Stress?

A glass of ginger tea/ Wikimedia Commons

Do you need to relax? Try ginger essential oil or other ginger products. Please do not use this article in the place of a medical professional’s diagnosis.

There are a few legal herbs that can help you relax. These herbs — chamomile, mint and St. John’s Wort — help your body to relax, even when it’s tensed up in pain. Technically, they’re called anti-spasmodic. But are there any herbs known to help combat stress? Say hello to ginger.

Now, before you go on a ginger spree, please be sure to talk to your doctor or physician first, especially if you are taking blood thinners. Although ginger is natural and not synthetic, it still needs to be treated with respect.

Different Forms

Ginger is another anti-spasmodic that some people prefer over chamomile or mint. Ginger snaps, candied ginger and ginger tea are great for digestive upsets. And many children of my generation were raised on ginger ale whenever we got sick. This turned me off of ginger for a long time, because whenever I got sick, I got ginger ale — no matter what it was I was sick with. If you have unpleasant memories of ginger, try to eat ginger treats or drink ginger ale when you are feeling happy (or at least, not sick) and soon your unconscious will pair the smell and taste of ginger ale with feeling good.

Ginger essential oil is good for helping your body to feel warm. Sometimes, a massage with diluted ginger oil helps people with digestive cramps, rheumatitis or stress. One or two drops in a foot bath is also very relaxing.

Different People React Differently

I like a bit of ginger treats to help me feel better about life in general. I don’t take it medicinally, but there are people that do. Again, you have to talk to your doctor or a licensed herbalist about this. I find ginger to help me relax, calm down and get perspective. Because it’s a bit spicy, I have to eat or sip it slowly, lest I burn my mouth. If you are working with any kind of ginger — ginger essential oil, fresh ginger or even ginger powder for baking, be sure to wash your hands after handling it. You don’t want that stuff in your eyes or up your nose. Trust me on this one.

And yes, there are people with which ginger does nothing at all for their stress levels. We’re all different. Things to help you relax when under stress are still out there. Think of me when I accidentally blew my nose after mincing fresh ginger. I was hopping up and down shrieking like my nose was on fire — because that’s what it felt like. Perhaps that mental image can help you to laugh and relax.

Why Women are So Stressed Out

Women are so stressed because we have to put on bras. Pantyhose are pretty stressful, too, but that is becoming more and more optional. Bras, however, we’re stuck with until we can place an anti-gravity field around our chests. Men, you are more than welcome to continue reading this, especially if you are considering cross-dressing. You will get to know what we have to go through if we want to leave the house. And yes, it’s a long explanation…

Please read the rest of my YCN article. Thanks!</strong>