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Common infections can spark psychiatric illnesses in children

economist.com

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Re: Common infections can spark psychiatric illnesses in children

#61

I remember feeling pretty normal until I had a strep throat infection when I was 7, after which I got really introverted and twitchy/compulsive ever since. Maybe a coincidence but I sometimes wonder if that did something to me. edit: I swear I made this comment this before reading the article. It starts off with a boy at 7 with strep that got twitchy, which is 100% in line with my experience. Crazy.

I can’t remember how I felt when I was <7 :(

Re: Common infections can spark psychiatric illnesses in children

#62

> Dr Pittenger says it is now clear that covid-19 infections can trigger psychosis, fatigue and other neuro-psychiatric symptoms. A misbehaving immune system is thought to be the culprit. The idea that schizophrenia may, at least sometimes, likewise be an auto-immune disorder is also under investigation. Until I got long covid(generally recovered now after 2 years), I couldn't comprehend this idea. I felt like I was…

Nerd-sniped: Free will is an incoherent idea. We don't choose our preferences, which dictate our choices. (And even supposing you can choose a preference, that's only due to the preexisting desire to have such a preference. Turtles all the way down.) What would an unconstrained choice even be? Just random, arbitrary? That doesn't sound "free" either.

Re: Common infections can spark psychiatric illnesses in children

#64

Honestly I feel like the science community’s disregard for religion has caused them to completely fail at dealing with human psychology. Science has spent the last 1.5 centuries presenting itself as a counterpoint to religion, but they fail to understand that religion is just an early attempt at talking about the subconscious. So the science community continually misidentifies issues stemming from the subconscious as…

What a wild comment

Re: Common infections can spark psychiatric illnesses in children

#65
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Our medical system where we rely on individual doctors for primary care is really flawed but it's better than any alternatives that we have (or that we can afford anyway) The US one I presume? Says who? Based on what metric? We can, and other countries have, do much better. That this parent "is “exhausted” by years spent campaigning to get doctors to take the illnesses seriously" doesn't say much. It's not like she…

> The US one I presume? Says who? Based on what metric? We can, and other countries have, do much better. The article is about UK doctors not recognizing PANDAS as a real illness. They even quote one doctor who refused to treat "an American illness". The US NIH has a page on PANDAS and our (US) diagnostic and treatment recommendations here: https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/pandas If you wanted an example…

>The article is about UK doctors not recognizing PANDAS as a real illness.

I know, I read it before commenting.

I'm not saying the article is about the US system. I'm saying the comment I responded to appeared to say that the US system is better, and how those countries with other systems like the UK have it bad.

"Doctors not recognizing X as a real illness" can happen, and has, anywhere. It's not a result of how the medical system is structured with regard to public/private, universal healthcare or not, and so on.

There is no shortage of stories from the US about doctors refusing to take some illness or condition as real that was later proven otherwise (or vise versa), dismissing patient concerns that were later proven, and so on.

Re: Common infections can spark psychiatric illnesses in children

#66

I remember feeling pretty normal until I had a strep throat infection when I was 7, after which I got really introverted and twitchy/compulsive ever since. Maybe a coincidence but I sometimes wonder if that did something to me. edit: I swear I made this comment this before reading the article. It starts off with a boy at 7 with strep that got twitchy, which is 100% in line with my experience. Crazy.

I'm curious how quickly you got on antibiotics, if at all. I had strep multiple times in my life, including tonsillitis that nearly hospitalized me one time. But my family was quick to spot the signs and get me treatment and I don't recognize any long term impact from it.

Re: Common infections can spark psychiatric illnesses in children

#67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> remember reading awhile back about a study that showed people with the flu are generally more social while the virus is spreading. Am I an idiot or is this clearly non-causal?

does seem weird as the flu usually makes me sore and not want to move at all.

I assume the poster meant that the infected are more social before they start having symptoms

Re: Common infections can spark psychiatric illnesses in children

#68
post #48

> Dr Pittenger says it is now clear that covid-19 infections can trigger psychosis, fatigue and other neuro-psychiatric symptoms. A misbehaving immune system is thought to be the culprit. The idea that schizophrenia may, at least sometimes, likewise be an auto-immune disorder is also under investigation. Until I got long covid(generally recovered now after 2 years), I couldn't comprehend this idea. I felt like I was…

>It makes you honestly question the idea of freewill. Not eating and getting low blood sugar can much more simply answer the question of "Do I have free will, or am I a subject of my internal chemical reactions". Or, much more simply stated "You're not you when you are hungry".

> Not eating and getting low blood sugar can much more simply answer the question of "Do I have free will, or am I a subject of my internal chemical reactions".

You cannot control what you feel, but you can control your actions.

Re: Common infections can spark psychiatric illnesses in children

#70

> Dr Pittenger says it is now clear that covid-19 infections can trigger psychosis, fatigue and other neuro-psychiatric symptoms. A misbehaving immune system is thought to be the culprit. The idea that schizophrenia may, at least sometimes, likewise be an auto-immune disorder is also under investigation. Until I got long covid(generally recovered now after 2 years), I couldn't comprehend this idea. I felt like I was…

> It makes you honestly question the idea of freewill. Hell two months in any psychology course will have you questioning that. We are truly biological beings first and rational agents second.

The middle ground here seems not only theologically sound but biologically coherent as well. We have a constrained will.

Free will has never and will never exist since we are finite beings. We have a _constrained_ will that is boxed in by a number of factors: time, money, biology, knowledge, circumstances, etc. Theologically, that will is also constrained by our nature. There are certain spiritual things we cannot do in the same way we cannot do certain physical things.

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