Antidepressants Blog

‘The psychological problems [of the menopause] tend to be insidious and can impair a woman’s ability to her domestic and work environment . . . They can destroy self-confidence and self-esteem and are an incomprehensible low point in the lives of previously well-adjusted and competent women.’ from The Menopause, J. Studd and M. Whitehead (eds.), 1988.

‘The only word I can use to describe how I felt during this period is wretched. I work in a doctor’s surgery and spend my working day in contact with the patients. I was moody, bad-tempered and thoroughly unpleasant to everyone – yet I couldn’t stop myself being tike that. My feelings about myself reached rock-bottom and my normal self-confidence disappeared completely until I could hardly bring myself to get out of bed in the morning. I think if I’d worked anywhere else I would have lost my job within a few weeks; but luckily the menopause specialist nurse in the practice recognised my changed personality for what it was, suggested I asked my GP about HRT, and I’m now back in the human race again.’

If you have had a similar experience, you are not alone. A great many women between the ages of 40 and 60 find they become moody, unable to concentrate, and very tired. Many of the psychological problems of the menopause are due to night sweats causing disturbed sleep, and will resolve themselves once broken nights come to an end. Others are due more directly to the loss of oestrogen. Part of the brain contains many oestrogen receptors, and if oestrogen levels fall, mood changes may occur; once the oestrogen is replaced by HRT, most women find their confidence and self-esteem restored and their problems with mood swings, forgetfulness and anxiety considerably alleviated. HRT is not as reliable in improving these complaints as it is for flushes and sweats, but if your general wellbeing and feelings about yourself have taken a plunge, then it’s worth asking about HRT. It won’t, however, do anything to alleviate depression, anxiety or unhappiness that existed before the menopause, and which is not due to lowered levels of oestrogen.

Oestrogen seems to have a ‘mental tonic5 effect, and lowered levels of the hormone during and after the menopause can lead to a whole range of psychological problems, such as:

• less energy and drive

• irritability

• mood changes

• headaches

• feelings of unworthiness

• loss of self-esteem

• loss of self-confidence

• feeling unable to cope

• difficulty in concentrating

• feelings of aggressiveness

• depression

• anxiety

• forgetfulness

• fear of loneliness

• unusually prone to tears

• loss of libido (sex drive)

There are still too many doctors who, faced in the surgery with a woman aged between 40 and 60 complaining about any of these problems, will say, ‘I’m afraid it’s just your age, my dear,’ or ‘You’ll just have to live with it -there’s nothing I can give you that a good night’s sleep/doing some voluntary work/joining an evening class won’t cure.”‘ And he writes out a prescription for some antidepressants and hopes she won’t bother him again. (In this book, the doctor is depicted as male, simply to avoid confusion with the patient who, in matters concerning the menopause, is inevitably female.)

Prescribing tranquillisers and anti-depressants for problems in the mind that are caused by a fall in oestrogen is difficult to justify. Yet for many women, even nowadays, that is all they get, and then everyone is surprised that it seldom has the desired effect. It is hardly believable that 30-40 per cent of women aged 45-55 with menopausal depression are still prescribed tranquillisers and anti-depressants despite the fact that replacing their oestrogen will usually reduce these symptoms and thereby, in the majority of cases, lift the depression.

The majority of psychiatrists still believe that anti-depressants, tranquillisers or psychotherapy are the best forms of treatment for women at these three critical times of depression, yet they appear to have a low success rate. By contrast, replacing the oestrogen that is probably causing the depression appears to be very effective in many women. If the psychological symptoms are due to a lack of oestrogen, they will respond to a course of HRT; if they are due to some other cause, then HRT will not bring any real benefit. As HRT is a much cheaper form of treatment than psychotherapy or in-patient psychiatric care, it is surely worth considering as a first-line form of treatment for depression that occurs around the time of the menopause.

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Several nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (often shortened to NSAIDs) have been used successfully to reduce excessive menstrual bleeding. The NSAIDs concerned include ibuprofen, mefenamic acid, naproxen and flurbiprofen. (Some of these substances, for example mefenamic acid, are also anti-prostaglandin drugs or prostaglandin inhibitors.) While helpful, NSAIDs are not drugs to be taken lightly. The lowest possible dose of the least toxic NSAID should be used initially as this group of drugs produces side-effects in about a third of women, resulting in nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea, headache, dizziness and rashes.

