1 Boring Old Man

Can I stand up and give you a round of applause for this post?! thank you for thinking with me on this! and detailing it so well.

I’ve been beating the drum about this Big Pharma Pimp organization for years….New Name…Same Drug the Kids Motto…Same corrupt KOL’s….and let’s not forget they are affiliated & hold hands with NAMI & DBSA…all of them are Big Pharma Peas of the same pod…

That’s quite a rogues gallery!

This gets even better….Wagner is speaking at a Las Vegas 2012 conference on Pediatric Mood Disorders, along with Charles (bling!) Nemeroff, Schatzberg and more …. (it’s on my blog) incredible!

These KOLs have no shame, but I am puzzled to see that Kay Jamison continues her association with them.

Jamison believes in the medications herself, which comes in handy at DBSA/NAMI/CABF-Mind Foundation discussions, I’m sure. Her husband, according to her latest memoir kept a syringe and vial of an antipsychotic at home in case she was out of control, she says in the book.

I wonder how her kidneys are holding up via the Lithium use?

She’s on a lot of advisory boards….

About Kay Jamison – I wondered that myself. It’s like one of those ‘pick the one that doesn’t fit’ items on some psychometric…

Stephany,
Las Vegas 2012 is amazing! Thanks for the tip…

It seems that there’s a lot being assumed here regarding the name change by the Child & Adolescent Bipolar Foundation (CABF).

As a parent, I was looking for support years ago, but couldn’t find anything that matched my son’s symptoms. At the time, I saw CABF, but didn’t participate on this forum because my son didn’t have the diagnosis of Bipolar Disorder. As time went on, my son became more ill, wanting to kill himself, seeing monsters and hearing voices along with rapid cycling. It was finally then that I started to seek support on CABF. Today, this website continues to be a very important resource for my family and I regret not visiting there sooner.

Because the field of pediatric mood disorders is still in its infancy stage and children are hard to diagnosis because of their developing brains, it may be years before our children get an “official correct diagnosis” for their mood disorders. Add to that the possibility of a new diagnosis being added to the DSM, and we’re left with a lot of parents looking for help and no place to land.

So as a user of this website, regardless on whether I like or dislike the new name, I think it’s important that CABF bring support to families like mine at any stage of our journey. Most kids will have several labels throughout their care because as the child’s brain grows, new symptoms appear, leading to a more defined diagnosis or a new diagnosis altogether. This was the case with our own son. Also, if doctors begin to avoid the diagnosis of “bipolar disorder”, even in cases where it seems evident (like our previous Psychiatrist has declared), families will be looking for resources and CABF will not be on their radar because of the name “Bipolar”. By changing the name, more families lost in the mess of pediatric labels can find the support they so desperately need and the support CABF can provide.

Also, it is no surprise to me that after winning $250,000 in the the Pepsi Refresh Contest, that the company would invest in reevaluating their mission and revamping their look, this is what companies do, it’s not a conspiracy.

By the way, in no way has Risperdal ever been pushed on my child through this website. In fact, we’ve never even tried it because we’ve found success with Lithium. Though I will mention that there are plenty of parents that are thankful for it and other antipsychotics. So the question remains, is Biederman’s research false because he didn’t report all of his income, or is it simply in question because of the conflict of interest? Unfortunately only more research will answer these questions.

The field of child psychiatry is not full of greedy, corrupt doctors. Just like any field, there can be a few bad seeds, but that doesn’t mean that the entire field is corrupt. If you toss out Biederman’s work, it doesn’t make my child’s symptoms disappear. It doesn’t take away the fact that my child needs medication. My child needs medication and is better because of it. Also, Bieberman’s wrong doing is unfortunate, but it doesn’t erase all the good that is being done in the field of pediatric research today. I have faith that organizations like CABF, now called The Balanced Mind Foundation, are here to serve families like mine and that someday, researchers will have the answers and treatments we are all looking for.

Well, over a decade I was part of then free parent forum when my child was mis-dxed bipolar and the meds were ALL recommended, and by some key players there. The FACT that the KOLs that sit on the board at CABF-Mind Foundation have such enormous conflicts… Biederman at the minimum should be required to step down and parents should be demanding that.

The key influence to the 4000% increase in childhood bipolar dx the last decade is from Biederman et al and the influence. Have you read his Risperdal deposition under oath? you should. He compares himself to GOD and is also pleased with himself being responsible as asked for the increase in an interview…

The wrong doing by Biederman was not unfortunate, it was ILLEGAL. If you want this behavior to keep going then keep giving them a free pass and hug them this way.

Until parents see this for what it is, they will have no clarity in the situation.

Watch the PBS medicated child program and see the damage the drugs can do permanently.

My now adult child went thru that and is disabled as a result. Just able to speak a few sentences and learn to draw a jack-o-lantern again this week. At age 23 she was a poster child for this popular and over-used dx, which is now removed by doctors. She lost so much, and do not forget Rebecca Riley was age 4 and died on these drugs and her parents were found guilty of murder.

ALL of the drug cos (most anyway) that sell these popular psych meds were caught promoting them for use in kids and teens before FDA approval and were fined by the DOJ for that….Zyprexa, Risperdal, Trileptal, Neurontin, Seroquel….all illegally marketed to target audiences….you and your CHILD.

