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I just read the very sad story of Carrie Buck. The subject line was taken from the story. Something slightly similar happened to me when my son born. My attending nurse was alarmed when my youngest was born. Auden’s eyes have really prominent epicanthic folds. My daughter had it when she was born but not to the degree I saw it in my son. The nurse kept looking at him, checked the AFP results again but the midwife said he was just fine. She couldn’t believe it and later mentioned it to the pediatrician! He said he was fine, but he did ask about our ancestry.
We’re constantly asked where did we adopt him from. Never know what will come up from the genetic grab bag. Kind of scary to think of what might have happened in an earlier time.
I wrote an article about her and told a story about someone I knew who was listed as Mongoloid at birth.
http://www.saponitown.com/eugenics-carrie-buck/eugenics-carrie-buck.htm
There was something I didn’t say in the article. As a young adult, my friend did have a problem, manic-depression, which ended with his suicide. Sad end for the boy teased through school as “Ricky Retardo.”
Linda,
I pulled the subject line from your article. I was infuriated with the nurse but it never occurred it could happen to others.
I am really sorry for Ricky’s eventual end–that is truly sad. No wonder he was such a wit–people with manic-depression often are quite glib, artistic, etc.
I can understand–I have it too. Manic-depression is one of the most malevolent forces on the planet. I am sure you miss him.
If he had come of age now it would have been a different story. My sister-in-law has it and she says that the new drugs will prevent the neurological destruction the disease can inflict if there’s one too many psychotic episodes. It saddens me when I hear of young people with it who refuse to take the medicine.
Linda, Red Metis and others, This medical problem has got to be one of the most physically and mentaly abusive disorders known to man. I pastored two different churches in which a gentleman in each of those churches suffered manic depression. We could have written volums on suffering and pain . My mother has lived and endured with this as has others in her family. There is a large inheritance percentage with this. And I could never encourage young people enough to realize this has nothing to do with being crazy, this is a major medical disorder that you had nothing to do with causing any more than heart disease that is inherited. Take the medications and live a happy life. I have a family member who does. My mother will be 84 this year and is in a nursing home. She is brittle diabetic and now dealing in a major way with dementia and just yesterday I spent an hour with the physician on the phone discussing her issues and do you know at this point they are going to have to zero in on the manic depression. When I have watched her suffer with the internal torment of this disorder I could have accepted terminal cancer when considering her relief but our Father is ever faithful and knows best. My mother lost a brother and sister with suicide but the key is to accept the medical benefits available today. I have seen them work and that help enhanced by your faith can enable you to live!!!!!!!!!!not just exist. Ed
Linda, I think all medications have side effects so that can make a difference in a patient wanting to take them. Also each persons physical makeup is unique (we are fearfully and wonderfully made) and each case needs to be approached by through evaluation and then consistent monitoring which means there must be a good doctor – patient relationship and disclosure.
Older persons like my mother are going to resist and deny the diagnosis because to them it means they are now being called crazy or have mental problems. The major sufferers of this disorder and thank goodness all are not as severe but the severe cases tend to cycle and that on a monthly basis from what is called lows to highs or downs to ups with the down being very lethargic , not eating, sleeping all the time to the up when the manic is expressed in hyperactivity, no sleeping, just a total change that borders irrational with paranoia, etc. A lady in one of my churches could write the dates on a calendar that her husband would cycle. One common thread among those dealing with this extreme side is not taking their medicines. My friends father was finally hospitilized after months and when they cleaned his room guess what they found under the carpet, behind the furniture–all the medication he was supposed to take. This is typical of those who are suspect to anything you give them or have access and look up the medicine and when they find it is listed as a drug for “mental” disorder they immediately refuse it. Younger people might well not be so resistent although it is characteristic of this disorder to so incline its sufferers to deny their illness and refuse certain types of help.
It would take too much room here to explain my experiences in family and church family and friends but feel free to e-mail me or call me if you have any questions. Manic Depressive/BiPolor disorder is a chemical imbalance of the brain that effects the entire system if not treated. My heart literally aches and goes out to anyone who is afflicted and to their families but today it can be diagnosed, and treated better than ever before. There is Hope! and relief, and a normal life possible. Ed
YES, YES, YES!!!
