Pretty amazing! This is from Dec. 11th, when I had 141 views. It only shows the countries, not the identity of the actual viewers. I only see the identity if someone comments, and then I only see the email they used to comment with. Pretty cool still! Sometimes, I have a lot more countries in my views than even these ones. So cool to have a global audience. Blogging is definitely one good thing and rewarding thing I do. 🙂
This is my most looked at blog post ever! Who knew it would be so popular!
Many of the medications we take for our disorders come in immediate release or extended release forms.
Immediate release, as the name implies, dissolves immediately within our stomachs and is taken up into the bloodstream. This can cause side effects, it is also taken up quickly and then degraded quickly. So the concentration of the medicine does not stay constant in our bodies, we get a quick spike and the drug is quickly degraded. It is actually better to have a constant concentration as opposed to this increase and decrease. Lithium is one drug that is known to cause major gastrointestinal side effects if taken in large doses in an immediate release form and can be quite corrosive to the stomach.
Extended release, also known as Controlled release, has a coating that allows it to dissolve slowly either in the stomach or small intestine (enteric coated). These medicines are then slowly dissolved…
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I am dedicating this post to my friend Dyane Leshin Harwood, whose amazing blog: https://proudlybipolar.wordpress.com/ has inspired me so much! And whose support and positive comments are so valuable to me. Love you my lithium sister!
Do you ever think you over react? Me? I say to myself, over react? Never! I am the modicum of tempered emotional reactions. Ummm no, actually I’m not. Happiness for me is joy, glee, giddiness. Sadness for me is ultimate doom, and blackness. Where is the middle ground? The happy medium? I do live there sometimes and sometimes I do not. Actually for someone with bipolar disorder, I am a fairly balanced person, but when something out of the ordinary happens, such as a concussion, well, I may lose it just a little, really, just a tiny, little bit.
Actually after I hit my head, I felt so amazingly good LOL! I haven’t felt that good in forever. All the worry, the depression, anxiety, all of it was gone. In its place was a peace, an acceptance of everything, a pleasantness and an optimism, and happiness and a calm. This lasted for almost two heavenly days, after which the anxiety, depression, sadness, pessimism, all came rushing back. Sigh, I’m almost willing to hit my head again to get that feeling back. Is there any way to whack your head, just a bit, yet prevent brain damage? If anyone knows of one, by all means let me know! Please.
I believe the good feelings were due to my brain producing endorphins to relieve the pain of the concussion. Yes, concussions are pretty painful. You, or in this case, I hit the back of my head against one of the most unyielding and hard substances in the world, ice! A whack of my head, against the ice, and my neck snapped back and my brain hit the wall of my skull. Luckily I fell backwards. Apparently that is the direction of choice. If I’d fallen sideways, I could have ruptured an artery, such as the middle meningeal artery, and that would have been a whole lot worse. As in subdural hematomas, coma, and death, if the pressure was not relieved by a craniotomy (a hole in your skull.)
So I dodged a bullet there, Generally I’d say that I got away easy, as the CAT scan showed no bleeding and even my tail bone was not fractured, though it feels like it is. Even the headaches I had for two days in Buffalo weren’t as bad as the worst migraines I have ever had.
The plane ride seems to have exacerbated the symptoms a bit in that I’m having headaches again, but not really, really bad ones.
I count myself as lucky, that even though I did do something as stupid as not wearing a helmet, and very ungracefully falling on my butt and then thwacking my head against the crystalline, diamond hard ice, I came thorough it quite well.
Concussions are not good for anyone, especially I might add, for people with bipolar d/o, as emotional disturbances can occur. Even in this aspect, I feel I am doing fine. Although, I do realize now that I was a bit up, just a bit, mind you, even before the concussion, and I did have a little emotional down spike a few days after the concussion as well, but since then, calm.
And of course, my mantra is “Wear a helmet!”
After I come back from Pakistan, yes my next adventure, I will buy a helmet, hire an instructor, and learn how to ice skate, really well 🙂
If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. That is also a mantra of mine 🙂
“Apigenin, a substance found in parsley, thyme, chamomile and red pepper, improves neuron formation and strengthens the connections between brain cells….