Like my blog title called it, the most conflicted scientific advisory panel in existence…keep on believing they “mean no harm” when they cash their checks from the same cos that sell you your kids psych meds.

PS the CABF- Mind Foundation advisor listed above Karen Wagner, co-authored a very controversial paper that essentially lied stating antidepressants were safe and not cause of suicidal thinking in teens….how many teens became suicidal on antidepressants (like mine did) as a result of that?

Do you trust someone like her with advising CABF? why?

Mama Bear…how many psychotropic drugs that are not approved for use or have been tested for long term adverse effects in children have you allowed those so called “conflicted and tarnished” child psychiatrist that you say are not full of greed and corruption to experiment on your child with …you do realize there is no base line for that child any longer…just more diagnosis

CABF has, and will always be a sleazy hiding place for these KOL Big Pharma shills to market their drugs, the bipolar child myth, & what ever next disorder they can pull from their marketing bag of tricks going forward….

I know that you have swallowed the magic pill and all of their hogwash hook, line, and sinker….but this unfortunately does not validate or absolve bad & corrupted science or deplorable greed mongering doctors…

And yes as much as you will jump up & down screaming “I’m a great and well meaning parent”; I would venture to go out on an evidenced limb and say this in by far the vast majority of cases this is not a real child illness problem; but a serious parenting problem.

You would have to believe children are somehow supposed to be these perfect obedient creatures that never exhibit behavioral problems or test the very limits of an adults authority & patience….You want a quick fix in pill form or worse yet an excuse…what you got was a life long disease and a child sentenced to horrible and very limiting reality… when in the beginning what was disparately needed was some parental responsibility, limits, and some actual healthy nurturing adults providing direction; while giving fostering to thier child through a long maturation process…The problem with CABF is that they take parents that lack those basic parenting skills & understanding; and then brain wash them into believing in some chemical disease fantasy.
You may believe this sounds harsh & cruel ( it is not intended that way)…sometimes the truth & a child’s life is more important than handing out more sugar coated nonsense….after all, children’s lives are at stake…

All of us need to listen with respect to Mama Bear. In the back and forth of our targeting ethical corruption in psychiatry we may sometimes come across as insensitive to family members who are just looking for advice and support. The confusion, doubt and anger of these family members is the saddest result of the mixed messages they perceive to be coming from corrupted KOLs and their critics in academic psychiatry.

Bernard I went to that exact forum searching for answers over a decade ago and the dangerous part they play is that they tout these KOLs as gold on that site. They list their abstracts and published papers and tell parents to ONLY trust PEER reviewed work and these ppl especially Biederman as the THE foremost authority and they told parent to print off the convos there w meds listed and take this to their childs doctor, including referencing these KOLs as back up for reason to ask for certain meds. Seriously.

The recommended med cocktail back then was 1 mood stabilzer sometimes 2; one antipsychotic and a PRN benzo, throw in vitamins and fish oil…Depakote, Zyprexa, all recommended by them.

I was banned from the parent forum for telling of the story that my child, then 13 had a severe suicidal reaction to Zoloft. I wanted to know if other parents ever had that….it was in 2001 before the box warnings came out.

They didnt want to hear that side of the meds and that is when it was HAPPENING to my child.

This is the cautionary tale I can tell here, because I know what they are telling parents that are vulnerable and deparate such as MamaBear.

In the end, I discovered all of this conflicted researcher stuff just by reading abt how to help my child, she also has been un-diagnosed bipolar and now I sit and deal with the fall out of a brain damaged by psych meds for her, polycyctic ovary syndrome from the depakote verified damage by a chief of staff psychiatrist at a elite hospital. Thyroid damaged permanenty from the Lithium. CABF big wigs told me to ask the doctor to give her Lithobid for a time released version of Lithium so her moods would remain stable. They like to talk that way yet are loaded w disclaimers on the site, they still push one medical model and that is pharmaceuticals for kids.

There were others banned for telling of med side effects, not just me.

CABF influences parents equal to how Biederman influenced the paradigm of chilldhood bipolar…. it’s not a conspiracy, of course it isnt. It’s a well ran business machine with a lot of ppl on board which is a cog in the wheel of pharma’s big truck….

Nemeroff, Schatzberg, Wagner et al at Pediatric Mood Disorders conference in Las Vegas? In Sin City? Who ever said that God doesn’t have a sense of humor?

talking abt ironic humor: Henry Nasrallah is speaking on “Ethics of Psychiatrists’ Interactions with Pharmaceutical & Insurance Companies”, he should know, after all look at his income! in dollars for docs$$$$$$

It would be worth a road trip to to see those high rollers in action….

Apparently I am one of those parents who that “believe children are somehow supposed to be these perfect obedient creatures that never exhibit behavioral problems or test the very limits of an adults authority & patience….You want a quick fix in pill form or worse yet an excuse…what you got was a life long disease and a child sentenced to horrible and very limiting reality…”(Stan’s comment). And besides that my husband and i apparently have no parenting skills.

My son 12 year old son has a debilitating mood disorder. I won’t go into his symptoms which include suicidal ideation and severe aggression and rage because I’m sure that they will only interpreted as poor parenting, Thankfully he has a fabulous psychiatrist who, after a year of getting to know him and us, has not interpreted his behavior and our parenting in that manner.