When the SSRIs, i.e. Prozac, Zoloft, etc., came out, it helped so many people because tricyclics had so many adverse side-effects that many refused to take them. Only in recent times have p-docs discovered that giving anti-depressants alone could cause folks to go become manic and/or experience mixed states. I took them for years w/out my doc realizing that it was prolonging things–found out in a very, very painful way that I should not be given them. The FDA blackboxes that class of drugs for teenagers but manic-depressive adults can suffer the same problems.
Most of the mood stabilizers have side-effects that are usually tolerable. Lithium is the worst and some of its side-effects are really severe but it usually just needs a dose adjustment to tone it down. Almost all of the other mood stabilizers are anti-convulsants. Some cause really bad weight gain, one causes weight loss, and another the possibility of a potentially fatal skin disease (this is the one I take).
There are newer generation anti-psychotics that are supposed to carry a lower risk of involuntary movement disorders but I think it’s overrated. They are generally known for causing elevated levels of prolactic even to levels that will induce galactorrhea in both sexes.
I think the biggest problem with these medications is finding something that really works. You cannot imagine pining your hopes on a medication that is supposed to pull you out of hell and instead it banishes you to a lower level. These meds are really guessing–it’s no one’s fault–we’re talking about a living brain. Kinda hard to take it apart to see what will really work for each individual. P-meds are medical guessing at it’s best and worst. It’s even worse considering that most people don’t get a dx until they’ve had the illness for many years (10+ for me). MD is subject to a phenomenom known as kindling.
One gets tired of the broken promises of this being the medicine that will save us. Almost everyone with manic-depression has gone through this. I have always taken my medicine faithfully even if it didn’t do !@#$ for me. I can’t tell you of the anguish I experienced because of its ineffectiveness. Going to the doctor, praying that this time it would really finally happen and I would be okay (what did ‘okay’ feel like anyway?) this time; surely this would work, wouldn’t it?
The worst side-effects of these meds is when they don’t work.
Manic-depression isn’t like any other ‘physical’ illness. Taking medication for this is a humiliating thing. Don’t get me wrong–I am so very grateful that after a decade of suffering, I finallly have a life back and my family has a wife and mother again. But I can never, ever forget that the only thing that stands between me and chaos is a pill. There’s a lot of resentment. To know that my sanity lives in a bottle…
BTW, someone told me once that ‘normal’ was a setting on a washing machine–it didn’t exist with manic-depression. It’s not a rule, but it often does prove to be true.
Ok, I’m sure that’s more than what you wanted to know. I’m sorry about that.
I have very close loved ones who suffer from mental disorders. Both are young men. The 31 year old has schizophrenia and the 26 year old has manic depression (nowadays called bipolar disorder). We’ve been through the gamut with medicines. The 31 year old takes his clozaril religously and it keeps him sane. In fact, the average person would never even know he had a mental disorder. And while I thank God for clozaril, it’s not without severe side effects. The potentially worse side effect is that it can lower your white blood cells to the point where you die. So, you have to get a blood check every week. After 13 years with the illness, his arms look like a drug addict’s arms because of all the needle sticks to draw blood. The actual side effect that affects him the most however is the sedation. It basically knocks him out. He needs about 12 to 13 hours of sleep a day.
The 26 year old takes lithium. No. Let me rephrase that. He’s SUPPOSE to take lithium. But he doesn’t. Not until he gets manic. Then he takes it, but by then, he’s usually so far gone that he either gets locked up by the police or he winds up in the psychiatric ward of the hospital.
Anyway, I just wanted to say that I’ve read quite a lot on both disorders (personally I think almost all mental disorders are a continuum [spelling?] of the same root cause; that cause being brain hormonal interactions). What I want to say is that I believe that anyone suffering from any mental disorder should take large amounts of purified, distilled fish oil. Fish oil derived from deep sea cold water fish such as herring and mackeral contain the omega three fatty acids, EPA and DHA. Numerous studies show that omega three fatty acids (EPA and DHA in particular) work all sorts of wonders in the human body. Omega threes somehow quite effectively counteract the inflamation process within the human body. No one knows yet what role inflamation plays in mental disorders, but I wouldn’t be surprised at all if it was discovered that inflamation is a major contributing factor in mental disorders. TIME magazine did a cover story about two years ago on the role of inflamation in numerous diseases. Inflamation is insidious and shows up in unlikely places. For instance, twenty years you would have been laughed out of the room if you said that inflamation plays a role in heart disease. But not today. Today we know that levels of a protein called c–reactive protein is the greatest predictor of heart disease. And c-reactive protein is produced by the body when the body is combatting inflamation!
