Mental Health Notes

Let’s Have A Couple Days Of Sanity!

by Alicia Sparks, Mental Health Notes on September 30th, 2007

It’s after 2 a.m. here on the east coast of The States, and I’m catching up on work (something that’s acceptable given the fact that I slept from 4 p.m. until 9 p.m., and then from 9:30 p.m. until 1:30 a.m., right?), and cursing myself for deciding to quit taking Cymbalta cold-turkey. These kinds of things make me even angrier when I know better.

So, how about a little Saturday/Sunday Sanity?

Hey, just be glad it’s not Monday Mania ;)

• Dr. Grant P. Cumming of Dr. Gray’s Hospital in Elgin, United Kingdom reports that a recent study shows anxiety grips parents who experience miscarriages for much longer than depression. If any of you have suffered a miscarriage, what’s your experience with these findings?
• According to a study published in the October issue of The American Journal of Psychiatry, “More than one in seven U.S. women are depressed at some time during the nine months before becoming pregnant, during pregnancy or after childbirth [and] more than half of the women who experienced postpartum depression had been depressed before becoming pregnant or during pregnancy.” Study co-author Dr. Evelyn Whitlock claims, “These findings show we need to pay more attention to depression before pregnancy.” Kind of a no-brainer, if you ask me, and something that should have been done long before this study. Of course, I’m sure it also depends heavily on how many women actually expressed, and pressed the issue, of being depressed during their pregnancies. Again, anyone out there with this experience?
• Brain-Eating Amoeba Deaths Spike in Warmer US Climate: Not only do we need to protect our brains from themselves, but we also need to protect them from, well, amoeba. “Symptoms of infection include a stiff neck, headaches and fever. In the later stages, victims will show signs of brain damage such as hallucinations and behavioral changes.”
• “Even seasoned medical examiners had trouble dealing with the shootings by mentally disturbed student Seung-Hui Cho, who also killed himself.” Sometimes I get a bit jaded when I hear/read/watch stories about how…well, jaded, medical professionals can become over the course of their careers. There’s nothing happy about this story; at the same time, I’m glad to be able to present it, if that makes sense.
• Army testing soldiers’ brains before deployment, not to determine whether or not they’re mentally healthy enough to go over there in the first place, as I initiall assumed, but to better help them recover and treat them and their specific problems once they return.

Anyone have any news bits they’d like to share? Send ‘em my way!

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POSTED IN: Brain Damage, Criminal Psych, Current Affairs & News, Death, Depression, Doctors & Scientists, Enviromental Factors, Government & Politics, Medications, Men, Mood Disorders, Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, Rants & Raves, Resources, Saturday Sanity, Sites of Interest, Women