mental illness in children....

[Isabelle]

....are we dealing with children with mental illnesses? Or, is the Big Pharma greed marketing the idea to get costumers for life and for profits?

Here in my local paper the story of a little girl diagnosed with bipolar,that to my eyes looks more like aspergers.

"What lies beneath"
http://www.mentalhealthroundtable.ca/july_06/TheStar_What%20lies%20beneath.pdf


Is the mother misguided?
Is sensationalism from this paper?

I was about to add it to "Finding Normal" for a contrast but I think, we need to discuss this new probability of finding children suffering from "mental illness"

[LIZARD]

Wow, this is sad. :( I can see where, in a case like this, mental illness, autism, and even epilepsy can be possibilities, and there may be others, too. I'm glad her med is working for her, but I think it would be an enormous mistake to think that our kids are actually mentally ill, and I hope no one draws that conclusion from this story. There does seem to be a fine line, in some cases, but I also saw some possible shades of epilepsy in this story. The rages certainly could have been seizures, and although it didn't seem to be the case in her situation, many kids have significant sleep issues, which can exacerbate sz activity. If the seizures manifest as fits of anger or visual or auditory hallucinations, of course they may be believed to be mentally ill, but how do we really know??

This is why I wholeheartedly believe any child with these issues should have a full neuro workup, not just a psych eval. MRI and EEG should be done whenever possible, not because neuro should be any more "acceptable" than a mental illness dx, but because it can very well be the real issue. Every single stone should be turned when a child's health is at risk, and with universal health care--or no health care--it can be very difficult to accomplish, but every effort should be made to make it happen.

Are we being snowed by greedy pharmaceutical companies preying on our kids? Absolutely, and this needs to stop as well. This is why my son is not on any prescription drugs, and I plan to keep it that way as long as I can! I know we're extremely fortunate that he has had access to excellent behavioral interventions, as well having amazing results, but it saddens me that the first intervention attempted is always a drug. I'm thrilled for this girl that her med is working so well for well, and maybe she really is bipolar, but how many kids have a label like that slapped onto them for the doctor's--and drug company's--convenience?? Millions and millions, I'll bet. That saddens me more than I can say. :(


LIZARD

[AKF]

That is sad. I have a very good friend whose youngest daughter, now 15, was diagnosed with bi-polar disorder at about age 6 or 7, I think. She does well now, as long as she takes her meds, but one characteristic of bi-polar is resistance to taking the medication. My friend worries a lot about what happens when her daughter is no longer living at home; how will she do? And the fact that the suicide rate in bi-polar teens is astronomical is a constant worry, too. She and I have come to the conclusion that you just have to educate yourself, and then do your best and pray real hard. You can't spend every minute wondering "what if"

OK, I'll stop rambling, now! Sorry!!

[Pamster]

I wish we had the answers to these questions, but we don't. We only know what we feel and believe in our hearts to be true. I surely think like you do, that it's tragic this child might have something wrong, even being Bi-Polar would be a hefty label for any child to wear, yet they label kids as BP more and more these days. Heck we have a subforum here for it in the Bi-Polar forum. It's just sad the state of our health care here these days.

[Isabelle]

Apparently, mental illnesses in children are common as cancer and as genetic defects.

In Canada the government is allowing the teachers to find mental illnesses in children and to recommend parents to take the child to a psychiatrist.
http://www.thestar.blogs.com/parenting/2006/07/index.
Click on "Out of the Shadows at Last"

And, then we have The Texas Torch opposing the TeenScreen
http://www.texaseagle.org/torch/NewTorch/2-2007Torch.pdf

and there is over 18,000 people by now signing a petition against teenscreening.

To me this is a new world, a very sad, insecure world and I believe is going to get worse before it gets better

[Pamster]

I'm afraid you're right that it's about to get worse before it gets better Isabelle. :(

[Lara]

I hear what you're saying, Isabelle, I truly do, but the major problem is that if a child or adult does have condition such as bipolar, then it's really important that they receive any help that is necessary. It's better to have everyone alive, than to have them die due to suicide. Some medications can cause mania in children who have bipolar disorder too, and the DSM is basically set up (erroneously) so that every condition has its own little box. The problem then is that someone might be being treated for ADHD when indeed they may have Bipolar Disorder, and the medications they're prescribed for their ADD is a trigger for their mood disorder.