She has carefully guided him and us and medicine is now helping him be the awesome son, brother and student that he is. The most reassuring and valuable thing that she has said to us is “I believe you.” As evidenced by folks commenting here, other families are not so lucky to have health care providers so well educated.

The road continues to have bumps, but it is now leading to so many possibilities for my son.

CABF has provided information for us hat has helped our son lead the kind of life he deserves to have. We are grateful the organization.

I would have guessed that Mama Bear would rally the CABF troops….No surprise there….we could have a long back & forth debate that would unfortunately go nowhere….been down that road with the CABF crowd before…they are true believers in the cult of Harvard’s Biederman.

That does not change or refute what the ever increasing body of evidence is telling us…these drugs don’t help or fix kids with behavioral problems…they just exacerbate the problem; which can lead to life long serious adverse health consequences.

The truly sad irony of this situation, is unfortunately far to many of these duped parents will only begin to listen when it’s too late, and the severe damage has already been done…then what?

Just throwing in my $.02 here as someone who also has a lot of skin in the “psych medication of children” game.

I was absurdly put on Paxil at age 14 for what was, in hindsight, situational anxiety. I’ve been on SSRIs for the last decade simply because I couldn’t stand the withdrawals when I tried to get off them. Only in the last year have I been able to begin withdrawing from the meds because of a tapering schedule I found online (no thanks to psychiatry!).

Am I furious with psychiatry and all the corruption for putting me on this stuff when I didn’t need it? Absolutely.

BUT with all that being said, I truly believe there ARE some children who are, for lack of a better term, “disturbed” and may benefit from meds. BUT those children are far, FAR rarer than the psychiatric community would have you believe. Certainly, the 4000% increase in childhood bipolar is outrageous, and is, as Stephany pointed out, largely due to the disproportionate influence of people like Biederman.

Now, Biederman’s “research” which has so thoroughly been exposed as corrupt by Mickey on this site, may actually have helped some parents and their children; I’m open to that possibility. But I see this as a version of “even a broken clock is right twice a day.” YES, it’s true some kids that are truly disturbed luck out and do well on meds, but with psychiatric research being the smokescreen of corruption that it is these days, psychiatric treatment is WAY more of a risk and minefield than it needs to be. We can do much better. I’m not opposed to the idea that some children do have mental disorders that need psychiatric treatment. What I’m opposed to is the horrifically bad standard we have for psychiatric research and care in this country. As it stands now, if a psych treatment “works,” that’s not a guarantee the research is TRUE because so much of it is contaminated.

I think everyone on the psychiatric spectrum should be angry at the same thing: corrupted science. Stephany’s story with her daughter is a wrenching testament to how wretched this corrupt science is, and she shouldn’t have had to suffer with that any more than a parent with a truly disturbed child should have to suffer without a good body of real scientific research to help their child. No parent should have to navigate such a gauntlet of corruption when seeking help for their child. It’s inexcusable and inhuman.

I think we need to be very careful not to project our (well founded!) venom and personal tragedies caused by psychiatry onto parents who have had a better outcome with psychiatry. I honestly think it’s unfair and cruel to make assumptions of parents such as “You want a quick fix in pill form or worse yet an excuse…what you got was a life long disease and a child sentenced to horrible and very limiting reality… when in the beginning what was disparately needed was some parental responsibility, limits, and some actual healthy nurturing adults providing direction.”

We don’t know this parent’s story. We don’t know how hard they tried to help their child. We just don’t know, and it’s unfair to assume we do. In fact, such assumptions can be traumatizing for a parent to read who’s just trying to keep their head above water and see their child get some relief.

I should know this. My dad fell into this trap when he took my psychiatrist’s advice and allowed me to be put on Paxil all those years ago. Upon developing sexual side effects due to long-term psych med use and discovering the truth about psychiatric corruption and how my dad had been duped, I recently told him about a psychiatrist I talked to who said it was “ridiculous” that I was put on Paxil at age 14. My dad gasped in pain when I told him that. He broke in two in that moment. It was the pain of a parent who had just realized he had caused his son undue pain due to medical corruption. You better believe it takes courage to come to terms with this and still manage to have a balanced outlook on the pros and cons of psychiatry. But it’s possible.

I’d like to remind everyone we really are in this together as a nation. The problem is that everyone takes their own experience as everyone else’s. I see this all the time in other issues facing the country, such as the student loan crisis. I get furious when I read hard-hearted comments on news stories about student loan debt that say things like, “These kids need to stop whining. If you can’t afford school, don’t go. Debts must be repaid.” I ALWAYS know these comments are from boomers who could afford to go to school when tuition was still in the realm of sanity and hadn’t inflated 900%, and student loan debt could be discharged in bankruptcy (as it is now, it’s nearly IMPOSSIBLE to get it discharged. The debt is forever). They don’t know how times have changed and just how bad it is out there. For example: my friend went to an in-state public university because the tuition was much cheaper and worked every semester driving a bus and worked like a dog every summer (sometimes two jobs) and he STILL ended up with $40,000 of debt. And he didn’t live extravagantly either. But try telling this to older generations. They just don’t get it. . You just have to live it to believe it, and once you’ve lived it, it’s often too late.