Blood clotting mechanisms. Success in halving blood loss has been reported with several drugs that act on the body’s blood clotting mechanisms. They are of particular value to women with blood clotting defects. The drugs include tranexamic acid and ethamsylate. Once again, however, about a third of women on them experience side-effects of nausea, headache, dizziness, vomiting and rashes. Research studies have also raised the concern that these drugs may precipitate strokes in some women.

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Dreaming is the most fascinating part of our sleep. This is a universal experience; we all dream. Those who say they never dream probably forget their dreams, for we all dream during REM sleep. This has been studied both biologically and psychologically.

There is no reason to believe that the basic structure of the dreams of primitive man was very much different from that of modern man’s dreams. Of course the contents of the dreams would change with the passage of time—buildings, modes of transportation, food, clothing, customs, etc. kept on changing and will continue to change in the future. Naturally, the contents of dreams will be very much different a thousand years from now.

In spite of the changing contents, the basic format of dreams remains the same throughout the ages. The experience of dreams is universal. Whilst we are dreaming, we can experience things considered as supernatural in our real lives. For instance, we can, in a very short space of time, travel thousands of miles away and visit places sometimes totally strange to us. We may even be able to talk to relatives that are no longer with us. It is as if, during dreams, part of us can leave our bodies to experience all these unusual events and rejoin our bodies the moment we wake up. For most of us this is the only time in our lives that we can have these supernatural experiences.

Subconsciously these dream experiences give us some insight into the mystery of the spiritual world. All religions, despite different cultures and different social backgrounds, believe that some separable part of the human being is immortal. When the body dies, this immortal part may leave the body and live on. In Western society, this is known as die soul. Is the understanding of the soul made much easier as a result of the supernatural experience of our dreams night after night?

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There are a number of practical points which I always explain very carefully to patients. In addition, to be quite sure that I get these ideas across, I repeat them in different words each time I see the patient. The reason is that these practical considerations are so simple that the patient is likely to think, “Oh yes,” and ignore the matter as too obvious to be thought about seriously.

I have another way of impressing these very simple ideas on the patient. I like to see the patient together with the person who is closest to him. If the patient is a man, I see him and his wife together; if it is the wife, I see her with her husband; young people I see with their parents; and the elderly with one of their children. I then explain these very simple things to them together. Then when the patient experiences temporary difficulty, or discouragement, he will naturally talk about it to the other person, who in turn will remind him that this is just what I warned him to expect. In order to apply this principle to your own case, I would suggest that you show this book to your wife or husband, and explain what you are doing.

With the patients whom I see in my consulting rooms I carry this principle even further. The patient and the person with him are sitting down talking with me while I explain things to them. When they are both fully at ease, I ask the patient just to show me for a moment how he can relax. He does this quite readily, as it fits into the context of our conversation. So it comes about that I give him his first lesson in his relaxing exercises in the presence of the other person. This helps to overcome a difficulty that many people experience. They tend to be rather

self-conscious about doing their exercises. They seem to want to creep away and do them without anyone else knowing what is going on. It becomes a secret! and what is worse, it can become a kind of guilty secret.

One woman told me that she could do the exercises very well, but it was difficult to find the time, as naturally she could only do them when there was no one else in the house! This, of course, is a completely wrong approach; and I have discouraged it by having the patient do the exercises with the wife or husband sitting naturally in the room with me.

If you are a quick reader, now is the time to slow down a little, and let these simple ideas really sink into your mind. It would be foolish to miss the chance of real help by being too quick. Skimming through this is not enough. It requires more than that. The ideas must be absorbed. When I have the patient with me I see to this by repeating the ideas in different words and on different occasions. In your case, read it, go with it, let it seep into you, and reread it again. Then you will see it work.

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Since the average practitioner of orthodox medicine does not have a clear understanding of the basic causative principles involved in arthritis, his treatments and remedies are understandably symptomatic—that is, he is not treating the disease but the isolated symptoms of the disease. He treats an affected joint with injections, x-rays, and drugs as if it was a question of an isolated disease of the joint. He administers pain-killing drugs which will relieve pain temporarily. But, in the long run, due to their many undesirable side effects, these drugs only cause more damage and ultimately aggravate the condition instead of improving it.

