Cracked

Cracked

Why Psychiatry is doing more harm than good

By James Davies

Published by Icon Books, May 2013


What would be your worst nightmare?

How about being wrongly diagnosed with a disease for which there is no objective evidence that it even exists, and then being prescribed medication which is not only barely more efficacious than a sugar pill placebo in actually treated the alleged "disease" but also has the capacity to cause some very nasty side-effects indeed?

How about finding out that mental disorders and diseases are being "discovered" by a committee of doctors who decide precisely what and how many symptoms are  needed to be diagnostic of these "mental health problems", name them and recommend appropriate drug treatment for them, all without any objective evidence and most of the committee members receiving generous grants from pharmaceutical companies?

That by these definitions, 25% of the population at any given time is suffering from a mental illness?

How about being told that if you have not completely recovered from a close bereavement  and resumed your normal lifestyle in two weeks (yes, that is correct - two weeks!)  that you obviously have a mental health problem which needs to be treated with medication that is largely ineffective and may be positively harmful ?

How about a group of medical researchers attending a variety of psychiatric hospitals, all pretending to hear a voice which says "Thud" but otherwise behaving perfectly normally, all being subsequently admitted to hospital, diagnosed with a variety of mental diseases and treated accordingly, and that the psychiatrists concerned were not capable of differentiating between those who truly were mentally ill and those who were faking illness?

How about theories being postulated which would seem to "explain" the biological causation of some mental illnesses, and then highly lucrative drugs being developed and aggressively marketed to "treat" these illnesses, all without a shred of proof that these theories are right?

How about the very careful suppression of any data which does not show the latest (and highly expensive to develop) "wonder drugs" to be effective or safe?

Self-harming in the UK rose to public attention in the late 1980s and a  local epidemic of anorexia nervosa started in Hong Kong in 1994. Frighteningly, psychiatric and media publicity about these disorders did not help to support or cure sufferers nor reduce the incidence of these events, but in fact did exactly the opposite - some psychiatric disorders actually  increase once they have achieved some form of cultural recognition. A fascinating chapter describes "psychiatric contagion" and how people can very easily be influenced to think or behave in certain ways so as to fit in with the beliefs and actions of others around them.

The experiences of a UK doctor who was enlisted by a pharmaceutical firm to give talks about their latest "wonder drug" to other doctors make sobering reading indeed in another chapter.

Are you starting to get rather worried?  I know that I certainly am, and the scenarios I have listed are just a very few of the points made by James Davies in his expose of some of the  many flaws of modern psychiatric medicine. Davies does not have an axe to grind and has extensive experience of working in the mental health field as a psychotherapist in private practice and also voluntarily within the British National Health Service, as well as being a social anthropologist. He is extremely concerned about how people with mental illnesses are being regarded and stigmatised by the general population.

This is a riveting and rather terrifying book which made me extremely angry that some of the most vulnerable people in society are not receiving the standard of care one would wish them to have. Conflict within  the field of psychiatry over the role of medication versus therapeutic psycho-social, familial and societal interventions means that it will be hard for the specialty to change its dependence on medicating every possible mental disorder in favour of a more holistic approach, yet it does need to happen.

Anyone with an interest in  modern medicine or  mental health care issues will find much to ponder in this book.

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Safely Home

 Thank you all for your prayers; I am safely back home after my operation - the fourth since the middle of March.

It was initially extremely painful, but I am reasonable comfortable today as long as I rest regularly and for good periods of time.

I am now officially categorised as difficult to intubate after two successive operations; to read about my latest escapade, wander over to my MiscellaneousMumblings blog entry .

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News

Well, dear ones, the road to recovery seems not to be a smooth one !

On Sunday morning I felt very nauseous, and when the Nurse visited to see to my wound, she advised me that if I felt any worse, I needed medical attention. By mid-afternoon I had vomited small amounts of blood, so I ended up back in hopsital overnight on IV meds and had a gastroscopy on Monday, which showed I had Stage 2 oesophagitis, exacerbated by my painkillers.  I have had to go "cold turkey" and manage without any painkillers, and am being aggressively treated for the oesophagitis, which is now under control and not causing me dreadful stomach pain any more.

The CT scan has been done and we are waiting on the results of that. The wound seems to be doing just what it ought so far, and I am very slowly becoming a little more mobile and a little more comfortable every day :-)

Mum, on the other hand, has deteriorated ver rapidly over the last ten days, and at a multi-disciplinary team meeting held at her home on Tuesday,  it was evident to all that she now needs 24 hour a day nursing care and it is no longer possible for her to be cared for at home. This has broken my heart, as she has always said she wanted to die in her home, but I was told by the Nursing staff that it truly is necessary. Things have moved quickly, and she is being transferred to a Nursing Care Facility on Friday  morning.  Please pray that this transition may be a gentle one for her, and cause her as little distress and anxiety as possible, and that she will settle quickly in her new home. There is open visiting, so all her family and friends can go and see her whenever they wish.

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Well, I came home on Friday evening, Glory to God,  after my surgery.

