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Calling bipolar disorder not a disorder and saying it can be self-treated with lifestyle & diet changes absolutely is misinformation. Ask any psychiatrist. I d

Calling bipolar disorder not a disorder and saying it can be self-treated with lifestyle & diet changes absolutely is misinformation. Ask any psychiatrist. I do not need a medical degree to say that, in the same way I do not need a medical degree to say that self-treating cancer or any serious illness with diet and lifestyle change is misinformation and dangerous. These statements taken as face value are incredibly dangerous. I have family relatives that did not seek treatment for psychiatric illnesses (actually diagnosed bipolar disorder) on the basis that it can be self-managed by diet, lifestyle accomodiations and "natural medicine" such as essential oils. They posed a threat not only to themselves, but to their 12/13yo children, almost stabbing them with a kitchen knive during a manic rage episode. Bipolar disorder is not a difference in executive function, it is a debilitating, life altering illness which can makes the subject a danger to themselves and others if left unchecked. This kind of misinformation regarding psychiatric illnesses kills.

ColanR 6y ago
I'm sorry about your family. But extrapolating from their uninformed use of essential oils to say that the psychiatrist's recommendation is always right is just swinging from one extreme to another. As podgaj said elsewhere, > I literally have the metabolic and genetic proof that I found out what was causing my mood disorder. We aren't talking about essential oils, or anything close. podgaj also says pretty clearly that the psychiatrist's recommendations were doing him no good at all. Don't let your personal grief harm others -- in this case, by denying that there is any alternative to using the antipsychotic medication that a psychiatrist would recommend. > Ask any psychiatrist. Only if the evidence is totally conclusive, as I mentioned elsewhere. Otherwise, asking a psychiatrist will only get you 10-20 year old data from the textbooks they read in school, and whatever they've learned to try and keep up to date since then. That's great when you have a fairly normal problem with a straightforward solution and no strange factors in play. People seem to think medicine is more or less solved, like physics or computer science (ha) -- it's not. We don't even know why people tend to get colds in the winter! Even for that, the best we have are competing theories. Here's an example: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22340278/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22340278/. It's about schizophrenia, but as a psychiatric illness it's close enough to illustrate my point. There were even bipolar patients included in the group, though they didn't contribute to these conclusions. A 20 year longitudinal study of 139 psychotic patients; here's a key quote (SZ is shorthand for schizophrenia): > At the 2-year assessment there were no significant differences in severity of psychosis between SZ on antipsychotic medications and SZ not on any medications. However, starting at the 4.5-year follow-ups and continuing over the next 15 years, the SZ who were not on antipsychotic medications were significantly less psychotic than those on antipsychotics (p<0.05). > In addition (see Fig. 1), starting at the 4.5-year follow-up and continuing at each assessment over the next 15 years, a significantly larger percentage of SZ not on medications experienced a period of recovery (p<0.01), which also requires adequate work and social functioning. Dependence on experts can cause irreparable damage, too.

ColanR 6y ago

I'm sorry about your family. But extrapolating from their uninformed use of essential oils to say that the psychiatrist's recommendation is always right is just swinging from one extreme to another. As podgaj said elsewhere, > I literally have the metabolic and genetic proof that I found out what was causing my mood disorder. We aren't talking about essential oils, or anything close. podgaj also says pretty clearly that the psychiatrist's recommendations were doing him no good at all. Don't let your personal grief harm others -- in this case, by denying that there is any alternative to using the antipsychotic medication that a psychiatrist would recommend. > Ask any psychiatrist. Only if the evidence is totally conclusive, as I mentioned elsewhere. Otherwise, asking a psychiatrist will only get you 10-20 year old data from the textbooks they read in school, and whatever they've learned to try and keep up to date since then. That's great when you have a fairly normal problem with a straightforward solution and no strange factors in play. People seem to think medicine is more or less solved, like physics or computer science (ha) -- it's not. We don't even know why people tend to get colds in the winter! Even for that, the best we have are competing theories. Here's an example: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22340278/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22340278/. It's about schizophrenia, but as a psychiatric illness it's close enough to illustrate my point. There were even bipolar patients included in the group, though they didn't contribute to these conclusions. A 20 year longitudinal study of 139 psychotic patients; here's a key quote (SZ is shorthand for schizophrenia): > At the 2-year assessment there were no significant differences in severity of psychosis between SZ on antipsychotic medications and SZ not on any medications. However, starting at the 4.5-year follow-ups and continuing over the next 15 years, the SZ who were not on antipsychotic medications were significantly less psychotic than those on antipsychotics (p<0.05). > In addition (see Fig. 1), starting at the 4.5-year follow-up and continuing at each assessment over the next 15 years, a significantly larger percentage of SZ not on medications experienced a period of recovery (p<0.01), which also requires adequate work and social functioning. Dependence on experts can cause irreparable damage, too.