Here’s the thing: the more we continue ignoring and discrediting each other, the more we are divided and miss the big picture: things are rotten all over in this country these days, and corruption rules the land. You may have been able to escape the quicksands of modern life (debt, the labyrinth of psych med misdiagnosis and polydrugging and horrible side effects), but if you think you’re safe and don’t need to be a fully informed consumer…watch out. Watch out because those you think are watching out for you (doctors, educators, financial aid counselors) aren’t, and they’re getting more ingenious every day at covering up their sins. For many people who have “lucked out” and dodged the bullets of modern American life, it’s often only a matter of time until they take a hit unless they educate themselves on what’s going on, even if it upsets them and their world view that things are working.

On the mug shot gallery of the advisory board, it might interest ppl to know the one 2nd in from the left, Melissa DeBello earned $215,000 in the Q1 of this year from Eli Lilly, makers of Zyprexa and she is currently a Principal investigator of a trial for Zyprexa..

http://bipolarsoupkitchen-stephany.blogspot.com/2011/09/university-of-cincinnatis-professor-of.html

Now, when you have a science advisor at CABF paid by pharma co who makes psychiatric drugs, and she is expected to ‘advise’…or oversee…is that not conflict of interest?

Would you for example, want the BP oil CEO in charge of the U.S. regulatory and energy policies?

If I ran an organization such as CABF, I’d want integrity and ethics to be the baseline for the advisory board…and there is NO way, I’d have this conflict of interest panel part of it. It’s LOADED with them…check out the list, it’s more than what’s in that photo collage. Janet Wozniak is in that collage, who did the Risperdal trials on 4 yr olds with Biederman, and also trialed Serqouel on 4 yr olds. Rebecca Riley died at age 4 from psych meds in her system.

I don’t think many parents know what these drugs do, or are fully informed of serious adverse effects that can be permanent or deadly if they or their kids take them.

I just wanted to respond to some of the comments made above. But first thank you Mickey for allowing me to present a different view on your blog.

I can only imagine the pain a family goes through when medications cause unimaginable side effects, I’m really sorry that Stephany has gone through this. I too would have a lot of anger and would be asking all the tough questions. But this is not unique to mood disorder medication, it also occurs with everyday medication like Ibuprofen. In the case of one family, their daughter died from Stevens-Johnson syndrome (SJS), which later led to toxic epidermal necrolysis (TEN) after a dose of Children’s Advil. Read about it here: http://ind.gmnews.com/news/2005-02-22/Front_Page/001.html

As a parent, I know that there are possible rare side effects, but it can happen with many medications and we have to evaluate the risks with the symptoms. If my son was simply throwing tantrums, it would be ridiculous to give him meds. It’s insulting to think that people assume that I’m an uninformed, unloving, bad parent who wants their child to be perfect. The minute I hear comments like that, it’s clear that one has no idea the symptoms we’re seeing in our son. This is not something that diet, discipline, vitamins or even love can fix alone. In no way would we subject our son to meds if it was to just make my life easier or to make up for poor parenting. Believe me, we’ve tried everything before we went to meds. Numerous parenting techniques, therapy, food dyes removed, fish oil added, I can go on and on, but my son only got worse.

I can only speak from my experience and say that my son’s medications have saved his life. Before meds he said he felt worthless, that he was God’s mistake and he wanted to die. At 7 years old I had to drag him out of the street because he wanted a car to run him over. Once inside I held him as he cried, begging for help because his brain was not working right. He said that he had two sides of his brain and one side was taking over and making him do bad stuff. He begged me to take him to the doctors so they could fix him. Along with rages that caused him to crash furniture through doors and violent attacks on his family, anxiety that stole his childhood, terrifying psychotic episodes and much more, I have a clear baseline of what my son was dealing with before meds. It’s foolish to think that love and discipline alone was going to fix him.

Not all meds have worked, yes we did have to try different things to see what works, but medicine is not perfect. My family members with cancer, Parkinson’s and Schleroderma have done the same. What works for one patient doesn’t always work for another. They also experience side effects from their medication, but like us, they have to weigh the side effects verses the symptoms and make a decision from there. Why do you expect it to be any different with mental illness?

Once my son got the right medication, his life is completely transformed. He even said that he feels “reborn”, he smiles as he talks about feeling happiness and wanting to make friends again. He doesn’t have to live with constant depression or rages anymore. He thought he was a monster and should die, but now he can discover who he really is and live a life worth living. He is no longer suffering. How can I argue with that. You think I swallowed a magic pill from all the lies presented to me, but I don’t need to be persuaded by anyone, I’m seeing first hand that my son is better thanks to his medication. And before you think I’m just experiencing wishful thinking, I’ll share that everyone can see the difference. I’ve received letters from school, from church and comments from family that know my son and can see that he’s better because of his medication. If it wasn’t working, we’d be the first to call his doctor and take him off the medication.

As for CABF, my experience was very different than Stephany’s. As a participant on the forum, I’ve voiced strong opinions and shared bad results with medications we’ve tried. I’ve also read a lot from other parents who do the same. There’s a lot of discussion of what works and what doesn’t on the forums and it’s helped me evaluate where we go next and what questions to ask our doctors. I can honestly share that it was through CABF that I wanted to avoid trying Risperdal because of the weight gain side effects and other risks that parents shared on the forum. I used this information to work with our doctor and in the end we found the incredible results with Lithium.

