Yes, cough medicine! This blog entry touches upon the same issue that was detailed in the “What’s In a Name…” blog entry of November 2020. Medications are “born” with a certain designation, which then follows them throughout their lives as they acquire new and new indications. That is why we use blood pressure medications for nightmares, […]
Winston came to see us when he was 58, with the diagnosis of health anxiety, which in the old days would have been called hypochondriasis. He became terrified when, after he complained to his primary care physician about some clumsiness in his hands, he was referred to a neurologist for evaluation for Lou Gehrig’s disease, […]
Carl was 47 years old when he first came to see me. He had his first depressive episode in his mid-twenties. It responded well to an antidepressant, which he continued to take even after he felt better. When he started to feel stressed out again in his forties, he first attributed it to his job […]
It is immensely gratifying for us to see the robust response to ketamine in some patients, especially since many of them had struggled with depression for years, trying one medication after another, with only partial success at best, while having to endure unpleasant side effects. Clearly, this is the benefit one hopes for in the […]
Discovery of the Gut-Brain Axis: What Mouse Research Revealed It has become increasingly clear that there is a two-way connection between the bugs living in our gut and the activities occurring in our brain. This interconnected system is called the “gut-brain axis”. Its existence was first proposed relatively recently, in 2004, by a group of […]
One type of feedback we collect from our ketamine patients is a narrative description of their experiences during the “trip”. It is hard to remember, let alone put in words, psychedelic experiences and many of our patients leave empty the box we provide for that purpose on our Experience Sheet. Many of them do write […]
How Ketamine Opens the Door to Therapeutic Breakthroughs One of the most compelling and underutilized applications of ketamine treatment is its capacity to augment psychotherapy — not just as a stand-alone antidepressant, but as a tool that can loosen the cognitive rigidity, avoidance, and defensive structures that prevent some patients from making progress in therapy. […]
Jack (a fictionalized name; real patient) was a married man in his mid fifties. He came to see me due to chronic depression, feeling down and lacking motivation, unable to enjoy pleasurable things, for some 20 years. His last therapist had recommended that he see a psychiatrist. On the first appointment he was a bit […]
Millions of lives have been saved by the products of pharmaceutical companies, but let’s face it, they are not primarily in the business of saving lives. They are in the business of making money. As long as we remain able to live our lives and maybe have a little fun doing it, we seem to […]
A Case Study in Depression, Hypomania, and Bipolar Diagnosis Joe (a fictionalized name; real patient, case shared with permission) was in his mid-fifties, an accomplished attorney who had suffered from recurrent depression since his early adulthood. The depression was difficult to treat; many different medications have been tried, including mood stabilizers (medications for bipolar disorder), […]