Spiders, Vampires and Jail Keys by Brooke O'Neill is a compelling story of one woman's life with bipolar disorder. Like me, Brooke is a nurse. When she returned to work after her period of acute illness, she was able to have positive conversations self-disclosing to some of her patients who had bipolar disorder in addition … Continue reading Book Review: Spiders, Vampires and Jail Keys
My new baby is now out in the world! Managing the Depression Puzzle takes a holistic view of how to deal with depression – holistic in the sense that it covers a whole whack of things. The idea is to give you a bunch of different pieces that you can pick from to put together … Continue reading Managing the Depression Puzzle is now available!
In case you hadn't noticed, I'm pretty pro-medication when it comes to mental illness. I thought it would be worthwhile, though, to give a little bit more nuanced perspective. The basis of my take on meds comes from my professional training as a pharmacist and then a nurse, years of experience, and many hours of … Continue reading My Version of Being Pro-Medication
The world likes to get judgy when it comes to medications, particularly those that are viewed as addictive or otherwise "bad" in some way. The judgyness grows exponentially when it's a pregnant woman taking medication. Obviously it's a problem if a medication has a negative effect on a developing fetus. However, in the real world … Continue reading Medication Use in Pregnancy
It's week 23 of the Working On Us mental health prompt series over at Beckie's Mental Mess. For details, please visit her post. This week's topic is medications. Question Prompt: When you first were diagnosed with your mental illness/disorder, did it take a while to get used to your medications that were prescribed to you? … Continue reading Working On Us Week 23: Medications
The emerging blogger series is aimed at community building through giving mental health bloggers who are early in their blogging evolution the opportunity to have their work seen by a wider audience. It's also a way to introduce you as a reader to some newer members of our community. This post is by Emily of … Continue reading Emerging Blogger Series: Emily
Why? Whatever the issue might be, and whatever might be happening to us, we always want to know why. (Note: you can read a bit more about that in my post on attribution theory.) For people taking psychiatric medications for mental illness, there's often a lot going on in both mind and body, and it … Continue reading Do you tend to blame your illness or your meds?
Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a difficult to treat condition that can cause significant distress for those living with it. While the gold standard for treatment is psychotherapy, specifically dialectical behaviour therapy (DBT), medications may also play a supporting role, and that's what this post will focus on. Antidepressants Antidepressants, particularly SSRIs, are some of … Continue reading Do Medications Help Borderline Personality Disorder?
Your Mental Health and You is written by Sandy Pace, whose blog I've followed for some time. He has a degree in psychology, lives with ADHD, and has experienced addiction. The book covers various areas of your life and your thinking where you could make changes to promote better mental health. It's immediately clear how passionate … Continue reading Book Review: Your Mental Health and You
Depression and Medications The emerging blogger series is a way to give mental health bloggers who are early in their blogging evolution the opportunity to have their work seen by a wider audience. It's also a way to introduce you as a reader to some new bloggers you may not have discovered yet. To start … Continue reading Emerging Blogger Series: Brenda
In many countries, direct to consumer advertising (DTCA) of prescription drugs is either prohibited or tightly restricted. The United States is a notable exception, along with New Zealand. For tv ads, the standard pattern is to talk about the illness, talk about the amazing benefits of the drug, and then provide the required long list … Continue reading Should Direct-to-Consumer Advertising of Rx Drugs Be Banned?
I recently watched the documentary Letters From Generation Rx on Amazon Prime, which looked at instances of people experiencing significant side effects while on psychiatric medication, including people who took the lives of either themselves or others while on psychiatric meds. One man featured in the film was a Canadian Member of Parliament whose teenage … Continue reading Dead if you do, dead if you don’t? Weighing the risks & benefits of medications
I recently saw an article on the Canadian news site cbc.ca. It warned that there was a manufacturer's shortage of the antidepressant bupropion, both brand name and generic. No reason was given for the shortage, and Health Canada doesn't require this information. The brand name manufacturer told CBC that the shortage had been resolved … Continue reading Manufacturer’s Shortage – Where Did Our Meds Go?
I have never had a problem with medications in general, and in my work as a nurse I've seen how much good they can do. Despite that, I've gone off the meds I take for depression a few times, and that's what this post is about. My first episode of depression was in 2007. I … Continue reading My experiences of going off meds
In this post I'll take a look at some of the available guidelines for evidence-based treatment of anxiety disorders. While psychotherapies are extremely important in the management of anxiety disorders, this post will focus only on anti-anxiety medications. The treatment guidelines I refer to come from the British Association for Psychopharmacology and the World Federation … Continue reading Evidence-based treatment of anxiety