I know that I can’t convince you that I’m a good mom that provides excellent care and discipline for my son and I can’t convince you that I’m an intelligent woman that asks more questions than you can imagine and that I chart every symptom my son has had for the past 4 years. I know that it’s probably useless spending my free time writing on this blog, but I just wanted you to know that my son really has a mental illness, has suffered more than any boy should and really is “reborn” because of his medication.

My child was on psych meds for 6 yrs before the damage started to show. A body that small and a growing brain can only take so much. I’ll be interested in MamaBear’s child’s outcome ten years from now. Risperdal is actually scary for a boy because of the man boobs-prolactin problems; Seroquel, which MamaBear;s son has trialed causes weight gain, and of course there’s Zyprexa known for massive weight gain….

When Mamabear’s son hits puberty, she will be warned by the CABF ppl and forum to watch for med adjustment time, as it will be needed for growing and changing bodies, and of course the Li can always cause long term kidney damage, or failure. The drugs are not cures, they don’t treat cancer, they can also create symptoms such as psychosis and hallucinations.

My daughter is not unique and that is the unfortunate consequence of America’s medical model of drugs for the treatment of mental illness.

Also, MamaBear states the child’s doctor won’t write a bipolar dx until he grows up….just what mental illness is it that he writes on the insurance form code? Mood Disorder NOS? that would allow the off label rx’s of these drugs on a 10 year old.

The PBS Medicated Child, Generation RX, and Whitaker’s book Anatomy of an Epidemic are good eye openers.

No your right….you can’t convince me….I’m not so sure you can honestly convince yourself….BORN AGAIN!!! sounds like a religious experience; definitely not medicine, medication, or a drug…..Have you ever taken these drugs?….it’s not the way they work…these drugs at best treat symptoms, create emotional drones out of children…just masking over or covering up, as they say…you talk like they were curing something….

RED FLAG #1 “At 7 years old I had to drag him out of the street because he wanted a car to run him over.” looks like this child has learned from someone?

RED FLAG #2 “He said that he had two sides of his brain and one side was taking over and making him do bad stuff. He begged me to take him to the doctors so they could fix him.” This is a child that has been told they are sick!!! Front loaded all the right answers….7 year old kids don’t come up with details and rationals like this on their own…

What you have done by making your eloquently story board support case for CABF; Has really just shined a brighter light on a system that brain washes parents into nothing much more than by standers in their child’s life, while relinquishing all the power to KOL’s and this organization that is nothing much more than a marketing front for the pharmaceutical industry…Do you think they will be there at your side grieving when your son’s kidneys fail in his teens or early twenties…just ask Kay Jamison how her kidneys are doing!!!

PS– If I can indulge one more comment here , obviously I could and do go on and on but here is a clip http://bipolarsoupkitchen-stephany.blogspot.com/2011/04/generation-rx-documentary-that-deserves.html of the Generation RX movie, by Kevin Miller, you can find it on Netflix… the big picture is that there ARE kids over-medicated and over-diagnosed, we have a crisis on our hands in America with that and it’s time it stopped.

Stopping the pharma-paid gravy train doctors have (and I mean the Melissa Delbello and Nemeroff types) and the cooked, buried, ghostwritten abstracts and data outcomes sponsored by the drug cos..who knows what these drugs do, because those data cannot be trusted, and the KIDS are human guinea pigs for these trials, each parent counting out pills into the weekly pill container, driving to the appointments, filling out forms at school, the IEPs for special ed classes due to potential med change problems and moods….the parents SHOULD WANT accountability for these KOLs, if one truly wants good care for their child, they will want non-corrupted science to back up that care.

Good luck to all.

Yes he has Mood Disorder listed on his forms, would you rather our doctor make a rushed judgement and diagnosed him as being Bipolar as a child? I thought you all were against such practices. In the meantime, what do we do with his symptoms? Do you think he should not be treated? How would you handle these symptoms?

Nobody said that the drug is a cure. I do expect to have to make adjustments as he grows. What works for a 10 year old boy doesn’t always work for an 18 year old. That is why we make adjustments, so we can give him as little as possible to manage the symptoms, while monitoring his blood work on a regular basis to screen for any problems. This is no different than over the counter medication, the bigger you are, the more you need. As for the warning, our Psychiatrists and therapists have already discussed that his symptoms may get worse as he hits puberty, do you find this to be false?

I can see how you would be interested in our son’s case has the years go by, please don’t think that I assume it will all be a bed of roses. I am terrified that his body will suffer. I am even more terrified that he won’t be able to stay on Lithium if he starts to have bad side effects, I have seen this happen with another mom, and after he had to quit Lithium due to side effects, his illness became worse as the symptoms came back.

But this is no different than my friend who had her son go through chemo to fight a brain tumor. The treatment has saved his life, but now he has side effects to live with from the chemo, he now has to take medication to treat the side effects.

I wish that the research was farther along, I wish that there were less complicated and risky treatment options. But in our lifetime, that doesn’t exist yet.

So how else do I help my son?

Regarding Stan’s comment above. Nothing I have shared is a lie, my son said these things himself. You may relate to the word “reborn” as a spiritual concept, but that is how a 10 year old boy described his experience after feeling better. He is not a drone but in fact is more alive because he isn’t living in a hole of depression anymore. Also, having two brains and asking for help is also from him. It is obvious that you will twist all of our experiences to support your agenda. Are you having fun yet? Our experience has had nothing to do with big business or other organizations, it is our real life and it has broken my heart for years. You have no idea what we have been through and to continue to poke fun at our life is sad.