As was evident from the previous chapter, arthritis is a systemic disease which affects the whole body. Therefore, the only measures that can be successful in correcting the disease, bringing it under control, and accomplishing a lasting cure, must be ones directed at correcting its underlying causes. This can only be accomplished by treatments which help to overcome the systemic disturbances, normalize the metabolic processes, and help restore all normal functions of the vital organs and glands. That the conventional remedies fail to accomplish this is evident

While drugs and injections may relieve pain and modify symptoms, they do not go to the bottom of the problem, they do not eliminate the underlying causes, nor do they correct the systemic disturbances. What is even worse, these conventional remedies, being suppressive in nature and having undesirable toxic side effects, interfere with the normal bodily processes and actually inhibit restorative and healing efforts of the body. Eventually they cause more damage than good and lead to a complete invalidism.

It must be emphatically stated that drugs do not possess curative powers. The cure is always brought about by the body itself, and the most that a wise doctor can ever do is assist the body’s own healing forces. The drugs used in conventional treatment of arthritis—aspirin, cortisone, gold injections, etc.— only suppress and mask the symptoms of the disease. They do not promote the healing processes, nor do they provide any lasting benefits.

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Tics in children usually involve the upper part of the face—screwing up the eyes, or rapid blinking. More complex habits such as grunting, and brushing the hair away from the eyes are common in children, and seldom confused with seizures. Sometimes, however, children indulge in strange patterns of movement which they apparently find pleasurable, and which they stop immediately on reprimand. Sometimes infants and toddlers will rock backwards and forwards squeezing their thighs together in a manner which seems to be masturbatory.

Colic-Colic or ‘wind’ is a common symptom in babies and young infants, and is usually easily recognized and diagnosed. However, occasionally infantile spasms (West’s syndrome), may be mistaken for colic or some other type of pain, which can lead to a delay in the diagnosis of this type of epilepsy.

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A Federal Court in California has sent a clear message that it recognizes the authenticity of CMO and will not tolerate the infringement of counterfeiters upon the authentic product.

The United States District Court in Orange, California recently awarded a half million dollars in damages in a judgment against Advanced Labs of Redding, California as a result of a suit filed against them alleging trademark infringement, false advertising, and unfair competition, claiming that those practices resulted in consumer confusion and loss of sales of authentic CMO products.

The CMO mark has been used since November 1995 to clearly and specifically identify the proprietary cerasomal-cis-9-cetylmyristoleate product. CMO is a natural immunomodulator used by people suffering from such ailments as arthritis, Crohn’s disease, carpal tunnel syndrome, fibromyalgia, emphysema, migraine headaches, prostate inflammation, and several other ailments with autoimmune involvement.

Advanced Labs had adopted and was using the CMO trademark in its promotional literature and advertising for products of different composition. When Advanced Labs failed to respond to a cease and desist warning letter, the suit was filed against them.

The makers state, “The CMO trademark is distinctive and popular with the consuming public. We have worked long and hard to build up our name and reputation in the healthcare industry, and Advance’s actions are causing us to lose customers and sales, as well as seriously damaging our reputation.”

“It is grossly unfair for Advanced Labs to position itself in the marketplace through competitive confusion by using the CMO trademark,” said W. E. Levin the attorney who filed the suit. Our goal is to permanently enjoin Advance from further violating the trademark rights and to pay for the damage they have done. We hope this sends a clear message to other competitors.”

And we say that it’s time to clear the deck of products that are misrepresented as CMO, especially since virtually all of them are not only inferior, but ineffective. Many are just scams that take advantage of suffering people by fraudulently using the CMO name.

Although we at SDC have not devoted much energy to tracking down and exposing manufacturers who are fraudulently producing counterfeit CMO, the manufacturer and a number of distributors have been quite persistent in pressing legal action against them. We’d like to present here what some of those investigations found.

The marketplace seems to be sprouting new “CMO” counterfeit impersonators every day. Many consumers, distributors, nutritionists, scientists, physicians, and other health care professionals are confused and dizzy from the spin put on these phony products. We hope to clarify and differentiate between as many of these various fraudulent impostors as best we can. However, this cannot keep up with all the new ones as fast as they appear. Still, you should be able to apply many of the points you find here to other products as well.

