Dr Kelly Brogan

@Alvin Are you familiar with Dr Kelly Brogan? www.kellybroganmd.com. She's a psychiatrist who approaches psychiatric illness via addressing nutritional deficiencies.

Very interesting reading. Can you recommend any other psychiatrists who take this approach?

 

I've never heard of her, if i say much more its just going to cause problems so i will leave it there.

 

I think we need to be very careful about recommending websites about people who use alternative therapies, particularly in cases like this where it has nothing to do with ME/CFS, and we have neither the means nor the remit to discuss the validity of their approach.

 

http://kellybroganmd.com/fatigue-what-is-tiredness/

"I know that I have never once yawned in my NYC office. Literally never. But that you would think I had Chronic Fatigue Syndrome the second I buckle in for the drive to Whole Foods."


"Dance

Plain and simple. Turn on some music, make it loud, and move. Even for 5 minutes a day."

 

I'm sorry @Alvin. I mistakenly thought you were the person who mentioned this approach. I apologise for any anger/distress my tagging you has provoked.

I thought I WAS asking someone to help me "discuss the validity of their approach!" Ooops. Very tired eyes. Must find who I thought it was.

@Trish I'm not sure I agree. We often discuss controversial things here - I'm the biggest advocate for drugs for suicidal depression and similar states of acute, unbearable suffering. But milder conditions definitely bear the physical approach first, (and extreme psych states should too, once alleviated to endurable levels).

The conditions she treats DO have a lot to do with ME. A lot of us suffer from them either as part of ME, or as co existing conditions.

For example, we have been looking at low B12, low folate, MTHFR Mutations, and gut dysbiosis as the cause for our physical symptoms over in Rising Phoenix for a while now! She talks about how they can be the cause of anxiety, depression, mood swings and other emotional disruptions.

Please don't be quick to dismiss this as "alternative" when I tell you of a Cornell trained psychiatrist doing the same for psychiatric complaints.

 

Hi @Squeezy, I was just pointing out that this being an ME forum, we don't have the expertise to discuss the science behind dietary treatments for psychiatric conditions.

My concern was that you seemed to suddenly invite us to look at a particular alternative treatment approach to psychiatric illnesses and recommend it out of the blue on a thread discussing ME.

Of course some of us have all sorts of other conditions, including mental health disorders which need to be taken seriously and treated properly by the relevant experts. I don't think it's a good idea for us to recommend a particular treatment approach.

If people on this forum want to share their experience of living with other conditions alongside ME, that is fine, and can be helpful to others with similar problems as mutual support and understanding and to help the rest of us to understand better.

Discussion of things like gut dysbiosis, low B12, low folate etc, seem to me to be more relevant on an ME forum because deficiencies of some vitamins like B12 and D can cause fatigue and other ME-like symptoms, and some researchers suggest gut dysbiosis may be a factor in ME.

 

@Mij She is addressing the fatigue of NORMAL overworked, over-scheduled people there. NOT US. She makes a reference to "Chronic Fatigue" - to say, I'm so wiped, you'd think I had Chronic Fatigue...

I don't see this as an attack. In that instant, she feels totally drained of all energy. She empathises with us.

Dance is one of many types of exercise that lowers high cortisol which drives stress. Again, not for bad ME.

 

Aha! @Trish I meant @Chris not @Alvin. As Alvin is in the field, you can see why I'd be interested in picking his brain.

I understand your concerns Trish. But at least you now know where this apparently out of the blue babble on this topic came from.

 

Sounds pretty dismissive of ME/CFS to me from that quote posted. What she actually thinks about the condition I don’t know but that quote doesn’t sound great.

 

Pretty flippant imo

 

@Mij and @Diluted-biscuit I posted about Dr Kelly Brogan in reference to Chris' comment, see above. She does not write about ME/CFS. She talks about the fatigue of normal people when she says the word.