“But this is no different than my friend who had her son go through chemo to fight a brain tumor. The treatment has saved his life, but now he has side effects to live with from the chemo, he now has to take medication to treat the side effects.”

Knew this idiocy was bound to surface….another one the the false arguments & dangerous lies used by CABF….behavioral problems are not cancer or diabetes period…..in fact you have absolutely no basis in which to make this ridiculous comparison…It’s quite obvious you are still under the false impression that behavioral issues are some form of life time biological brain disease…you have no proof….in fact medicine itself has no proof of that misnomer…So again this brings us back to your CABF cult membership indoctrination beliefs….

Have you even considered the strong and evidenced possibility that when a child is subjected to a massive bombardment of chemical interventions at a very young age; their brain chemistry has been forever altered/changed; So when you begin to remove these drugs do to adverse physical complications at some undetermined date years later; your now dealing with a person who’s brain has been significantly impacted & negatively altered by years of drug assaults…not to even mention that they have now had their identity developed & nurtured as this labeled mental diseased person…definitely not like everyone else!!…are you telling us here this phenomena happens solely do to the so called “disease” guessing game you appear to hold is such high scientific standing , and not because of the adverse & mind altering drugs being used…

The reality is that CABF’s message boat just doesn’t float, no matter what pond you try to launch it upon.

No matter how many name changes CABF goes through or what their conflicted and tainted KOL’s tout about these dangerous fantasy child false afflictions…their boat sinks each and every-time straight to the bottom.

I know that really doesn’t matter to you at this juncture….after all, you are a member of the faithful…You have presented & spewed the same old CABF indoctrination material hogwash here expecting a different conclusion/outcome….yet @ the end of the CABF day, it’s not your life that has been destroyed…

I know people will say please don’t attack these poor parents & their message…it’s not their fault….These people like MAMA BEAR run blogs, constantly spread their dangerous misinformation to other parents which use this same information propaganda against other children. They in reality and fact act as recruiters for the CABF organization….which makes them very much a part of the pharmaceutical industry marketing machine…I have not seen a whole lot of fundamental change happen because we have asked nicely….

Just happened to skim through a few the Mama Bear blog post….eye opening to say the least…It appears Mama Bear has already gone through many of the standard Russian roulette & toxic cocktail of psychotropic drugs with here son by age ten.

Mama Bear stated on her blog that her son has compromised Kidney’ function, supposedly from birth?

I would honestly ask what Doctor would place a young child with this medical history & condition on the drug Lithium?

I must ask what parent (especially with the vast Library of CABF spoon fed knowledge Mama Bear claims to embody) would place a child with compromised kidney function on lithium?

I’m actually quite dumbfounded trying to come up with any rational or reasoning that would makes any sense what so ever…(I would hope a medical doctor would chime in here and enlighten us please)

I honestly believe readers will get a much better picture of the issues being presented here, when they read through some of this very revealing parent blog….I know it had me personally sitting back shaking & scratching my head in bewilderment…

Well, according to your blog, you appear to not like the psychiatrist’s slow process and take on what’s wrong with your child, you say you’re frustrated at his not wanting to read your logs and charts but, instead he wants to take the time to observe your son himself.

You write that he tells you he “doesn’t know” a lot to many of your questions.

It seems you have an agenda and a goal for your doctor to fill, and he isn’t responding to how you think treatment should go. You wrote there must be ‘better care’ out there.

It appears that your child acts out with anger and you are quick to want to quell that with medication, that most all of his emotions should be quelled with medication.

I find that alarming, and also find alarming that the doctor would give a 10 yr old Lithium when he already has compromised kidneys working at 75% function level…?

Either the doctor is reckless or something, but that’s a big risk for a young body, and with short response time, from 6 days on Lamictal, dumping the Lamictal for Lithium, and that added to Trileptal, after a bad run with Depakote….well the next thing I think I’ll read and hope I don’t is the ‘last resort’ time, Clozaril coming down the pike.

With so many drugs trialed by age 10: trileptal, depakote, ativan,tenex,seroquel,lamictal and lithium… it makes me cringe at the thought of how many drug trials he will endure by the time he is an adult. Obvious to me anyway is that the answers for the child’s behaviors, thoughts and actions are not in a pill bottle….

Good question Stan. Our son’s kidneys have always been a concern, we have been working with our doctors and his kidney specialist from the beginning. We took the responsible steps of discussing our son’s condition with both his Psychiatrist and Nephrologist and both feel we are safely moving forward. Our son was born with kidney reflux and has suffered some damage due to the reflux from when he was a baby. We have consulted our Nephrologist prior to starting Lithium and currently meet with him every 6 months to monitor his kidney health. Our Nephrologist said that he is not concerned about the Lithium, he is observing my son’s condition through blood tests and ultrasounds to see if his kidneys will continue to grow when he hits puberty, a risk he has due to his reflux.

As for Stephany’s reply , yes I have an agenda–to make my son better! Am I frustrated, you bet. But if you read all 270 posts you will see that I am also, terrified, sad, angry, worried, heartbroken, and overjoyed. I am a mom going through a very difficult journey in trying to help my son. If you also read all of my posts, you would see that this is more than an anger problem we are talking about. My son has dealt with ongoing depression, rapid cycling of moods, night terrors, anxiety, excessive energy, suicidal thoughts and acts, hearing voices, seeing monsters, and yes, the anger, anger so violent that I have been left bleeding, my husband has had to hide bruises and bite marks on his arms caused by our son. Go ahead, read my blog, it’s all there, I have nothing to hide.