Anyhow, I guess I shouldn’t get on my soap box, but, I think fish oil is the nearest thing to a panecea that exists on earth. And, I know it helps in both schizophrenia and manic depression, even though the 31 year old and the 26 year old refuse to take it. The 31 year old tried it and we saw remarkable improvement (a hallmark of schizophrenia is that most don’t like to be in crowds of people; they prefer solitude, or just one or two people they know to be around them). After two weeks of large daily doses of fish oil, he started going grocery shopping and to the YMCA again – something he rarely did because he was afraid of crowds. But, he stopped after about two months because he said it was causing him to gain weight. And we’re still trying to get the 26 year old to take fish oil but he simply refuses without giving any reason.
OK, I’ll shut up now.
Read up on fish oil/omega 3 fatty acids and metal disorders. You’ll be surprised at what you learn.
Read up on fish oil/omega 3 fatty acids and metal disorders. You’ll be surprised at what you learn.
Ok, got a question for you….I have heard that they help with migraines. Do you or anyone else know about this? What dosage and recommendations? My daughter suffers with them and a friend recommended fish oil….
One of my best-friend’s is an 86 y.o. woman that suffers from rheumatoid arthritis. I have psoriatic arthritis and we both take fish oils. I don’t particularly like them so I mainly take flax seed oil and smaller amounts of the fish oils. They do help a lot. They are not powerful enough to overturn an entrenched episode but they fille in the numerous gaps that the medication just won’t help.
Coharie Roy is right it helps with so many illnesses–it really ought to be prescribed for a host of things. I wish it helped with my porphyria. I am glad that it has helped with your friend–it’s always good to hear someone is holding on and doing well with one of these illnesses.
Anti-convulsants are good for migraine prevention. Depakote and Topomax are particularly good. I get frequent migraines, too but the anti-convulsant that I take isn’t particularly effective to prevent them.
I know where each of you are coming from. I have determined in my mother’s situation and my two dear brothers in the Lord when they go into the manic stage at the same time they are not rational they know it and cannot do anything about it. It is an inward torment and a living hell.
I have deliberately refrained from using terms like mental illness although I know by definition if it involves the brain that is how doctors categorize it. My reason is that if my mother sees the word mental on the use of the medication or hears the term mental disorder her resistance and highly animated response is I am not crazy to which we reply that’s right Mama, you are not crazy but you have a physical condition, probably inherited, that means you have a chemical imbalance in the brain.
Mama when at home was totaly bi polar and schizophrenic, and paranoia. She still has those areas to deal with but not being in the house where she lived and with a medical staff controling her meds it is better. Even a brief visit out to the house seems to immediately set into motion all she struggles with. She is and has been on depocote for some years now and needs regular blood screening to determine the depocote levels. Just this week they are going to have to gradualy increase the sequel so that she will be less manic. Last year they tried aricept for the dementia and you know what it looked like she was getting better and it brought Mama back to some alertness and then Wham!! it landed her right smack in the middle of the manic stage. We had to make a choice, and it was this, we would rather go to see Mama and the dementia would have advanced to where she did not even know us than to have her alert and living in the middle of torment. The decisions of her caregivers just this week has been just that once again on evaluation. Thank God she knows all of us, and now we hope soon through trial and error but with care the manic will be brought more under control. Her fears are real to her even when we know there is nothing to fear. My nephew was diagnosed at age 18 , he has a really good position in a bank, does well because he knows what he has and takes his medications. It is a never ending battle but so is heart disease and diabetes. I personally know what it means to “live from pill to pill and out of a bottle.” One little pill means the difference in my heart rate being 65 or 145. Add about 13 more to that and—You know What? I’m in pretty good shape for the shape I’m in. May your day and day’s be blessed. Ed
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