Dr. Henry Paul, MD

Psychiatrist, Author and Educator

“SAD” MAY BE HEREDITARY

February 26th, 2016

It probably seems odd that I’m writing about seasonal depression when spring
is right around the corner. But in October, I did a blog about Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). 48469167_sThe symptoms mimic those of depression, and the disorder is believed to be triggered by changes in daylight, making it more prevalent in the late fall heading into the winter months when the days get shorter. Well, now it seems there might be a gene that predisposes a person to SAD. The details were published today in the in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Because SAD almost always occurs during the winter months, researchers have believed the condition was triggered by light or rather the lack of light. It is believed that the changes in sunlight affect the circadian rhythms of people with SAD messing up their biological clocks. It is also believed that the increase in the production of melatonin, which is produced at higher levels in the dark could also be a cause.

The researchers in this new study analyzed a group of patients with SAD and also with another sleep disorder called Familial Advance Sleep-Phase syndrome. They identified a mutation in a gene called PER3 suggesting that this gene might both affect sleep and mood.

You can click below to read more of the details of the study. This team of researchers actively believes that there is a gene connection. Dr. Louis Ptáček, also a professor of neurology at the UCSF School of Medicine, said to MNT, “This is the first human mutation directly linked to seasonal affective disorder, and the first clear sign of a mechanism that could link sleep to mood disorders.”
This is an exciting time in research because the more we understand what causes these disorders, the better treatment options we can offer to patients.

LINKS
Seasonal affective disorder: first human gene mutation discovered
Don’t Be Sad
Does seasonal affective disorder actually exist?

DISCLAIMER
Information contained in this blog is intended for educational purposes only. It is not intended as medical or psychiatric advice for individual conditions or treatment and does not substitute for a medical or psychiatric examination. A psychiatrist must make a determination about any treatment or prescription. Dr. Paul does not assume any responsibility or risk for the use of any information contained within this blog.

FIGHTING THE STIGMA OF MENTAL HEALTH

February 19th, 2016

39018469_sThere is a stigma surrounding mental health issues, not just here in the United States, but around the world. There always has been! Today the Huffington Post began their “Young Minds Matter” campaign to raise awareness about mental health in children, and the Dutchess of Cambridge is leading the charge. The former Kate Middleton said in the Huffington Post Wednesday that “she and Prince William wouldn’t hesitate to seek help if they thought their children, George and Charlotte, needed it.”

As a guest editor for the Huffington Post, the Dutchess of Cambridge said in her first blog post for the new series “Young Minds Matter” that she wants to “celebrate the amazing work being done to improve and understand the mental health of young children”. She discussed her charity work and how it led her to realize that unresolved issues in childhood were leading to addiction and mental health problems for many adults. She writes, “What I did not expect was to see that time and time again, the issues that led people to addiction and destructive decision making seemed to almost always stem from unresolved childhood challenges. It became clear to me that many children – even those younger than five – have to deal with complex problems without the emotional resilience, language or confidence to ask for help. And it was also clear that with mental health problems still being such a taboo, many adults are often too afraid to ask for help for the children in their care.”

The new series will explore the issues and work on the mental health of the young child.

I applaud the Huffington Post and the Dutchess of Cambridge for starting this dialogue, and I encourage you to follow and join the discussion. The mental health crisis in the UK mirrors the American crisis, and there is a lot to learn from this ongoing dialogue.

LINKS
Let’s Make a Real Difference for an Entire Generation of Young Children
Duchess of Cambridge raises mental health issues in HuffPost

CHILDREN WITH MENTAL ILLNESS AND THE PARENTS WHO LOVE THEM

October 7th, 2014

Every Mom’s Worst Nightmare; Coping with a Child’s Mental Illness was a great segment recently on CBS News. I highly recommend you take a few minutes and watch it.

Do children really suffer from mental disorders? Isn’t that only the domain of adults? Unfortunately, no. It might be helpful to consider the numbers. There are approximately 75 million children and teenagers in the country. About one-in-five young people less than eighteen-years-old are thought to suffer from a bona-fide mental disorder. That is at least 15 million of our youth. In that number, approximately half suffer from a serious mental disturbance, and about half of those suffer from what is called an extreme disturbance.

In the CBS segment, Mom Liza Long tells how she felt on the day of the Sandy Hook shooting.

“I just put my head down on my desk and started to cry,” Long, 42, told CBS News. But it wasn’t that Long knew any of the families that had lost a child. “I had children about that age too. It’s every mom’s worst nightmare. But I realized right away it’s every mom’s worst nightmare on two fronts, not just one.”

Her first thought, she later wrote, was “What if my son does that someday?”

Only a day before Sandy Hook, Long had to forcibly restrain her second oldest son, Michael — then 13 — to prevent him from running out into oncoming traffic, and then had him transported to an acute care psychiatric hospital.

Realizing that your child has a problem is scary. It can be devastating to learn that your child is physically sick, but discovering that your child suffers from a mental disorder adds another layer of confusion and anxiety. Mental disorders are not as well understood as physical disorders, and it is only recently that they have begun to be talked about openly. The school shootings have really focused the microscope on mental health as the root of the problem, not just the accessibility of guns.

Long’s story opens a new dialogue for parents of children with severe mental disorders. Raising a child with these issues is complicated, scary and often-time daunting for parents, caregivers and the medical professionals who are trying to help.

In the CBS interview, Long tells about the night of the Sandy Hook shooting when she returned home and wrote her blog entry, “Thinking the Unthinkable” on her blog, “The Anarchist Soccer Mom.”  It was her call to action.

(From the CBS interview):

“I am sharing this story because I am Adam Lanza’s mother. I am Dylan Klebold’s and Eric Harris’s mother. I am James Holmes’s mother. I am Jared Loughner’s mother. I am Seung-Hui Cho’s mother. And these boys–and their mothers–need help. In the wake of another horrific national tragedy, it’s easy to talk about guns. But it’s time to talk about mental illness,” said Long.

Long had been telling her story anonymously for years, but this time she made the decision to put her name to the story. “I live with a son who is mentally ill. I love my son. But he terrifies me,” she wrote. The blog post went viral, generating more than a million ‘likes’ on Facebook and 30,000 email replies.

I applaud Long for speaking out about her child and her struggles to parent a child with such a mental disorder. We need to be having more dialogues about how to address these mental disorders so we can come up with a better support system for the families and better treatment for the children. We need to be able to diagnose better, offer more support, and make it less bureaucratic for the system to work for those families in need.

You can follow Long on her blog the Anarchist Soccer Mom.

DISCLAIMER
Information contained in this blog is intended for educational purposes only. It is not intended as medical or psychiatric advice for individual conditions or treatment and does not substitute for a medical or psychiatric examination. A psychiatrist must make a determination about any treatment or prescription. Dr. Paul does not assume any responsibility or risk for the use of any information contained within this blog.