You say that I am quick to quell his anger with medication. The truth is, we waited longer than we should have. In the beginning, our psychiatrist suggested we try medication and we told him that we didn’t want to, we were terrified of going that direction. But as time went on, my son got worse and we had to take the advice of our doctor.

We quit Depakote due to an allergic reaction, after only one pill he starting itching and his throat starting feeling tight. So he was immediately quit this medication. We quit the Lamictal after only 6 days because my son was experiencing a side effect. This seems to me that we are acting responsible. We are closely monitoring our son’s symptoms and taking steps if necessary.

Our psychiatrist told us that we should try Lithium, because we wanted to avoid the risks of an anti-psychotic. You say that the answer to my son’s behaviors was not in a pill bottle, you’re wrong Stephany, it was. Our answer is Lithium. He is having extraordinary results with this medication and isn’t suffering. How is that not an answer?

Lithium is not recommended for children under the age of 12.

I can’t quite believe what I’ve blundered into here. I do not know what CBAF stands for nor have I heard about it. I was merely wandering around the internet trying to find some information concerning the situation that my family and I have been in for the past years. Our son has a severe mood disorder, a bad case of adhd with a capital ‘H’ and has a very hard time sleeping. He has not been diagnosed bipolar although he does share some of the same symptoms. Over the past 8 years or so we have been to hell and back (several times) trying everything we could find—behavioral therapy, herbal medicine, doctors, counselors, psychiatrists. All along we have kept our parenting strict but loving and have tried to imagine how this was all going to end. My son is 12 and his teachers this year see him as kind, respectful, hard working, eager to please, humorous, and just a nice boy. They wouldn’t believe that a year or so ago I was restraining him every evening because of his rage episodes and that myself, my wife, and my younger son’s lives have all been severally affected by his behavior. About a year ago, we found the right psychiatrist who slowly got to know my son and carefully introduced him to medicines that have made a huge difference in our lives. My son hugs me now, tells his mother that he loves her, and laughs and giggles with his brother. Things are by no means perfect, but we have a life we love after so much time and so much hard work.

Anyway, that’s my background in a nutshell. I clicked on this blog and am blown away by what I have read. I am convinced that EVERYONE wants what is best for their child and I am sorry for all the pain and suffering that you folks have shared. I believe that you have had bad experiences with psychiatrists, life altering effects from prescribed medicine and all the other hurtful experiences that you write about. Who would make this stuff up? I find it amazing though that so many of you are ready to devalue the experiences and opinions of ‘mama bear’ and her attempts to what she sees as best for her child. I also have type one diabetes and I remember when I was first diagnosed—27 years ago—a number of relatives thought that I didn’t really need insulin, all I had to do alter my diet and exercise like crazy. I’ve read about people who have let their child die because they did not believe in the diagnosis of diabetes or cancer and therefore denied the child the proper treatment. Are you folks denying that mental illness exists and that there are medicine that can help? I too have read about the huge increase of bipolar, adhd, and other diagnoses in children and I have no explanation. All I know is what is happening to my son—and us— and it is real. His behavior is not because we ‘spared the rod and spoiled the child’. It is because he suffers from a condition that needs treatment. Is it possible for him to be prescribed the wrong medicine that could have a horrible impact on him and could the effects of his medicines, even when correctly prescribed still have an adverse effect on his body? Hell yes. That is why my wife and I have fought for years to find the ‘right’ psychiatrist, why we constantly worry about what the future holds for him, and while we are happy where we are now, we are very scared that the ice may be thin and we might all fall in at any moment.

My point is this—I respect you all for your points of view that are based on real, often tragic life experiences. Please do not deny this same respect for others that share the same love for their children but who have had different, often just as difficult experiences.

Lithium will be your answer until it doesn’t work any longer or he has a reaction like the other meds, that’s how this med roulette goes. Doctors have only so many meds to choose from, and the list you’ve trialed has made quite a dent in that. Not much left to try for mood stabilization, unless you go the Abilify route or try Latuda, or Saphris, all of those antipsychotics are available, maybe even Neurontin….. we’ll see.

There are adults who have had kidney transplants from Lithium use. One is Ruth Deming she writes a blog, she is an adult, shunned her bipolar dx and had a kidney removed and transplant surgery from the years of Li use; another commenter at the old Furious Seasons blog suffered kidney failure from Li use, as well as the blogger Susan from “going thru hell’ blog. It’s a dangerous way it leaves the body thru the kidneys, and seriously cannot be taken for a lifetime, and to expect that to be the ‘answer’ in the bottle….

Bruce; out of respect for the “1 boring old man blog”, I will simply refrain from responding to your comment….LMAO

I personally do not see the benefit in belittling the decisions which desperate parents have made, based on the advice of seriously conflicted and unethical psychiatric researchers, ‘KOLS’ or other professionals who rely on the bullshit produced by them.

