Abram Hoffer

When a family member is suffering from mental disorder, everyone feels disheartened and distressed. All you wanted is the best solution other than tranquilizers and dangerous drugs. When I asked our psychiatrist if all the drugs he prescribed were safe, I sensed he himself is not totally sure. I did some research and was horrified knowing their side effects. A man who was taking the same medicine our doctor prescribed run amok and killed some bystander after weeks of taking the medicine. Right there and then I threw all prescription drugs and started some megavitamins that comes from natural sources and is a lot safer compared to those chemicals manufactured from Laboratories. I continued my research on vitamins which are appropriate for psychosis until I stumbled upon the orthomolecular Medicine and its proponents.

I would like to share the biography of Abram Hoffer a psychiatrist whose approach in treating mental disorder is called Orthomolecular Medicine. He claimed that nutrition and mega dose of vitamins are effective in treating schizophrenia.

To be continued....

psychosis

What is psychosis?

according to wikipedia:

Psychosis (from the Greek ψυχή "psyche", for mind/soul, and -ωσις "-osis", for abnormal condition) means abnormal condition of the mind, and is a generic psychiatric term for a mental state often described as involving a "loss of contact with reality". People suffering from psychosis are said to be psychotic.

Symptoms such as: can not tell what is real and what is not , hallucinations, delusions, confusion, difficulty in doing even ordinary activities.

When a close kin of mine went through having these symptoms, we were devastated,we thought its the end of her and that we can not do anything but accept such fate and suffer with her forever.

I tried to know what it is all about. When I learned that its treatable, I mustered some courage to do all I can do what is best for her.

Psychosis affects 3 in 100 people, and usually occurs for the first time between the ages of 15 and 30. Men often develop psychosis 5 to 10 years younger than women. In our case it all started from a severe stress due to worries, then followed by sleep deprivation and hearing of voices, sometimes angry voices which continued for a long period. She started singing, sometimes as early as three in the morning and even with a loud singing. Sometimes she could be mildly violent.

The first recourse which is not easy is decide to find help... and that means mental health clinic which nobody would ever want to go. To seek for help earlier from professionals such as psychiatric doctors is the best we can do. Psychosis if given immediate medical attention would be the best move so far.

To be continued

Insanity part 2

Going near a mentally ill person is scary, imagine yourself sleeping, eating or living with them for days.... must be a nightmare huh? well, I did and I survived. In fact, at a time, I was mistaken as one of the inmates. The guy who visited the mental center got scared when I went near him.

staying with the mental patients is also an adventure, though I was just forced to stay to watch a close kin. I was nearly attacked by one of them, They pee in their beds, shout almost the whole time til dawn. The first time I step inside the cell is not pleasant at all, its depressing, its almost similar entering a prison, windows are made of iron so as the door which is locked at 7 PM,until 6:00 AM, most patients are tied to their beds. Nobody under 15 is allowed. The cell where I stayed is like a halfway house where patients were treated for a week. After which, if their condition is not improving they were recommended to move to another building for further treatment that would last for months. Once you have pass the certain period and could recover, the management could now give you a certain period for observation, by this time you will be given responsibility like cleaning and is scheduled for release.

The brief encounter with them is not all scary but moving, when you began to interact with them knowing their stories, you would feel more sympathy to these people who were just unfortunate. It just that they run out of luck, and it happened to them, Once you began understanding their situation you start to pity them, they are individuals who needs more understanding and care and not as object of ridicule, to be hated or be feared of, or treated like having a contagious diseases.

In the past having this illness is the end of the line, like being dead but that was in the past, the illness is curable, all they need is an environment of love and care especially with their love ones... as the saying goes, Love conquers all...

Insanity

Julia Buang, (Julie the crazy) the town's most popular mentally ill person. As a kid we use to tease her. She always without fail respond with a smile. she use to entertain us with her kind of dance. she usually wears flowers in her ears, her clothing is not usual at that time but I found it to be similar these days seeing models of signature apparels walking in a ramp.

That was my first encounter with someone who is suffering from mental disorder. later on I saw a distant relative restricted in her prison like room, she too is suffering from mental disorder. she looked pitiful but the family has to restrained her or else she would wander around and may cause more trouble.