The research team conducted by Rehen demonstrated that apigenin works by binding to estrogen receptors, which affect the development, maturation, function, and plasticity of the nervous system. This group of hormones is known to delay the onset of psychiatric and neurodegenerative disorders such as schizophrenia, depression, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease. However, the use of estrogen-based therapies is limited by the increased risk of estrogen-dependent tumors and cardiovascular problems.”
Brazilian research shows that the flavonoid apigenin has potential to treat diseases like schizophrenia, depression, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s –
Brazilian researchers from D’Or Institute for Research and Education (IDOR), Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) and Federal University of Bahia (UFBA) have demonstrated in laboratory that apigenin, a substance found in parsley, thyme, chamomile and red pepper, improves neuron formation and strengthens the connections between brain cells.
Previous experiments with animals had already shown that substances from the same chemical group as the apigenin, known as flavonoids, positively affect memory and learning. Many studies highlight the potential of flavonoids to preserve and enhance brain function. While the effectiveness of flavonoids for brain health is not an entirely new concept, this research is the first to show the positive effects of apigegin directly on human cells and the first to unraveling its mechanism.
The scientists observed that just by applying apigenin to human stem cells in a dish they become neurons after 25 days—an effect they would not see without the substance. Moreover, the neurons that were formed made stronger and sophisticated connections among themselves after being treated with this natural compound.
“Strong connections between neurons are crucial for good brain function, memory consolidation and learning”, says neuroscientist from IDOR and UFRJ Stevens Rehen, leader author of the paper published today at Advances in Regenerative Biology.
The research team conducted by Rehen demonstrated that apigenin works by binding to estrogen receptors, which affect the development, maturation, function, and plasticity of the nervous system. This group of hormones is known to delay the onset of psychiatric and neurodegenerative disorders such as schizophrenia, depression, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease. However, the use of estrogen-based therapies is limited by the increased risk of estrogen-dependent tumors and cardiovascular problems.
Researchers believe apigenin can be used as an alternative approach on future treatments for neurodegenerative diseases as well as in neuronal differentiation strategies in laboratory.
“We show a new path for new studies with this substance”, points out Rehen. “Moreover, flavonoids are present at high amounts in some foods and we can speculate that a diet rich in flavonoids may influence the formation of neurons and the way they communicate within the brain.”
“… Now we may have true cause for hope.
At least four large companies are holding clinical trials to study something called monoclonal antibody therapy. This therapy uses genetically engineered antibodies to stimulate the immune system and attack a nasty compound that is elevated in the brain during migraine headache pain. The treatment would be injected periodically. It has had excellent results in early trials, and could be available within a few years. “Not only is this the most hopeful thing on the horizon,” said Dr. Joseph Safdieh, a neurologist at Weill Cornell Medical College who is not involved with the trials, “it is the only hope on the horizon.”
But why has it taken so long to find a fix for an ailment that so many millions suffer from? The answer may be that what looks like one syndrome could actually be a symptom of a number of different conditions.
According to Dr. Steven B. Graff-Radford, the director of the Headache and Orofacial Pain Program at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, “most migraine sufferers are undiagnosed or given the wrong diagnosis.” He said, “They go to their general doctor — when they should be seen by specialists — and are told they have sinus or tension headaches, which are treated with antibiotics or psychological management, when they have other kinds that should be treated another way.”… “
http://www.nature.com/npp/journal/vaop/naam/abs/npp2015343a.html
Lithium remains the gold standard in treating bipolar disorder but has unwanted toxicity and side effects. We previously reported that ebselen inhibits inositol monophosphatase (IMPase) and exhibits lithium-like effects in animal models through lowering of inositol. Ebselen has been tested in clinical trials for other disorders, enabling us to determine for the first time the effect of a blood-brain barrier penetrant IMPase inhibitor on human central nervous system (CNS) function. We now report that in a double-blind, placebo-controlled trial with healthy participants, acute oral ebselen reduced brain myo-inositol in the anterior cingulate cortex, consistent with CNS target engagement. Ebselen decreased slow-wave sleep and affected emotional processing by increasing recognition of some emotions, decreasing latency time in the acoustic startle paradigm and decreasing the reinforcement of rewarding stimuli. In summary, ebselen affects the phosphoinositide cycle and has CNS effects on surrogate markers that may be relevant to the treatment of bipolar disorder, which can be tested in future clinical trials.