If it offends you that I posted such a link here, I sincerely apologise. But I honestly don't think that one throwaway comment should be the reason to reject everything she has to say about psychiatry.

Particularly as so many of us are understandably wary of the psychiatric profession, in the UK especially. How many of us with ME don't even want to approach our GP's for help with mood problems or anxiety, because it might be just seen as further evidence to back up the "psychosomatic" or "MUPS" nonsense?

Please don't throw the baby out with the bathwater, on the subject. I think it's a valid subject to discuss respectfully.

 

Have you seen her views on vaccines and HIV?

 

Is this the article you are referring to @Diluted-biscuit? http://kellybroganmd.com/hiv-pregnancy-pharma-abusing-women/

Feel free to disgree, of course! I agree entirely with her on Gardisil. I'm pro childhood vaccines, and I'd hope she is too, but I can't find info about that.

Her info on HIV here is thought provoking. Again, we're free to disagree.

Look, I'm not invested in this person! I'm sure there are other experts who you might like better. I just want people to be aware that we are made of chemicals - our thoughts and feelings aren't these mystical things that happen on some higher plane!

They happen via synapses and nerve impulses transmitting messages. If we're deficient in the nutrients that make up those chemical components we will feel emotionally dreadful.

And medications cover it up, they don't address deficiencies.

That's it. Message communicated.

 

The best some of us with mental health problems can hope for is to “cover them up”. There’s no amount of vitamins or debunked diets that are going to cure us. It would be wonderful if I could just change my diet and not be subject to the living hell my mind puts me through sometimes but it’s not the case.

In the future medications will get better and we may treat some mental health problems by intervening in the immune system or something similar but for now those drugs that “cover things up” are life savers for some people. Literal life savers.

 

@Squeezy I can't recommend any other psychiatrists who take this approach. But, it appears your question is aligned with a current research interest -- at least according to this article in a Canadian magazine:

http://www.chatelaine.com/health/nu...ource=nl&utm_medium=em&utm_campaign=che_daily

I have witnessed a family member develop depression after a course of antibiotics, and can relate to this statement:

"Another idea is that a healthy diet changes the gut microbiome — the microorganisms that live in your digestive tract — and that that might produce chemicals that would affect your brain, . . . "

In his case, counselling was ineffective. The depression resolved on its own, after supplemention with multi-strain probiotics and a diet with lots of prebiotic foods. It was only after the fact that we made a connection between the antibiotics possibly damaging his gut microbiome and the temporary depression.

 

But how do you know? Have you tried? Have you been tested and tried to boost what's missing? Did it help? Isn't it worth a try?

I am one of those people whose life has been saved, repeatedly, by medication. Prozac from age 17 to 32, and Effexor from 32 to 43. I suffered from recurrent episodes of suicidal depression from age 14 to 32. It was the most excruciating agony I can imagine.

I am a vociferous supporter of psychiatric drugs. But I think physical causes must be excluded.

There are so many physical disorders that have depression listed as a symptom that I think it's vital we press for testing for our depressed loved ones. Low B12, folic acid, the other B vitamins, thyroid - underactive and overactive, mono, Lyme disease, heart problems, sodium/potassium,/other electrolyte imbalances, diabetes, hypoglycaemia...

https://fpnotebook.com/mobile/Psych/Depress/MjrDprsnDfrntlDgns.htm

And also as side effects of medications! NSAIDS, (eg ibuorofen), oral contraceptives, beta blockers...

https://fpnotebook.com/mobile/Psych/Pharm/DprsnPrvkngMdctns.htm

 

Thank you @MsUnderstood! Interesting article. Most of our serotonin, the "happiness hormone" is produced in our gut by micro-organisms, so it stands to reason that knocking them out with antibiotics could result in depression, and re-colonising the gut could alleviate it.

Obviously it doesn't happen every time people take antibiotics, but it could be the last straw if your microbiome is unbalanced and unhealthy already.

I'm so glad your relative recovered from his depression