Same with Depression. Some meds. prescribed for Depression can trigger mania. My question or reply though, is that some people find that the only way that their mood can be stablized is through medications and I have friends whose lives have been changed forever once they've stablized and are no longer high as a kite one week and suicidal the next. [Bipolar disorder doesn't just happen in people who have been given medication. These are neurobiological conditions we're talking about.] These are really, really serious issues, and it's not just adults, it's in our children too, and I'm talking about unmedicated children. If a person has a problem with brain chemistry, a biological issue, then there's no amount of love in the world that can change that entirely and safely.

It's a little like the other story you posted the other day when the poor boy had been diagnosed with numerous conditions and given numerous treatments I guess through all his childhood. Well, once again I look at the DSM as being partly to blame for that. But heck, some people _do_ have more than one or two conditions. That's especially seen in children who have Tourette's Syndrome, for example.

It is not uncommon for a child or adult with TS to have comorbid ADHD or comorbid mood disorder or Asperger's Syndrome or anything, same as a person with TS can have comorbid hearing problems or comorbid vision problems or endless list of comorbidities. The really important thing though for someone who does have numerous conditions is that IF they are treated for one of those conditions, to make most sure that is the correct diagnosis and if they do need treatment to allow them to live well, then it's most imperative that the treatment does not interfere or exacerbate the symptoms of something else. It's so complex. ugh

edited again to add:
in the story above they mention hallucinations.
I don't know anyone who has Asperger's Syndrome diagnosis who has hallucinations. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but that doesn't fit to me. Some of the other things do, but they might be just an extreme part of regular childhood behaviour... like lining up the toys and stuff. Some children mention "voices in their heads" on some of the forums I use from time to time. Well, that doesn't mean they have anything other than a little voice in their head like self-talk... esp. in children who are very obsessive compulsive, but to a parent that can appear somewhat frightening so it's really important that whoever is looking after the medical care of our children knows just what the heck they're doing.

On the flip side of all that last paragraph is the fact that at one time when my son was having a most dire and difficult time, I remember checking out the Papolos site "The Bipolar Child" and darn it he fitted their behaviour checklist almost to a tee... Almost! However, he does not have bipolar disorder and that was certainly ruled out. He did appear to at that point in time, just by checking that check list though.

The doctors need to get it right, and sometimes that's not easy, esp. in very young children who might go on to be on Autism spectrum/Asperger's syndrome. My own son was misdiagnosed for years when he was little, 'cause he fell through the cracks and he had so much else going on that all medicatl attention was focused on the visible problems, not on the inside difficulties that he was experiencing. This especially happens in children who are exceptionally intelligent... they slip through the cracks. Some people might say, well, if they're that intelligent what does it matter, well it matters heaps because they miss out on a huge portion of their life to misunderstanding and concerns about their own health and also miss out on a lot of services that they really need.

ugh, sorry is so long... I could keep going, but I'd better stop. :)

Oh Yeah... something else. You know it wasn't all that long ago that something like Tourette Syndrome wasn't even taught in Medical Universities throughout the world. Someone I knew locally here (sadly she's passed on now), went to Yale and somehow got a hand on the relevant part of their syllabus and took a copy of it to our local Medical school to actually show them that what they were learning about was absolutely WRONG!

Every single day of my life, I open up my computer and email programmes and I come across MISINFORMATION about conditions that people generally think is one thing that it is not. It's sad, it's bothersome, it's detrimental, sometimes it's even disgusting and it's a huge part of the whole problem!

[Lara]

:o sorry, I have more... lol

I went out to the kitchen to make a cuppa and I thought of something else connected with the hallucinations...

Years and years ago I was misdiagnosed with, and treated for, PTSD. I later figured out that I didn't have PTSD at all, but I did have very disabling OCD at that particular point in time. The thing I just remembers was that I was replaying stuff over and over in my head like they were movies. To someone else they may have seemed like hallucinations, a little like the "self-talk" that some children might have when they say something like "a little voice in my head tells me I have to do something".

