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My son is schizophrenic. The ‘reforms’ that I worked for have worsened his life.

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Re: My son is schizophrenic. The ‘reforms’ that I worked for have worsened his life.

#101

Post by efa »

lilsunnybee wrote: post #26

It's really sad that this isn't a priority in the United States. Somehow we have so little money for the government to pay for anything, that any possible solutions are either underfunded or written off completely. Overloaded case workers, run-down facilities, lack of facilities, lack of integrated programs, are just a few of the consequences. It's an odd sort of poverty where all sorts of gadgets and innovations are…

How much money would save this man? You going to build him a golden prison to live in. Schizophrenics hate being medicated. They are miserable. So they go off their medication and run away. It's not a question of money. Please stop the "we are so horrible because we don't spend enough money." That's the lazy minded answer to an extremely complex issue.

Re: My son is schizophrenic. The ‘reforms’ that I worked for have worsened his life.

#102

Post by dennish00a »

I don't believe that the author thought he was doing the right thing as a legislator! I think he was trying to save the state some money, without thinking carefully about how those savings would impact people's lives. As you sow...

Re: My son is schizophrenic. The ‘reforms’ that I worked for have worsened his life.

#103

Post by mynameishere »

showerst wrote: post #69
agwa wrote: post #62

This says so much about what's broken in our legislative system: > Six weeks into my legislative career, I was the legislature’s reluctant new expert on mental health. After six weeks, he was not an expert. In nearly all cases, our legislators are not experts in any of the things which they are legislating, yet that never stops them from forming strong opinions and trying to "reform" or "fix" things. On HN, we see th…

I think he was using 'expert' in the sense of 'go-to guy', and maybe a bit ironically.

Yeah, he was clearly being sarcastic. Sarcasm is generally a bad rhetorical device.

Re: My son is schizophrenic. The ‘reforms’ that I worked for have worsened his life.

#104

Post by mcguire »

Daniel_Newby wrote: post #92
debacle wrote: post #10

You can blame the schools for misdiagnosing ADHD, and you can blame them for a poor IEP, but you can't blame them for a child not having a normal life due to one of the most tragic diseases known to man. Schizophrenia is not the kind of disease you can treat with an IEP, and it sounds like the author's son fell out of the system from a very young age. Trying to blame anything but genetics and development for his son'…

> ADHD or blindness are not even in the same room a schizophrenia. 25% of prisoners are there because of ADHD. In aggregate it probably causes much more harm than schizophrenia.

"25% of prisoners are there because of ADHD"

Source?

Re: My son is schizophrenic. The ‘reforms’ that I worked for have worsened his life.

#105

Post by Alex3917 »

efa wrote: post #78
Alex3917 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The author is wrong, and I'm sorry for that, but it's very unlikely that his son would have ever been a contributing member of society." In many less developed countries people with schizophrenia have better outcomes. It's only in the US where the condition is usually debilitating for life, because: A) The US healthcare system relies on longterm use of anti-psychotic medication as the main form of treatment, which t…

Can you elaborate? Are you saying in other countries the family/extended family generally care for the individual? Why are they more likely to hold down a job?

"Are you saying in other countries the family/extended family generally care for the individual?"

Schizophrenia is basically triggered & exacerbated by stress. If one becomes schizophrenic then it's possible to mostly recover from psychosis in low stress environments, but in higher stress environments it basically becomes permanent.

I think that Ethan Watters discusses why it is that people in poor countries do better due to social factors in his book Crazy Like Us, and Robert Whitaker discusses the role of anti-psychotics in Anatomy of an Epidemic.

In terms of social factors though, I vaguely remember that in poor countries families are more likely to let people with schizophrenia just hang out and work on recovering for years at a time, whereas in more developed countries this is less likely to happen. (Possibly because this isn't as possible due to the higher costs of living and the greater stresses of living in a society with a very unequal distribution of wealth, but I forget the exact mechanism.)

As for the basic data, here is one book that summarizes it:

http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/article.aspx?articleid=98965

Re: My son is schizophrenic. The ‘reforms’ that I worked for have worsened his life.

#106

Post by gojomo »

dchuk wrote: post #93
gojomo wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have evidence that alcohol and tobacco are worse in the specific context of schizophrenia?

This research paper seems to suggest that at least alcohol does: http://www.dartmouth.edu/~dcare/pdfs/fp/GreenAlan-Alcoholand... Even if Alcohol doesn't specifically make schizophrenia worse, alcohol abuse is the most common comorbid disorder of schizophrenics and generally exacerbates all mental health problems to some extent.

Thanks, interesting... though the opening line does seem to suggest marijuana use remains especially linked with schizophrenia -- in prevalence at least:

Alcohol use disorder, which is three times more common in patients with schizophrenia than in the general population, and cannabis use disorder, which is up to 10 times more common, both contribute to the morbidity of schizophrenia, through increased relapse, noncompliance with treatment, more hospitalizations, and poorer overall functioning.

Re: My son is schizophrenic. The ‘reforms’ that I worked for have worsened his life.