The abscess was "very extensive" to quote my surgeon, and has done a great deal of damage. To remove the abscess and all the damaged tissue has left me with a surgical cavity at least an inch and a half wide and at least two inches deep, which will require daily visits from the Nurse to clean, pack and re-dress the wound and will take months to heal.

I have been warned that this operation is only the first of two which will be needed to deal with the problem once and for all, given how very extensive it is. I have an array of painkillers to take, and antibiotics too, which conspire to make me very sleepy indeed. I have spent much of the day either asleep or awake but still resting in bed, as it is impossible to sit at the moment......

I have a CT scan scheduled for Monday afternoon,  and a further appointment with the Consultant on 4th April to check the wound and discuss the next step of surgery.
Thank you all so much for your love and prayers !

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Sigh

Updated to add:

Dear Walt and Mimi, thank you so much for your kind messages. If you can keep me in your prayers , that will give me enormous comfort !! I'm praying for all of your needs and intentions too, of course......
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Groundhog Day strikes again.

I saw the Consultant surgeon this afternoon, who did a thorough and unpleasant examination of the afflicted area. The good news is that he has found out exactly what the problems are, which neither of the other two surgeons did.

The bad news is I need emergency surgery on Thursday afternoon, which is going to be very extensive and have a painful and lengthy post-operative recovery time.

The other bad news is that the Social Worker  in charge of my Mum's care  feels that Mum is now too unwell and frail for us to cope with caring for her at home, even with support, and that she may need to go into a Nursing Home. Neither Mum nor I never wanted this to happen, but with my health the way it is at the moment, I know in my heart that I simply cannot manage to care for her effectively when I am supposed to be recovering  from serious surgery myself.....

There  will be a multi-disciplinary case meeting tomorrow, and they will put it to Mum that it is in her best interests to be able to have 24/7 care in a properly staffed Nursing home. 
She isn't going to like it one bit :-(

Prayers for all these things and for our whole family will be so very much appreciated !

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The Waiting Continues

The Consultant wants to do an arthroscopy under general anaesthetic on DH as soon as practicable. Provisionally, he has been booked in for surgery on Monday evening.
All we needed to do was confirm it with our private medical cover provider when we got home.

DH phoned the company up, and they are now insisting that the operation be done at a different hospital in The Big City.

This poses more than a few problems, as our consultant cannot do it there. He is based at BlogTown.
As DH is the only driver in the immediate family, we cannot get him home from the other hospital after the operation because he won't be able to drive a/ from the pain and b/the anaesthetic and c/ the public transport is diabolical.

The local hospital is negotiating with the health insurance company to see if they can reach some sort of settlement.

Why does everything have to be so complicated ? If the health insurance people were't happy to let DH have the operation at the local hospital, then why even authorise him seeing the consultant there ?
Why not make it plain at the outset that the initial consultation would have to be at The Big City hospital instead of at BlogTown ?

So we continue to wait, this time for a phone call to say Yea or Nay to the operation at BlogTown hospital. Prayers coveted.

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Waiting......

Today, DH goes to see the Orthopaedic Consultant for the results of the MRI scan on his knee.
On the initial clinical exam, the doctor said there is definite cartilage damage, causing pain and limited movement, but the scan will determine what can/needs to be done about it. No idea how it happened; DH hasn't had any sports injuries or trauma of any description.

So.....I woke up, early, thoughts whizzing in my head, and couldn't get back to sleep :-)
I shall be glad when it is time to go to the hospital.......

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Miracles Of Modern Medicine

It is so easy to disparage the times in which we live, yet we have so very much to be thankful for.

Especially seven year old Becky Prosser, who was born with a tiny facial birthmark which, within six weeks, had developed into an invasive haemagioma growth so bad that it was about to make her go blind and was making it impossible for her to feed.

After 18 months of intensive laser and drug treatment, Becky's sight was saved and the disfiguring tumour completely removed.

Story and photos here.

Even thirty years ago, this would have - at the very least- cost this child her sight.

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Eyeball Popping

Literally.
I kid you not. I would not have thought this was physically possible, but there you are.......

I found this today on a medical blog. It features graphic photos and video of people who can literally make their eyeballs pop out.

Be warned, it is truly bizarre and VERY GRAPHIC.

Yuck

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The Eyeball Of Doom

Our plans for a quiet and peaceful weekend didn`t materialise :-)

DD3 was invited to a friend`s party on Halloween, so off we trotted to the shops to get her a cheap-ish costume.
When we got back, after pottering for a while at home, I felt as if there was something in my eye. I couldn`t see anything amiss, neither could DH, but within an hour, my whole left face was swollen, eyeball included, and my vision was blurred.
So we headed off to A & E, where mercifully there were no drunks and only one pair of foul-mouthed yobs. It was quiet, so I only had to wait for about 20 minutes before being seen.

Turns out that whatever got in my eye had come out, but had caused a massive allergic reaction, so all the conjunctival membranes covering my eye as well as my eyelids had become inflamed and oedematous (filled with fluid), hence the bizarre and quite vile appearance.
I came home with an eye-patch and five days worth of antibiotic cream to apply four times each day.

I didn`t need a Halloween costume, I could have just uncovered my eye, that would have been bad enough !

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