First and foremost, let us emphasize that there is only one producer of CMO. It is strictly a proprietary product. There is no other. And it is a totally naturally derived product. As such it contains many beneficial closely related trace substances which aid in its effectiveness – just as the bioflavanoids accompanying vitamin C aid in its effectiveness.

For any product to act as an immunomodulator it must be made of some form of myristoleate. Myristates don’t work. And analyses revealed that virtually none of the imitators had even a trace of any form of myristoleate. Some had myristates, which are somewhat similar chemically, but don’t work for arthritis. Only one had any cetylmyristoleate at all, and that was in the unaltered form that is very hard to digest and absorb orally.

Our investigations finally led us to issue a brief but comprehensive memo summarizing the various classes of substances being marketed today. We apologize if you find some parts a bit too technical.

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Symptoms: severe abdominal pain or backache; menstruation before age nine; failure to menstruate by age 17; long-term absence of menstruation; excessive bleeding.

Home care:

Give aspirin or paracetamol for pain.

Encourage the girl to follow her normal schedule of activities during her period.

Consult her doctor.

-    After a girl starts to menstruate it may take months or even years for her periods to become regular. This does not necessarily indicate a problem.

-    Cramps and backaches may be related to tension or anxiety rather than to menstruation itself. However, these symptoms can also be caused by a hormone imbalance or an abnormal condition of the pelvis.

-    Make sure that your daughter fully understands the process of menstruation.

Girls begin to menstruate sometime between nine and 17 years of age. The average age is 12. Following the onset of menstruation (menarche), it may take from several months to five years for the hormones to balance and produce regular menstrual periods. Menstrual irregularity during this time is to be expected and is not necessarily abnormal.

Signs and symptoms

For about 5 percent of adolescent girls abdominal cramps and backaches – which last one or two days at the start of a menstrual period – may be severe enough to interfere with normal activities. In many instances cramps and backaches are related to emotional factors such as tension or anxiety. They also may be due to a hormonal imbalance or pelvic disease.

Because the range of normal is so broad, it is difficult to judge whether a menstrual abnormality exists or not. Symptoms that warrant investigation are: menstruation before age nine or failure to menstruate by age 17; absence of menstrual periods for six months (or for one month in a sexually active teenager where the failure to menstruate may indicate pregnancy); repeated excessive bleeding; or pain severe enough to interfere with normal activity.

Precautions

• Explain the facts about menstruation to your preteen daughter; this way you can counteract any “old wives’ tales” she may have heard from others, and prepare her for this important part of growing up.

• There are good books available (for both parents and teenagers) that can help explain the process of menstruation and provide accurate information.

Medical treatment

If a girl is having menstrual problems the doctor should conduct a complete physical examination, which includes a rectal and a limited pelvic examination. Chromosome and hormone studies may also be required. In some cases the doctor will order blood tests or tests of thyroid function. (The thyroid gland, located in front of the throat, regulates the body’s temperature, energy production, growth, and fertility.) If the girl is sexually active and has missed a period, a pregnancy test will be called for.

Your doctor may well find no abnormality and no treatment will be necessary. In some cases, the doctor will prescribe hormone medications to be taken over a period of several months. In other cases an iron supplement or a thyroid medication may be prescribed.

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One of the best ways to stem inflammation in your body, and take a burden off your immune system is to have healthy liver function. Avoiding trans fats, reducing your intake of sugar and carbohydrate, eating raw foods and consuming raw vegetable juices are all great ways to take care of your liver. Another great way to improve your liver health relatively quickly is to take a good liver tonic. A good liver tonic will increase the manufacture and flow of bile through your liver, thus taking toxins away with it, and increase the flow of bile out of your gallbladder; ensuring it stays healthy too. Look for the following ingredients in a liver tonic to make sure you are getting the best formula:

• St Mary’s Thistle (Milk Thistle)

Also known as Silybum marianum, this herb promotes the excretion of bile through the liver, thus has a cleansing effect. It is very high in antioxidants; therefore it reduces the oxidation of cholesterol and prevents free radical damage in the body. Milk thistle also has the ability to repair and regenerate damaged liver cells.