I know from my own experience as a parent, that a whole hell of a lot of damage can be done to those one suspects are ill-advised, lacking in skills or just plain selfish, by attempting to force people to change their perspective. Harsh judgement and condemnation, may enable a person to consider, and perhaps accept a valid point, —but I believe, based on lessons I have learned in this manner, what is remembered wil be the venom with which the lesson is delivered. Venting my rage at a parent who has yet to discover that following the advice of a trusted, “medical professional’ in effect meant that as a parent a person has caused a beloved child grave harm seems cruel. The reality too, is there will be some parents who perhaps never will have this realization; not all are victimized nor do the negative effects of the drugs have the same devastating impact as they have had on my son—and for this I am grateful. Don’t get me wrong, if a parent were to ask my opinion, I would give it without reservation or flowery language.

If Informed Consent were part of standard mental health treatment, I would have never allowed any drug to be prescribed my son. This hindsight is due to well over a decade of research, and the recognition that in spite of my insistence that my child never be drugged to make other people more comfortable—-it seems to me this is in reality, the only reason he was drugged. I am his caretaker and he is a grown man who can not take care of himself as well as he did in grade school. I struggle tremendously with overwhelming anger and rage at the people who are responsible for my son’s condition. I also really believe the situation is made all the worse by feeling I failed to protect my son; even though it was not for lack of trying. But more than this, I know I have at times directed my anger and rage at people that do not deserve it, and who are harmed by it, and I know for me it made me feel worse.

As I see it, the issue is about transparency and full disclosure—the organisation that this article is about does not value these qualities, and in this it is very much like other “patient advocacy” groups. All of these groups function as advertising tools used by the pharmaceutical and medical device industry. Anger, outrage, moral judgement and condemnation would be more appropriately directed at the criminals who perpetrate the fraud, I hope…

While my own blog has made me the poster parent for the idea that parenting DOES matter, I would also like to say that attacking other parents who we consider less “evolved” is just plain dumb. How will we get anybody to listen to our side if all we do is attack and make people feel worse? We attract more bees with honey, let’s not forget. Many people have made some very good points here about the ethically compromised CABF. What I would like to say about this organization, and others, e.g. NAMI, is that they have encouraged people to believe that brain chemistry trumps environment and everything else and there is no need to look any further for help. Effectively, organizations such as these have dimished further research into interesting psychotherapies, orthomolecular treatment of so-called mental illness, and shamanic help. These alternatives work, and most parents would grab them if they knew about them or were encouraged to believe in them by their doctors. But, as we all know, the big money is in KOL, pharmaceuticals, scientific advisory boards and academic boondoggles. Of course, CABF and NAMI pay lip service to alternative treatments (they’re not stupid, after all), and this “covers” them to some extent from criticism that they are pro-pharma. I have heard parents say, well, we have tried all that (alternative treatments) and nothing worked, and I understand that to some extent. But, in order to keep going, to believe in what we are doing, parents need support from their doctor, and we just don’t get that support. CABF and NAMI offer a different kind of support, but it comes with a price.

Psychiatric drugs are not safe for children.
Period.

Does my heart go out to these children?
Of course.
Absolutely.

But the answer is NOT to drug a kid’s brain, watch the symptoms disappear and then conclude that the drugs have “worked.”
They have NOT worked.
Not in the sense of helping manage a “chemical imbalance” in the brain, and helping promote healing and recovery.

Their long-term use creates “chemical imbalance”…. creates dependency, increased tolerance… Their long-term use impedes recovery and causes disability. And way down we we all live, we know it.
We know it. We see it… The glazed eyes, the shuffled walk, the disappearance into another world by those who have been on these drugs… We know it. Let’s stop pretending that we don’t. That would be a good place to start.

These drugs cause more harm than good with adults for the vast majority.
At least with adults there is informed choice.
But not with children, who are not of legal age to provide such choice.

Children who suffer symptoms that psychiatry calls “mental illness” are suffering from underlying physical conditions, or stress/unresolved trauma… But these symptoms are NOT lifelong, incurable “brain disorders” as described by conventional psychiatrists.

They simply are NOT.

There is always hope.
And we need to be giving children hope.
And we need to be providing tools for these kids to learn to find more internal locus of control…

Tools that help them walk through symptoms when the symptoms are tough, and become more symptom-free as time goes on… And for those children who have some symptoms left, we need to start seeing these symptoms as gifts… These kids can go on to do great things… in spite of being unique, and because they are unique! Each child should be seen as a gift!

This idea that symptoms of fear, anxiety, rage can be squelched by drugs, and make parents and teacher lives easier is disgraceful….. This is about doing what’s right for CHILDREN.

And helping these kids get OFF these drugs – slowly and carefully is the first step.
Working on finding underlying physical conditions and ways to deal with unresolved trauma, stress and develop healthy relationships is second step. Accepting these children JUST AS THEY ARE while addressing the previous steps is the third step.

We have it all backwards!
ALL OF IT!

Kids do not need psychiatric labels.
They do not need psychiatric drugs.

They deserve better than this.

My heart goes out to any parent who is doing their best to help their own kid.
But like many others out there who care about kids, I’ve grown DAMNED TIRED of the parent “advocates” who keep pulling the line for psychiatric researchers who OUGHT TO BE IN PRISON for the damage they’ve done! ENOUGH!

There are options out there….
Plenty of them –

http://discoverandrecover.wordpress.com

Duane Sherry, M.S., CRC-R