Another thing is that some "conditions" are called spectrum disorders or syndromes. So, e.g. impairment can vary greatly from one end of the spectrum to the other... also some of them are conditions that begin or are triggered at a certain point in a child's development. Some syndromes, like the tic syndromes, have been shown in the most part to get better with age... thus it is highly possible for a child with a tic disorder in childhood, even quite severe on the global scale, to have those tics go away at a later date. A person diagnosed when age 5 with a Tic syndrome, doesn't necessarily still have that diagnosis or named condition when they are in their late teens or adults. So, some conditions are not static conditions, they change, and they can wax and wane and in most cases they can go away almost entirely to the point where they are not problematic at all.

These are all still in the DSM as well. Why? Because they're there for research purposes and diagnostic purposes and it's about time the whole mess of the DSM is straightened out, 'cause that's causing much more harm than good! Heck, lots of people have OC behaviours, just one example. It's only called OCD when it becomes a problematic for the person and affects their quality of life. On the positive side, lots of people with OC behaviours and even OCD can channel that into extremely valuable work and life experiences. What I really dislike reading about is descriptions of children who are supposed to have "a little bit of this" and "a little bit of that", as if that's something that needs diagnostic evaluation or treatment, when it's more likely that it's just a part of that child or adult's personality. I reckon there's a lot of people diagnosed with things that aren't much bother to themselves at all, but they seem to bother other people.

[Isabelle]

I'm afraid you're right that it's about to get worse before it gets better Isabelle. :(

Pamster. worrisome, because mental illness in the 21st century shouldn't be happening, right? Hundred years ago only those orphans, abandoned and poor children, some had some neurological disorders but were a few, ok,in relation to the actual populations of that time, were institutionalized and medicated. We supposed to be a very enlightened civilization instead "mental illness" has increased 1000 times over, what has happened? Stigma has been lifted, now nobody needs to hide if we are "mentally sick".....but, are we? Or, if their child is, but is he really?

Lara,Pamster,AKF,LIZ

The next question is what is causing mental illness in children? Is it really "MENTAL ILLNESS" or, as some doctors argue, is a "GUT ILLNESS"?

In order for the brain to function it need nutrients. Where are those nutrients coming from? They come from the food we eat. What if the food we eat lack nutritional value, is overly processed, etc? Ok, let's supposed the child is well fed. Then, what if the child digestive system is defective and cannot process the food?

We are told that many mental illnesses are the result of a "chemical imbalance" in the brain. There are no tests to prove that. But, ok, let's suppose that's what really happens, we have a question, where those chemicals are coming from? We get them from food, right? So, the scenario above explains it,too.

The brain is an organ like any other organ in the body and it depends on the nutritive value of the food we eat, what if even we eat well we have a chemical imbalance? Studies over and over has presented a gastrointestinal problems as the underlying problem for many cases of "schizophrenia", bipolar, psychosis, and many other variations.

Everybody knows gut and brain are related, whatever we eat affect our mood and behaviour. Diet is behaviour. When did we lose this connection?

Apparently, the psychiatrist used to be a physician who would examine the patient, asked thousand questions, talked to relatives, did detective work, order tests, in other words did a "differential diagnostic" before diagnosing a person with a "brain dysfunction" and in need of a med. Now, the patient says to a doctor "I am depressed" and next minute leaves with a prescription for Prozac. The same with parents who take a child to a doctor, "he is unruly, aggressive, etc", the child leaves with a label: ADHD and a prescription for Ritalin. Doctors based their diagnoses on "behaviours" without finding out the cause of the behaviours.

"Genetics", ok, now how did our DNA, genes got messed up?
Answer: We are "evolving" and changes and mutations are expected....:eek:

Could be possible that poor diet affects our genes/DNA, immune system, central nervous system and brain? So, the children are paying for the lousy diet of their parents ???? Or, there is money to be earned/paid for every diagnosis of mental illness? Read the TexasTorch

[Pamster]

You both have put it so eloquently, I really do understand and wish that they would stop trying to treat symptoms and actually LOOK for the causes which very easily could be leaky gut and I do believe that our diet is affecting our DNA too. So much of what is wrong with the country hinges on health care IMO. It is sad they want to screen kids like that but from what I understand it doesn't end there, they want to screen adults too. They would like us all to be on meds I bet, making millions for big pharma. :(