#107

Post by Dn_Ab »

cletus wrote: post #64

Things like this are easy to say: > If I were a legislator today, I’d mandate — and provide funding to ensure — that every teacher receive training in recognizing symptoms of mental illnesses. but teachers aren't psychiatrists or clinical psychologists and can't really be expected to be. I was recently watching a program talking about the somewhat controversial theory that schizophrenia (and other mental disorders) a…

Schizophrenia like autism is not something to pin down to any one cause. The symptoms are like an equation and the defects are the values which cause the expression of the disease/satisfy the equation/describe the surface. There are many genes that are culprit to the disease as well a number of environmental factors, so it is possible that parasites may induce the symptoms for certain (possibly less robust) phenotypes. But it does not mean that the disease is caused by parasites any more than a plane can be a point.

One hypothesis I read recently is that schizophrenia is an emergent phenomenon of a brain trying to compensate for any number of gene induced deficiencies in wiring but instead over compensating due in part to the faulty wiring in the first place, thus creating a negative feedback loop as the brain develops and wires itself.

Again on connectivity errors, schizophrenia is also associated with a malfunction in how the default mode and task positive networks interact with each other, where in schizo, default is not properly attenuated leading to higher likelihood of dissociativity. I read recently on using ketamine to study this particular malfunction: see http://www.schizophreniaforum.org/new/detail.asp?id=1809

As for [4] it is worth reading: http://www.bmj.com/content/345/bmj.e6673. Aside from the separate dangers of overuse of antibiotics, the matter is way more subtle than being too clean. Yes we have lost contact with certain reinforcing environmental pathogens, but it is also true that the gain from cleanliness far outmatches the current risk of autoimmune disorders.

UK researchers say that they have dismantled the “myth” that allergic diseases have risen to epidemic levels because people now live in sterile homes and have become “too clean.” .... The report says that although deficiencies in microbial exposure could be important in the rise in allergies and chronic inflammatory diseases—driven also by genetic predisposition and modern lifestyle factors such as different diets, stress, inactivity, and pollution—it is not yet clear how the trend can be reversed.

Rook said, “There are lots of ideas being explored, but relaxing hygiene regimes won’t reunite us with our old friends—just expose us to new enemies like E coli 0104.”

Re: My son is schizophrenic. The ‘reforms’ that I worked for have worsened his life.

#108

Post by wololo »

droithomme wrote: post #60
jlgreco wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"We do know that young people whose family history suggests genetic risk for major mental illness (which might not be known for a particular adopted child) are playing with fire if they take schedule I drugs without medical supervision." Considering that "Schedule I" is nothing more than a legal classification, I would like to see how that works. Does it just so happen that drugs in that legal classification coincide…

His Schedule I mention was likely overreaching. Marijuana is relatively harmless and should be legalized. It is also known to be useful in the treatment of a number of ailments. However, we do know of one certain negative reaction, with a fair degree of certainty: genetically schizophrenic predispositioned people who smoke marijuana as teenagers are more likely to develop schizophrenia. Because of this, although it s…

schizophrenia isn't the only concern with pot

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2012/08/22/1206820109: "Findings are suggestive of a neurotoxic effect of cannabis on the adolescent brain"

Re: My son is schizophrenic. The ‘reforms’ that I worked for have worsened his life.

#109

Post by jetti »

car wrote: post #66
debacle wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anti-psychotic medication isn't like taking Tylenol. It can completely change a person's personality, and people have likened it to living in a fog.

What is your point? Schizophrenia already horribly changed the patients personality, medication just helps them deal with the symptoms. Before we had these drugs, schizophrenic patients were basically tortured (e.g. Lobotomy) because there was no way to help them.

> Before we had these drugs, schizophrenic patients were basically tortured (e.g. Lobotomy) because there was no way to help them.

  The drugs are no better. I have done a couple stints in a private mental health (inpatient and outpatient) facilities when dealing with what was diagnosed as Schizo-affective disorder (which is basically the presence of schizophrenia and a mood disorder) and there was a teen there who was schizophrenic. He was a large dose of Risperdal (one of the major anti-psychotics) to treat the schizophrenia. I don't think I will ever forget the few weeks the doctor took him off his Risperdal. He was completely different. When on the drug, he was slow and almost catatonic at times. After been weened off, he actually had personality.

Re: My son is schizophrenic. The ‘reforms’ that I worked for have worsened his life.

#110

Post by tisme »

dgavey wrote: post #68
tisme wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd go easy on that counselling and do my best to figure out first what actually happened . It would not be the first time that the visible aggressor was in fact the victim of a long drawn out teasing campaign by a group of bullies, and girls can be bullies just as easy as boys. One of the best bits of fun seems to be to goad someone until they snap and then let them take the blame for it all. Been there, done that,…

I know the useless tunnel that counseling can be all too well. I also know my son. He is not like the rest of the kids. Exceptionally bright, exceptionally short fuse. No energy, always tired and constant sleepwalking or night terrors, and I do believe he may have already had auditory hallucinations. There is a history of mental illness in his lineage. That being said, I have seen the kids first hand pushing his butt…

Ok, super to see you're on top of this and looking at all angles.

School can be hell if you are standing out in whatever way, and cause and effect can be hard to separate sometimes. Night terrors could be causing trouble in school, school trouble could be causing night terrors just the same.

I wish you the very best of luck with this, and I hope that it will all come to a good resolution.

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