I am available if anyone wants to do a trial of psilocybin to reduce anxiety in people with bipolar disorder. Not kidding. Really, they should do this in people who have mental illness as well. I would be willing to participate in a trial, no problem. Being free of anxiety, at peace, calm and composed, what a blessing that is! I could really use a few months of it myself ☺️
single dose of psilocybin, the major hallucinogenic component in magic mushrooms, induces long-lasting decreases in anxiety and depression in patients diagnosed with life-threatening cancer according to a new study presented at the annual meeting of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology that took place Dec. 6-10, 2015 in Hollywood, Florida.
Patients who receive a cancer diagnosis often develop debilitating symptoms of anxiety and depression. Reports from the 1960s and 1970s suggest that hallucinogenic drugs such as LSD may alleviate such symptoms in cancer patients, but the clinical value of hallucinogenic drugs for the treatment of mood disturbances in cancer patients remains unclear.
In this new study, Roland Griffiths and colleagues from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine investigated the effects of psilocybin on symptoms of anxiety and depression in individuals diagnosed with life-threatening cancer. Five weeks after receiving a dose of psilocybin sufficiently high to induce changes in perception and mystical-type experiences, patients reported significantly lower levels of anxiety and depression compared with patients that received a low dose of the drug. The positive effects on mood persisted in the patients at 6 month follow-up.
The authors suggest that a single dose of psilocybin may be sufficient to produce enduring decreases in negative mood in patients with a life-threatening cancer.
This is really big! For the first time, doctors are reporting that a group of 6 proteins may be able to be used to diagnose bipolar disorder. This mental illness, though it affects millions of people, has no diagnostic test. It would make it so much easier to treat people with bipolar disorder if they could definitively be diagnosed first. An example is me. When I became severely depressed n 1985, I was put on antidepressants without any mood stabilizers. This caused me to go into a full blown manic phase. Somewhere no one wants to be. If this diagnostic test had been available then and I would have been put on mood stabilizers right from the beginning, my bipolar 1 may never have been unmasked. Do you know what a difference that would have made in my life? A whole hell of a lot of difference. I hope they develop this test and people who are in the process of developing bipolar disorder can be correctly diagnosed with the help of these 6 protein test. I won’t benefit from the test, but I am inordinately happy for the people who will, whose lives will be happier and healthier because of it.
http://www.psychiatryadvisor.com/mood-disorders/protein-bipolar-depression-immunoassay-mood-disorder/article/458539/
Diagnosing bipolar disorder may become easier now that researchers have discovered a group of proteins that could be used as biomarker to identify the mood disorder.Mark Frye, MD, head of psychiatric and psychology at the Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn., and colleages examined 272 protein from 288 patient blood samples. Of the study participants, 46 were diagnosed with bipolar I depression, 49 with bipolar II depression and 52 with unipolar depression. They were compared against a control group of 141 subjects without any mood disorders.
A total of 73 proteins were found to differ among the four groups studied. However, there was a significant difference in six proteins in those with bipolar I depression compared to the control group, the researchers reported in the journal Translational Psychiatry, an indication they could be used as biomarkers.
“The potential of having a biological test to help accurately diagnose bipolar disorder would make a huge difference to medical practice,” Frye said in a statement. “It would then help clinicians to choose the most appropriate treatment for hard-to-diagnose individuals.”
The researchers noted their work is “one of the first studies to assess the feasibility of high throughput multiplexed immunoassay technology (272 proteins) trying to distinguish different types of mood disorders,” thought they added the results need to be replicated in a larger study.
Yesterday was weird.
Let me back up.
I live up in the Santa Cruz Mountains where the wild banana slugs roam, and every day is a little bit weird.
But yesterday was weirder than usual.
After taking the kids to school (and only having one road rage-ish tizzy fit -a personal best!), I returned home toread the latest post by my friend Samina Raza of the award-winning Bipolar1Blog.
Samina wrote about her first time ice skating. Her post was accompanied by a pictorial, which started out showing happy, beautiful scenes of Samina on the ice, and a video, but then it turned into something very different.
Interestingly enough, Samina’s adventure wasn’t all gloom ‘n doom. While she took a spill and suffered a concussion, something else happened that day that was good – you need to read her post “went Ice Skating” to believe it!
I never would’ve guessed…
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