• Dandelion Root (Taraxacum officinale)

This herb also promotes the flow of bile, therefore has a cleansing effect on a congested liver and gallbladder. Bile is one of the main ways we excrete cholesterol from our body, so if you can increase its flow, you will be excreting more cholesterol. Dandelion root also has a mild laxative action, further helping cholesterol to be excreted.

• Globe artichoke (Cynara scolymus)

Globe artichoke stimulates the flow of bile; however it also has other direct cholesterol lowering actions. Clinical trials have shown it has the ability to reduce total and LDL “bad” cholesterol. Globe artichoke contains luteolin; a type of flavonoid which is a strong antioxidant. Luteolin has the ability to prevent the oxidation of LDL cholesterol, thus preventing it from doing harm to our arteries.

• Taurine

This is a type of protein called an amino acid needed for various functions in the body. Taurine is involved in bile formation, detoxification of toxins called xenobiotics by the liver, stabilizing cell membranes and nerve cells. By helping to form bile, taurine assists with the removal of cholesterol from the body. Taurine also helps our arteries to be healthy, and can actually reverse some of the damage that smoking causes to them. According to Dr David J. Bouchier-Hayes, professor of surgery at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Beaumont Hospital, Dublin; “When blood vessels are exposed to cigarette smoke it causes the vessels to behave like a rigid pipe rather than a flexible tube, thus the vessels can’t dilate in response to increased blood flow”. This is referred to as endothelial dysfunction; it is one of the earliest signs of atherosclerosis. A study published in the journal Circulation showed that when smokers were given a taurine supplement, their blood vessels appeared to behave the same as non-smokers; taurine reversed the damage that smoking did to the arteries of the participants.

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The Department of Health recommends that we should all double our intake of Omega 3 oils by eating oily fish two to three times a week. This advice is based on the fact that, as their name implies, these oils are absolutely essential to good health.

Essential fats have a profound effect on every system of the body, including the reproductive system, and they are crucial for healthy hormone functioning. From these essential fatty acids you produce beneficial prostaglandins which have hormone-like functions. Endometriosis, which is a common problem that stops some women conceiving, involves an excess of some negative prostaglandins which can be controlled by adding in Omega 3 fatty acids from fish or linseed oil capsules. It is thought that fibroids (another condition that can affect fertility), also responds well to supplementing with these Omega 3 fatty acids.

For men essential fatty acid supplementation is crucial because the semen is rich in prostaglandins which are produced from these fats. When scientists have compared sperm samples from men with a good semen analysis, to those with problems such as abnormal sperm, poor motility or a low count, the semen in the poor samples lacks adequate levels of these beneficial prostaglandins.

More and more research suggests that it is vital to supplement these fatty acids and not just rely on your dietary intake. Both you and your partner should start supplementing essential fatty acids three to four months before conception.

Because fish oil helps prevent blood from clotting inappropriately, supplementing with fish oil capsules can be beneficial to women who have recurrent miscarriages especially where the diagnosis has been linked to a clotting problem. So important are these essential fats that scientists have also looked at their role in pregnancy. They have found that they are crucial for brain, eyes and central nervous system development in the growing baby.

They are also believed to prevent low birth weight and decrease the likelihood of a premature birth with all its inherent risks, including cerebral palsy, blindness, deafness, etc.

As these essential fatty acids are so vital, it is advisable to supplement them in your diet in their most readily absorbable form. You can get GLA (Omega 6) from evening primrose, borage, blackcurrant or starflower. Whichever supplement you choose, read the GLA content on the back of the container and aim for a supplement that gives you at least 150mg of GLA per day. With EPA (Omega 3), aim for a supplement that will give you at least 300mg per day.

If you are vegetarian or prefer not to take fish oil, the other way to get Omega 3 fatty acids is by taking linseed oil capsules. Linseed oil contains both Omega 3 and Omega 6 essential fatty acids.

You should take l000 mg linseed oil or 150mg GLA and 300mg EPA a day.

Your partner should take 1 000 mg linseed oil or 150mg GLA and 300mg EPA a day.

Warning

Don’t supplement with cod liver oil capsules. In the sea, fish can accumulate toxins and mercury, which pass through the liver, the organ of detoxification. Oil taken from the liver is therefore likely to give higher quantities of these toxins than oil taken from the body of the fish. Buy fish oil capsules from companies, like BioCare, that regularly check their fish oil supplements for contamination.

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