Few years back, we were tasked to take care of a friend who is beginning to experience a mental breakdown, that was my closest encounter with someone who is mentally unhealthy. My left thumb was just operated, the doctor took out puss from my thumb which had suffered from being burned earlier. It was on bandage, the wound is still very fresh. it was on that very time when we were trying to restrain our mentally ill friend inside the taxi going to mental hospital. All of the sudden she grabbed my wounded thumb and squeezed it firmly. I wanted to shout at the top of my voice from pain.

Since most of them are violent we fear and shy away from them but these people needs our love and care. Just recently I have lived, slept and ate with these people inside a jail like mental hospital ward room.

I'll share my first hand experience inside the mental hospital on the next episode... see you later.

Conclusion

I have discussed topics on dreaded diseases such as heart disease and cancer in 2009, sad to say within the period, two of my close associates, the former President of my country and a couple of celebrities had succumbed to cancer. a friend told me of numerous deaths among our neighbors were caused by various heart illness. When cancer or any fatal disease strikes, everyone panicked, we thought of having a slim chance to survive. The person and the family has to decide immediately the type of medication they have to undertake. In case of cancer, people would chose surgery and chemotherapy as their first choice of medication and usually may find other ways later on when they realized the first one is not helping them at all.

Despite the best medicine there is, the prayers, family and friends support, people sometime dies. after all, we're mortals. medical procedures whatever it is, is just to support and extends one's life. but above all were under the universal law that one has to expire someday in one way or another.

When a baby comes out of the mother's womb, the baby usually cries on top of its lungs, simply because they were experiencing fear and shock of being in a completely different environment. They were used to this dark but very comfortable place inside the womb. Being born is leaving that familiar environment. It's like dying, but the next level is a new life, a new dimension which is more spacious, brighter, exciting and a beautiful one. In the same manner, Leaving this comfortable and familiar world is dying but since we are going to unfamiliar dimension, we fear death.

Water Part 2

While in prison he conducted extensive research into the medicinal effects of water in preventing and relieving many painful degenerative diseases. Evin Prison proved an ideal “stress laboratory,” and despite his being offered an earlier release, Dr. Batman chose to stay an extra four months in prison to complete his research into the relationship of dehydration and bleeding peptic ulcer disease. The report of his findings was published as the editorial of the Journal of Clinical Gastroenterology in June 1983.
On his release from prison in 1982, Dr. Batman escaped from Iran and came to America. He wrote his ground-breaking book Your Body’s Many Cries for Water in 1992, which has been translated into fifteen languages and continues to inspire readers worldwide. In his book, he stated that a dry mouth is not a reliable indicator of dehydration. The body signals its water shortage by producing pain. Dehydration actually produces pain and many degenerative diseases, including asthma, arthritis, hypertension, angina, adult-onset diabetes, lupus, and multiple sclerosis.
Dr. Batman’s message to the world was, “You are not sick, you are thirsty. Don’t treat thirst with medication.”

Water

Dr. Batman and the “Water Cure”:
Physicians rarely promote the curative properties of water, but the late Dr. Fereydoon Batmanghelidj, M.D. (aka “Dr. Batman”) studied water’s effect on the human body and found it to be one of the best pain relievers and preventative therapies. His pioneering work shows that Unintentional Chronic Dehydration (UCD) contributes and even produces pain and many degenerative diseases which can be prevented and treated by increasing water intake.
Dr. Batman was born in Iran in 1931, and he practiced medicine in the UK before returning to Iran where he played a key role in the development of hospitals and medical centers. When the Iranian Revolution broke out in 1979, Dr. Batman was placed in the infamous Evin Prison as a political prisoner for thirty-one months. It was there he discovered the healing powers of water. One night, Dr. Batman had to treat a fellow prisoner with crippling peptic ulcer pain. With no medications at his disposal, Dr. Batman gave him two glasses of water. Within several minutes, his pain completely disappeared. He was instructed to drink two glasses of water every three hours and became absolutely pain free for his four remaining months in the prison. While in prison, Dr. Batman successfully treated over three thousand fellow prisoners suffering from stress-induced peptic ulcer disease with water alone.