Mental Health Questions: Answered By Joan

First let me say a persistent stigma still exists! What I don’t understand is people go to a medical doctor with ease but did they forget that their head really is attached to their body via the neck!! And if you are one of the healthy individuals that understands that everyone deserves an outside perspective & neck-up check-up you may not need you’re PCP as often. “The Gift of Therapy” is my privilege.

I think that a version of medical food called cerefolinNAC would be a better choice. More insurance companies are covering it AND it contains B12. The NAC portion keeps acetylcholine in our brain for memory! Your current provider can prescribe it but if he/she doesn’t ‘believe’ in it let me know. The fact that you are already prescribed lamictal you should be on Deplin or Cerefolin NAC because any anti-seizure medication interferes with your ability to convert man-made folic acid to the more bio-available form called L-Methlyfolate!

Unfortunately, when a medication goes generic the FDA guidelines allow for 80 to 120% of the active ingredient. Although most generic medicines do work, it is more likely that you may feel it is not working when you change from one generic to another.

No, you do not “outgrow” ADD or ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder), your brain has simply “learned to adapt”. Recent evidence has shown that adults should continue to be treated because it has been demonstrated that untreated ADD is correlated with brain volume loss and early dementia – Alzheimer’s Type. This topic is currently being taught in nursing school.

Well, a similar question would be why are there so many anti-hypertensives out there or why are there so many different kinds of birth control? Every product is made in a variety of different ways to appeal to all types of people and/or disorders. To answer your question some anti-depressants act on serotonin, some act on both serotonin and norepinephrine, and some on norepinephrine and dopamine. All of these “neurotransmitters” are shown to improve mood and decrease anxiety. In addition, norepinephrine helps with the treatment of ADD and depression. Each combination is necessary to target a different designated area. Dopamine is commonly referred to as our reward pathway. It not only assists in depression, but there is increasing evidence of reward-motivation deficits in ADD/ADHD.

It’s two words that are made up so that we don’t scare you. There is no such thing as a mood stabilizer. We are referring to an antipsychotic or an anticonvulsant, both of which have shown to improve mood and have calming effects. Most have neuroprotective qualities, which stimulate BDNF (brain derived neurotrophic factor). This is what keeps your brain from emitting neurotoxins. In the future, they may be referred to as antidecompensation medication.