Posted by Tomatheus on May 9, 2014, at 13:26:02
In reply to Re: psychiatric casualties, posted by poser938 on May 9, 2014, at 2:13:14
Poser938,
Have you considered visiting a treatment center that follows the practices of orthomolecular psychiatry? I will say up front that visiting an orthomolecular doctor can be expensive and that treatment centers that specialize in orthomolecular psychiatry can be hard to find, but I think that orthomolecular treatment is advantageous because it offers treatments based on actual laboratory tests instead of following mainstream psychiatry's trial-and-error approach that seems to get a lot of patients nowhere. If I didn't visit an orthomolecular treatment center, I never would have known that I had an insufficient level of vitamin D. Now, I'm taking vitamin D3 and might actually be starting to notice some long-term benefits from supplementation. There are also other biochemical "imbalances" that orthomolecular doctors can test for, such as abnormal histamine levels (which are believed to correspond to abnormal methylation), abnormal copper and/or zinc levels, and abnormally high levels of a chemical in the urine called the pyrrole. I know that the person who started this thread (Christ_empowered) uses his own sort of do-it-yourself version of orthomolecular psychiatry and seems to benefit from it. You can ask Christ_empowered himself for more details on the orthomolecular regimen that he follows.
Anyway, unlike ECT, orthomolecular psychiatric treatments are not likely to produce strong adverse effects, and I would say that long-term adverse effects from orthomolecular treatments are unheard of. And as I said, there is in my opinion a lot less guesswork with orthomolecular psychiatry than there is with mainstream psychiatry. The treatments that orthomolecular doctors recommend are based not only on the doctor's evaluation of your symptoms, but also on the results of the laboratory tests, which I think increases the likelihood that the treatments will work. Even if you feel that all of the problems with your mental functioning are due to medications that you've taken, maybe going to an orthomolecular doctor will reveal something that can be treated.
So, all I'm asking you to do is to weigh whether going to an orthomolecular doctor might be an option for you, assuming you can afford to the services of an orthomolecular doctor and find a doctor who's close to you. I certainly don't think that there's a guarantee that orthomolecular treatment will produce results, but I do think that orthomolecular treatments are a lot more targeted toward individual biochemical abnormalities and a lot less likely to produce harmful adverse effects than ECT is.
So, I just wanted to put that out there as an alternative to ECT that you might want to look into. I do, however, wish you luck with whatever treatment approach you decide to go ahead with next.
Tomatheus
Has an affective psychosis, most likely schizophrenia with persistent depression
Taking Abilify & vitamins B3, C, & D3
poster:Tomatheus
thread:1065399
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20140419/msgs/1065425.html